Installing new drive in Intel Imac

[jchow]

My hard drive in my imac fried out today, but luckily I have my bootable SD copy on my usb external backup. Can someone please give me newby level instructions to transfer the backup info to the new drive? I have physically installed the new drive and need instructions from there. Thanks for the help!!

[dnanian]

See "Recovering from a disaster" in the User's Guide - basically, you're going to start up from the backup, properly partition the new drive for your Mac (remember to use the Partition tab in disk utility, and go into "Options" to choose the right partition type), then use "Backup - all files" to restore from the backup to the new drive.

[jchow]

Thanks for the reply. I understand what you are saying and I've read the user's guide. I've got a couple of stupid questions because I want to get this right the first time. Now that I have an unpartitioned new hard drive in the imac, can I just connect my usb external backup drive, hold down the "option" key when I start the imac and it will boot from the ext drive? Then go to disk utility and partition the new drive and then use the backup- all files option in disk utility to dump the info from the back up to the new internal drive?

-or-

Do I need to use the OS X install disc and run disk utility from the install?

I'm not trying to be dumb, just want to have everything clear before I start.

Thanks

[dnanian]

Yes, you should be able to do that.

[jchow]

Thanks for the help-

[thesame1]

Yes, thanks for that info! I had a similar situation and after a quick look here I was all set. Super Duper an an external drive are a great investment.