Replacing HD

tgiblintgiblin
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I am replacing my HD in my macbook with a 160gb unit from Western Digital that i order from OWC. I am cloning my MB onto my external hard drive by using SuperDuper! If for some reason it doesnt copy and I cant reload my comp on to my new hard drive I will still be able to put the original HD back in and try again right? I am just very nervous about losing my files. Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    laesperanzalaesperanza Posts: 80member
    Try reinstalling your OS using the startup disks and tell the install that you want to load files from another computer. (I am guessing you have everything cloned onto an external FW drive). If you plug the FW in, it will recognize it as another computer and automatically transfer everything that matters.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    regreg Posts: 832member
    I change out HD's often. I do back up certain files and applications that don't have disks. Those are saved weekly in case of a failure that has only happened once, I lost about a weeks worth of emails. When I upgrade my HD's, I put the old one in a firewire enclosure. I then use the disk that comes with the computer to load the system and apps. Once that is done and you start up use the migration assistant to transfer everything else from your old HD in the firewire enclosure. I also hope you have a fast internet connection because your updates will easily be over 100MB.



    As to the question of putting your old HD back in and it working...yes it will work unless you overwrote it.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tgiblin View Post


    I am replacing my HD in my macbook with a 160gb unit from Western Digital that i order from OWC. I am cloning my MB onto my external hard drive by using SuperDuper! If for some reason it doesnt copy and I cant reload my comp on to my new hard drive I will still be able to put the original HD back in and try again right? I am just very nervous about losing my files. Thanks



    Yes you can still put the original drive back in but Superduper should work ok. Just make sure that you don't have partial download files from Safari - files ending in .download. Superduper doesn't like those.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    aphelionaphelion Posts: 736member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tgiblin View Post


    ... I am cloning my MB onto my external hard drive by using SuperDuper! If for some reason it doesnt copy and I cant reload my comp on to my new hard drive ..:



    I am in the process of upgrading the hard drives on both my C2D mini and my G4 Powerbook. The mini is driving my LCD HDTV and is the basis for my home entertainment system. To upgrade the hard drive I bought a Hitachi "Easy Drive" a USB drive enclosure with a 7200 rpm 200GB Hitachi SATA hard drive inside.



    I used OSX's disk utility to clone (a dmg image) the hard drive in the mini. To do this you must boot from an external drive because you can't clone the drive that you boot from. This is probably why you were unable to use Superduper to clone your laptop's hard drive. I used a LaCie firewire external drive to boot from while I imaged the internal drive.



    After creating the dmg image of the existing drive in the mini I was able to restore it to the USB "Easy Drive" then booting from the USB drive, I installed Leopard over the Tiger install on that drive. After some testing while in the enclosure, I simply swapped out the drives and I now have the biggest and fastest laptop drive currently available in my mini. I also have a USB enclosure with my original 80GB in it.



    For my laptop, a 1.25Ghz AU Powerbook, I bought a 100GB 7200 rpm IDE drive. Using the same procedure, and an IDE firewire enclosure for the new hard drive I have a bootable disk with an exact clone of my laptop's internal drive. At some point I will swap out these hard drives to complete my upgrade.



    Your best bet is to get an external enclosure for your new hard drive, boot from it and clone your internal drive. After you have the dmg image you can then reboot from the internal drive and restore the disk image to the new drive in it's enclosure, then swap drives, I hope this is helpful for you.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    cadprodcadprod Posts: 1member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tgiblin View Post


    I am replacing my HD in my macbook with a 160gb unit from Western Digital that i order from OWC. I am cloning my MB onto my external hard drive by using SuperDuper! If for some reason it doesnt copy and I cant reload my comp on to my new hard drive I will still be able to put the original HD back in and try again right? I am just very nervous about losing my files. Thanks



    If your original HD is working properly when you remove it, you are correct, you can just re-insert the drive and it should work fine.



    I have a question but I am new to blogging, where do I go to post a question?? What is the max. size HD a new MacBook can handle?
  • Reply 6 of 6
    laesperanzalaesperanza Posts: 80member
    Main page of "Genius Bar", top left says "new thread."
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