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Question regarding upgrading hard drive on Macbook Pro

post #1 of 7
1/28/09 at 5:39am
Thread Starter 
In about two weeks I will probably upgrade my 120GB Macbook Pro
hard drive to 320GB. Already have a drive selected as a friend from
work recently upgraded his drive.

I want to avoid having to reinstall everything.

My question is simple...

If I copy everything to an external drive using SuperDuper, can I
simply restore it to the new drive and expect everything to work fine?

Or, is there information a hard drive writes to the software that is
only compatible with that drive?

Thanks
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post #2 of 7
1/28/09 at 8:03am

Re: Question regarding upgrading hard drive on Macbook Pro

I don't use SuperDuper, though I've heard good things about it, and it sounds like you just make a bootable clone and away you go.

I use Carbon Copy Cloner (latest version) and it is a simple clone -> swap HDs -> as if you were using the same HD but with more empty space. I've swapped my MBP HD twice now (120 to 200 to 320GB) and it's worked like a charm each time. I also back up and clone back to my HD every 6 months or so to defrag because that's a side benefit to using CCC (and Super Duper I assume).
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post #3 of 7
1/28/09 at 4:05pm

Re: Question regarding upgrading hard drive on Macbook Pro

SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner will make the job painless for you, Ron.
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post #4 of 7
1/29/09 at 12:19pm

Re: Question regarding upgrading hard drive on Macbook Pro

Ron, do you have your current drive backed up to Time Machine? You can easily setup your new drive with all your old stuff directly from the time machine if you do. I used this method a few months ago when I switched machines and it was easy and worked very well.

-EJ
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post #5 of 7
1/29/09 at 4:24pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Question regarding upgrading hard drive on Macbook Pro

Eric,

No. I don't currently use Time Machine because the HP Media
Center I bought does not support it. However, they are issuing
a software update soon that will enable support.

I can just use SuperDuper. Should work fine.
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post #6 of 7
1/29/09 at 5:50pm

Re: Question regarding upgrading hard drive on Macbook Pro

Yeah, I'm sure Super Duper will do the trick. I just mentioned the TM solution because it requires no extra backing up or file transferring if you're already using it.

-EJ
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post #7 of 7
1/29/09 at 8:48pm

Re: Question regarding upgrading hard drive on Macbook Pro

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
In about two weeks I will probably upgrade my 120GB Macbook Pro
hard drive to 320GB. Already have a drive selected as a friend from
work recently upgraded his drive.

I want to avoid having to reinstall everything.

My question is simple...

If I copy everything to an external drive using SuperDuper, can I
simply restore it to the new drive and expect everything to work fine?

Or, is there information a hard drive writes to the software that is
only compatible with that drive?

Thanks
Yes.

I backed up to superduper, booted from the external backup, reformatted my internal drive and repartitioned it for BootCamp, and then did a full restore from the external back to the internal. It pretty easy and straightforward.

I suggest not wiping the original until you've booted from the external and done a "sanity" check that it works.
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