Putting new HD on MacBook, want to duplicate old HD to new one.

[douglas.johnson]

I want to replace my old MacBook 60 GB HD with a newer, larger 200 GB HD. I want to make an exact copy of the content I currently have to the new, larger HD, and just proceed. The only change is that I have 140 more GB of space.

I just purchased a copy of Super Duper. I have an enclosure for the new HD. Can I:

1). just take the old HD, make a bootable copy of it on my new HD, then insert the new HD in my MacBook and then go from there? Is it that simple? Or do I need to:

2). make a bootable copy of my old HD on a third Firewire HD, then restore it to the new HD and then make the replacement.

I've read the support material, and maybe I'm missing something, but I'm just not really sure the best way to proceed.

Thanks!

[dnanian]

Yes, you can do #1. Just make sure the drive is properly partitioned using the "GUID" Partition scheme (see the "Options" button in the Partition tab of Disk Utility) before you copy to it.

Also -- name it the same as the original drive.

[derekw]

same situation, with an added question.

once the larger drive (mine is 250GB) is swapped into the macbook, i want to use the old drive (120GB) as an external drive to store a backup clone of the new drive. but since it's smaller, it can't hold the entire 250GB.

my plan is to have 2 partitions on the new drive (120GB bootup volume + 130GB for other non-back up files). this would allow the 120GB bootup volume to be cloned to the external 120GB drive.

question: when u said 'name it the same', are u referring to naming the two 120GB *volume* the same, e.g. "Macintosh HD"? and all the other names can be different (i.e. the 2 *disk* names and the *volume* name for the non-back up files)?

thanks

Originally Posted by dnanian

Yes, you can do #1. Just make sure the drive is properly partitioned using the "GUID" Partition scheme (see the "Options" button in the Partition tab of Disk Utility) before you copy to it.

Also -- name it the same as the original drive.

[dnanian]

I mean when you make a new drive the new startup drive (because you swapped), name it the same -- e.g. "Macintosh HD" so aliases properly resolve to the drive. But that's one volume (not the whole drive).