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Drive Cloning

#1
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6/24/09 at 5:43am
  • Joined: December 2006
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I have an iMAC that I just finished reloading. I have all my apps installed and it is just the way I like it. I also have a MacBook Pro that I would like to reload for various reasons. Is there a way that I could clone my iMAC drive and load that onto my MacBook Pro? I really don't want to go through the trouble of loading all my apps again onto the MacBook Pro.
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#2
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6/24/09 at 6:24am
  • Joined: February 2001
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Re: Drive Cloning

I just used super duper to make a image of my minis boot up drive as a 'clean' starting point in case i mess something up. You should be able just use that to make a disk image of your imac, save that to a external, then boot up off your dvd on the lap top and go into disk utility and do a restore from disk image.

I've never tried this so im not sure how easily it will work. I do have a old g4 that im having issues with since i went to 10.5 and i think i still have a image of 10.4 so im gonna try this myself maybe tonight. (the main issue is i lose my dvd drive half the time and there is a dvd stuck in there right now).

oh i assume your imac is a intel one also, intel to intel should work. never try ppc to intel cause that will just make a bad install.
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#3
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6/24/09 at 6:49am
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Re: Drive Cloning

Thanks for the info. I will try that. And yes, both are intel Macs.
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#4
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6/24/09 at 7:28am
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Re: Drive Cloning

This is a very interesting question as it mostly falls within the
lines of what I need to do.

I am about to purchase a new MBP.

I want to transfer everything off of my older MBP onto the new
one so that all the programs work right off the bat without having
any reinstalls.

The problem is, I think if I simply use SUPERDUPER or a CLONING
software to copy from one to the other, I may be overwriting critical
system files that identify the one MBP from the other?

Should I be concerned about this?
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
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#5
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6/24/09 at 7:44am
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Re: Drive Cloning

it is possible that the new books have some things installed that the older one doesnt for specific hardware. Have you ever tried the migration assistant? im not sure what all you can tell it to copy.
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#6
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6/24/09 at 7:45am
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Re: Drive Cloning

Right, use Migration Assistant and Carbon Copy Cloner.

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#7
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6/24/09 at 7:49am
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Re: Drive Cloning

super duper is basically carbon cloner for leopard i believe. i think the carbon guy quit updating just before leopard came out
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#8
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6/24/09 at 7:55am
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Re: Drive Cloning

First of all, thank you for the responses.

I think SUPERDUPER is a cloner software as it copies your entire
drive structure to an external and then back onto your Mac exactly
as it was.

The problem, as I see, it, is that there are certain drivers and such
on a new 17" MBP that differentiate itself from say an older 15" MBP.

The 17" has finger gestures on the trackpad. Also probably drivers
that are inherent of the system itself.

If I were to simply CLONE my 15" drive to the 17" I have a feeling
that I would do more harm than good.

Regarding Migration Assistant....

This idea was actually brought up many times before to me. Not
sure how this works, but does anyone know if I can successfully
migrate EVERY program over to the new computer as well as my
email messages, etc.? How effective a transfer tool is it?
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
To View My Massive DVD Collection Click Here
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#9
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6/24/09 at 8:10am
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Re: Drive Cloning

i just launched the migration assistant program here at work and in its list of info it copies says:

user accounts
applications
network and computer settings
files
volumes

i can't go past the first screen here cause im locked out, but i think that may be all you need to do once you get the new one and im sure it will work over a network
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#10
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6/24/09 at 8:14am
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Re: Drive Cloning

Shane,

Thank you for this.

Question: Is Migration Assistant one of the first thing that pops up
when you turn on a computer for the first time or do I need to go
digging into Utilities to find it?

I suppose the best thing to do is to backup the older 15" to an
external drive and point the 17" Migration Assistant to it?
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
To View My Massive DVD Collection Click Here
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#11
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6/24/09 at 8:24am
  • Joined: October 1997
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Re: Drive Cloning

Right.

And I have used CCC and Super Duper, both have their advantages. As far as i know both are in active development. I use CCC for nightly backups of folders that it watches and for that use I found it superior to SD.

Bombich Software: Carbon Copy Cloner

SuperDuper!

If you are doing a Bootcamp clone you will need:
http://twocanoes.com/winclone/

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#12
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6/24/09 at 8:33am
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Re: Drive Cloning

when i started up my new mini friday night the assistant popped right up and asked me if i wanted to do that. I chose no cause i wanted a clean start away from my 8 year old g4. At that point if your old lap top is on the network at the same time (i'd hardwire both to just be safe) you should be able to direct the assistant to it.

If it doesnt start up, you can also dig into applications, utilities and then launch the assitant from there.

It can't hurt to just try it and run it. if it messes up the worst thing you have to do is put in your restore disk to the new machine and reinstall everything. I ended up doing that 3 times saturday on my mini
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#13
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6/24/09 at 8:37am
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Re: Drive Cloning

friend of mine who does this for a living emailed me this:

'You can clone the old and apply to the new as long as the image from
the old one has at least the same OS level as what the new machine
shipped with.'
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#14
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6/24/09 at 8:43am
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Re: Drive Cloning

Shane,

This is EXCELLENT information!

