Upgrading MBP's drive... how best to transfer data?

[dezinnia]

My MBP is flawless, but for the size of the drive (only 150GB... or maybe 160; system profiler says 149.05, so who knows...).

Anyway I'm going to put a 320GB in, and am wondering the best procedure for getting all the data back in.

I have a bootable copy of my HD on my 500GB LaCie drive.

Can I install the 320GB drive in the MBP, then boot from the LaCie superduper copy?

Then when the machine boots from the LaCie, is it possible to see the new HD, and just copy all the data to it? (I assume I'd need to install Leopard on the new HD first, but other than that, is there more to it?)

Thanks.

[dezinnia]

Ah, I just saw this thread below about putting the new drive in an external enclosure, and then running SD! to that, and then installing the drive... I could try that (but if I don't have a spare external enclosure, what could I do?)

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4936

[dezinnia]

OK... I found a few other posts on this... (you guys should have a step-by-step for Dummies in your FAQ!)...

I also found an enclosure that should work.

So...

1) Put replacement drive in enclosure
2) Mount replacement drive to MBP (it'll show up as an unformatted disk, I'm assuming?)
3) Run disk utility on replacement drive
4) Partition it as GUID (for intel macs)
5) Run SuperDuper! on existing drive, targeting replacement drive
6) After SD! completes, test boot from replacement drive
7) If all goes well, replace existing drive with replacement drive
8) Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile...

Is that it, in a nutshell? Anything I missed or need to plan for? Do I need to install Leopard? Or when I do the copy it automatically "installs" Leopard?

Now, here's something... the enclosure i have is a USB enclosure, so it wouldn't be bootable, or would it?

Would this procedure work also?

1) Do SD! backup as normal, to my normal 500GB LaCie FW drive
2) Remove existing drive, and install replacement drive to MBP (it'll show up as an unformatted disk, I'm assuming?)
3) Run disk utility on replacement drive
4) Partition it as GUID (for intel macs)
5) Run SuperDuper! from 500GB LaCie FW drive, targeting replacement drive now in MBP
6) Boot up from new 320GB drive in MBP
7) Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile... ?

I'll just sit back and not post anything for a while. ;)

Thanks!

[chris_johnsen]

Intel Macs can boot from (most?) USB drives. It is just the PPC Macs that can not boot from USB. USB is often reported as slower than FW though (especially for booting, since that does lots of I/O to the USB disk).

Your second scenario (backup to external, replace internal, boot from backup, restore to internal, boot from internal) is one that I just used recently. It worked fine for me. I replaced the (failing?) internal drive of my iBook, booted from my most recent backup and restored it onto the new drive.

[fishmonkey]

if your old internal drive is in good shape, i'd buy an enclosure to do the job... then at the end you can install your old internal drive in it and end up with a portable HD too!

but yes, the second method will work, the only possible downside being if you are very unlucky and the new drive is dodgy...