replacing old hard drive with new one, and I have several?'s
 

I plan on replacing the original hard drive, (which is still working okay as of now), in my 12" powerbook, and I have a few questions:

1. Should I clone to the new hard drive before I install it? (And if so, does it need to be formatted or anything?)

2. If I wait until after the new drive is installed to clone, how do I do it? Will it need to be formatted at any point? (I do have a USB enclosure for the old drive).

3. I thought it would be a good idea to make an additional clone to an external hard drive that I use for Time Machine, but it isn't partitioned and I'm not sure how it was originally formatted, and when I went to do this by simply adding a folder as the destination of the clone, it implied that everything on the drive would be erased and replaced with the clone, is that right?

Thanks so much for any help!

Put the new drive in the case, and partition it as "Apple Partition Map" (search the forums for the method to use for partitioning). Use "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as the format.

Then, "Backup - all files" from the original drive to the new one.

Rename the new drive to the SAME name as the original drive and then power down. Swap the drives and you should be all set.

another ?
 

Thanks Dave!