Okay, so all I need to do first thing after unboxing is apply a software
update and then use SUPERDUPER to copy the entire contents of my
15" over to the new 17".

Glad to hear there will be no ill effects with this process.
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
To View My Massive DVD Collection Click Here
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#15
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6/24/09 at 10:06am
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Re: Drive Cloning

A few things:

As far as I know Carbon Copy Cloner is still being updated and fully works for Leopard. I just did a clone/backup two weeks ago when 10.5.7 came out. Bombich hasn't quit. He recently updated his programs earlier this year, well into the Leopard era, and his site is still active.

I prefer CCC to SuperDuper for one (admittedly potentially silly) reason. When I do clones with both CCC and SD, I find the CCC one to be much closer to the original drive size that SD. I know there are files that don't need to be copied, and perhaps SD is smarter than CCC in identifying more of the files that don't need to be copied, but I start feeling uncomfortable when I create bootable clones from 180GB of data, and CCC's clone is 179.7 GB and SD's clone is 177GB. I can understand 300MB or so being eliminated as unnecessary for CCC's clone, but to lose 3GBs with the SD clone? Yikes! Of course SD has many happy fans, so take my hesitancy with a grain of salt.

Like Ron, I am contemplating a new MBP purchase. I think I'm going to wait one more rev. for the Nehalem chipset to make it into the MBPs. I was also wondering if I could CCC my existing MBP drive over to the new MBP, but the "genius" I asked said to use migration assistant which should work.

Bottom line is I think I'll use a new MBP as a way to test the following:

I'll try to use Migration Assistant to see if it ports over all the programs and files correctly (I have many non-Apple apps like Pro Tools, Office 2008, Adobe CS3 Design Premium, etc.).

If it doesn't install all programs correctly I'll wipe the HD and try CCC.

Even though this is months away (Apple averages 7 months between MBP refreshes) I will post here what I find.
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#16
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6/24/09 at 10:24am
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Re: Drive Cloning

Carlo,

I have sat and thought about waiting for the next revision as well.
However, now seems a good time to buy.

First of all, I know very little about the Nahelem chipset (Annandale?).
Is this really going to be a revolution forward for PCs?

Secondly, with that revision you can bet that the MBP prices are
going to jump. I think the reason why MBP prices have come down
now is because the current chip technology has been around. On
the other hand, new chipsets mean higher prices.

I figure now is the best time to get an excellent MBP at the right
price. I don't think there will be any Blu-ray capability added in
the near future.
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
To View My Massive DVD Collection Click Here
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#17
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6/24/09 at 10:41am
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Re: Drive Cloning

Ron, the Nehalem chipset is considered the "tock" in Intel's tick-tock strategy. The tick means it's an evolutionary step, the tock being revolutionary. The Nehalem CPUs and chipset are said to be significantly faster and consume less power. Now whether that translates into real-world performance, it really depends on what people do. For me, using CS3 and Pro Tools (and eventually Logic Pro), it probably will.

I do agree with just about everything you've written, including the unfortunate reality of a price increase and probable lack of BD.

My personal viewpoint is this: I have a limited amount of income to spend on these things, especially with CA going in the tank and me working for the state. So if I'm going to buy a $2K machine, I want it to run significantly faster/better than my existing 2.33GHz C2D MBP (which I've souped up with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB 7200RPM HD). By all accounts the current MBPs are faster, but not to the point where I would feel my $2K justified.
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#18
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6/24/09 at 11:24am
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Re: Drive Cloning

couple threads to read from ars from people who have tried this:

migrating accounts to a new machine and that initial account info - Topic Powered by Eve For Enterprise

No Audio Out from new MacBook Pro - Topic Powered by Eve For Enterprise
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#19
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6/24/09 at 11:49am
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Re: Drive Cloning

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlo Medina
I prefer CCC to SuperDuper for one (admittedly potentially silly) reason. When I do clones with both CCC and SD, I find the CCC one to be much closer to the original drive size that SD.
I will speculate that this is an indication of SD! doing a slightly better job. When SuperDuper! clones a drive, it implicitly defrags it. All files split across multiple blocks (sectors? whatever the hard drive chunk is) are recombined into single "chunks". This, I think, could reduce the total space used.

What I know is that SuperDuper! helped me out by doing that: by cloning, erasing, and restoring my internal drive with SD!, I was able to increase my BootCamp partition size. Unmoveable files were now defragged, no longer scattered up to the partition "edge" and blocking a partition increase.

Not that you should switch; but that size reduction might be a side of effect of dragging, not from discarding data (why would a "clone" tool not copy all files?)

***
Don & Ron,
Let us know how a clone from one hardware kit to another goes! I wouldn't think that would be a good idea, but I don't know enough about it to be listened to
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#20
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6/24/09 at 12:01pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

Dave,

Frankly I am a bit too scared to use SD (or even CC) to just copy
files over from one piece of hardware to another.

My time is very limited. I only have one day to get everything
loaded. If I "F" it up the first time by just cloning the one drive to
another it is going to cause me an additional day of just having to
install everything manually.

So, I am just thinking, why not just install it manually.

If someone, somewhere would guarantee that the cloning using
SUPERDUPER would work without doubt, that would be the method
that I would use. However, there is just understandably too much
speculation as to whether it might or will work.

Appreciate all the advice you guys have provided thus far.
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
To View My Massive DVD Collection Click Here
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#21
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6/24/09 at 12:07pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

I need to learn about migration assistant. My wife has lots of apps and preferences she'd rather not manually redo on your new iMac. Odds are we'll do this July 4th weekend. When's your upgrade Ron? Maybe I'll have some info before you do yours.

Shane's got info that a clone transfer will work. But I too would like to see it for real. Maybe it's too many years of PC / Windows / drivers experience, but that trick's too new for this old dog

And my experience is that even OS X gets crufty after a couple of years of installs, upgrades and tweaks. Why clone the cruft? Install fresh on a new machine for best performance.
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#22
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6/24/09 at 12:23pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

Dave,

July 4th is upgrade day. I timed my purchase to have my MBP
by the 3rd and spend my day off devoted to upgrading it.

You bring up a very good point. Perhaps it is better to just reinstall
everything manually. This way you get the newest updates and you
aren't transferring some "crusty" version of a previous platform over.

...but then again, like you, too many years of thinking PC has really
clouded my mind as well.
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
To View My Massive DVD Collection Click Here
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#23
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6/24/09 at 12:39pm
  • Joined: October 1997
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Re: Drive Cloning

Can't really tell you anything to allay your fears. When I moved from iMac to MacPro I did a clean install and just copied my data files using external drives. Today however I would probably solely use MA. I have however used CCC and WinClone to move my Macbook to a bigger hard disk using an external drive, but that was same architecture move.

Apple - Pro - Tips - Move All Your Stuff to a New Mac — Quick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Assistant_(Apple)

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#24
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6/24/09 at 12:44pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

Sam,

Your Wikipedia reference came up with a useless page.

However, looking at the Apple tips link you provided, I am
intrigued.

Know what? Perhaps I'll use the migration assistant. And why not?
It's the less riskiest of all the options. Will let you know July 4th.
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
To View My Massive DVD Collection Click Here
HTF Rules and Regulations
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#25
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6/24/09 at 1:11pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

Is Migration Assistant built into OS X or something to buy?

Built in. Requires FireWire connection between the two Macs. Don't know if the G5 has FireWire. And I need a FW cable.
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#26
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6/24/09 at 1:16pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

Built in and free.

Blog: Navesink.net - My Flickr Stream is here - Click here to Email me - Updates at Twitter & FriendFeed
Information Technology Blog:  Infotechbuzz - Save The Alamo - Join the HTF Flickr Pool or discuss the pool here
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#27
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6/24/09 at 1:16pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

WOW, I didn't know this thread was going to click with so many people. I was thinking of doing this because I have a fresh load of OSX on my iMac. So I don't need to worry about moving over any garbage. My issue is with Adobe CS4 Master Collection. It takes a long time to load and then there are all the updates for it and all the rest of my apps. And because of the way Adobe sold it to me, I have to call them everythime with a challange code. I really hate having to call and spend all that time on the phone. Sounds like migration assistant will be the best choice for me. My MBP works fine. I just want to remove all traces of Windows.
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#28
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6/24/09 at 1:38pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

i would try migration assistant. those ars posted i listed the poeple tried swapping drives and they lost audio and ended up doing MA anyway.
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#29
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6/24/09 at 1:48pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

When in doubt write the author of SUPERDUPER....

Quote:
New Macs usually come with special builds of the OS that support the new hardware. So, no - I wouldn't just copy to it.

Instead, when you FIRST start the new Mac, it'll ask if you want to "copy from another Mac". Point that to the old Mac OR a full SD! backup. That'll bring in your applications and data.

Hope that helps!
--
Dave Nanian
Shirt Pocket
Ronald J Epstein
Home Theater Forum co-owner
Email me at: repstein@hometheaterforum.com 
To View My Massive DVD Collection Click Here
HTF Rules and Regulations
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#30
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6/24/09 at 3:05pm
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Re: Drive Cloning

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
I will speculate that this is an indication of SD! doing a slightly better job. When SuperDuper! clones a drive, it implicitly defrags it. All files split across multiple blocks (sectors? whatever the hard drive chunk is) are recombined into single "chunks". This, I think, could reduce the total space used.

What I know is that SuperDuper! helped me out by doing that: by cloning, erasing, and restoring my internal drive with SD!, I was able to increase my BootCamp partition size. Unmoveable files were now defragged, no longer scattered up to the partition "edge" and blocking a partition increase.

Not that you should switch; but that size reduction might be a side of effect of dragging, not from discarding data (why would a "clone" tool not copy all files?)
Dave - if you start with a clean clone drive (which I do) CCC also defrags (confirmed by examining w/ iDefrag) so that's not the reason for the lessened drive size. Every six months or so I do a clean clone/clean clone back to defrag my drive with CCC and it works wonders!
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