Changing out my hard drive

So I bought a larger hard drive for my mac book Pro, what is the best way to simply take off the data on my current hard drive and move it to the new one once it's installed? ( I do have several FW externals to copy the data to)
A friend mentioned Super Duper, btu I wanted to ask the forums before doing anything
null

Define hard? If you have the right tools, it's pretty easy - assuming you have a unibody MBP (you are posting in the unibody forums).
Apple considers the HDD in the newest MBPs to be user-replaceable, because the HDD is accessed via the battery compartment. For the older generations of MBPs, the case had to be opened, so it was not considered user-replaceable.
Apple provides instructions on replacing the HDD in the unibody MBPs. Here are Apple's instructions on replacing the HDD in a 17" unibody MBP. The instructions for the 15" unibody procedure are on p.38 of the User Guide.

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    Clean Install of Snow Leopard
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    the drive and everything on it.
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    http://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook_Unibody_Model_A1278
    http://www.powerbookmedic.com/mac-repair.php
    OWC Macsales offers tools for sale, online instruction videos
    and other helpful information without having to buy.
    A few tools are rather specific to various models.
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  • When do I put in the OS X install disc when I change out my hard drive?

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    It's not clear what process you are following. See this:
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  • I want to change my macbook hard drive to a bigger drive

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    Message was edited by: First Magus

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    Restart your Mac then try creating a .dmg file.

  • HT204370 I have changed my internal hard drive on my macbook pro. I have put old hard drive into a capsule and have this plugged into my laptop. I can't find the movies on my old hard drive now? Any idea how I can move them to iTunes again? cloud taking H

    I have just changed my internal Hard drive on my MacBook pro. I had recently downloaded some movies on iTunes which I want to put into my iTunes library on my new internal hard drive. I have put my old internal hard drive into an external capsule but when I open the icon of the hard drive from the desktop I can't find my movies.
    At the moment I have the new movies downloading again from the cloud but it is literally taking hours for even one movie to load.
    When I changed the internal hard drive I restored my info from my old external hard drive which hadn't been backed up in a month and hence does not have my latest movies...
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    It means there is no bootable system on the drive. If you still have access to the old drive, then I suggest you boot from it then clone it to the new internal drive. Use OPTION boot to boot from the Recovery HD on the old drive:
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
         1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
             button.
         2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
         3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
         4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
             to the Destination entry field.
         5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
             the Source entry field.
         6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    Source means the external old drive. Destination means the new internal drive.

  • Running out of hard drive space---can I use my external hard drive-??

    I have a 16GB iPod nano. I hope I can explain my problem well enough.
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    I have a 250 GB external hard drive that also has all my songs backed up on it, that has hard drive space left on it.
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    The way it appears to me, and I may be wrong, is that there are 2 copies of eaxh song on my laptop---the one in my music folder, and then the one in the iTunes folder. Is that correct-?
    OR, is there a way to remove some of the songs from the laptop, and put them into the external hard drive, but will still sync up to the iPod-?
    Thanks for any help that anyone can offer, I'm desperate ~!
    I'm not sure if this can be done, but I'd hate to think that I cannot put new music onto my iPod.
    Thanks~!

    Hello melbernai,
    I think your best move would be to the move the entire iTunes library including of all of its file to your external hard drive and running your iTunes from there. You can even have it so that all newly imported music is saved to the external drive as well.
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    http://lifehacker.com/238296/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-ex ternal-drive
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    B-rock

  • Ello, I changed my Imac hard drive which no longer worked. I installed a hard drive Western Digital 500 GB 7200 rpm SATA3 WD5002AALX 32M Black. Sometimes I see the hard disk in the utility on the Starter CD, but access seems very slow. By cons when I want

    Hello, I changed my Imac hard drive which no longer worked. I installed a hard drive
    Western Digital 500 GB 7200 rpm SATA3 WD5002AALX 32M Black. Sometimes I see the hard disk in the utility on the Starter CD, but access seems very slow. By cons when I want
    install OS X 10.4.2 on the hard drive, I do not see the disk. What is the problem?

    Thanks for the help
    I started on the installation CD OS X 10.4.2, I used Disk Utility
    to partition the disk according to the document that you have proposed. unfortunately
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    does not keep the name and it shows disk0s3 instead. I did an erase on disk.
    When I mount the disk it tells me that I must repair. When I tried to repair, I got
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    Volume check failed
    The underflying task reported failure on exit
    1 HFS volume checked
    1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.
    I also had a message:
    Invalid b-tree node size.
    Note: The disc is new, but it has already been formatted on a computer Imac 27 inch 2011 OS X Lion.
          I used a USB 2.0 to SATA cable to adjust the formatting.
    What to do to fix it?

  • I downloaded Lion on my iMac.  It apparently cleaned out the hard drive.  Nothing shows up from before.  It looks like a brand new computer.  It is backed up on Time machine.  Any idea of why this happened and suggestions on restoring?  Thanks.

    I downloaded Lion on my 4 yr old iMac.  The download stalled at the last minute so I clicked "CANCEL".  When it was restarted, Lion was there, with no apparent option but to go ahead and install so I assumed it was okay.  Didn't transfer data from "another computer" when prompted - assumed it would transfer from that computer.  It apparently cleaned out the hard drive.  It looks like a brand new computer.  None of my apps, programs,  files, or thousands of photos.   It is backed up on Time machine, but it's a sickening sight.  Any idea why this happened and suggestions before restoring?  Thanks.

    I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
    You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots.  Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
    See Pondini's page for more explanation:   What are Local Snapshots?   http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
    You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.  
    The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library.  Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

  • I recently had the genius bar change my imac hard drive because it crashed. For some reason Time Machine didn't back up some of my important files. Can I get my damaged hard drive back from the genius bar to see if I can access that info?

    I recently had the genius bar change my imac hard drive because it crashed. For some reason Time Machine didn't back up some of my important files. Can I get my damaged hard drive back from the genius bar to see if I can access that info?

    Unfortunately, that drive is long gone, probably back to the mfr. Drives are not returned when they are exchanged. You can go by and ask them, but the chances are slim to none.

  • I seem to have deleted my iphoto while cleaning out my hard drive, can i recover it with the pictures it had on it?

    while clearing out my hard drive on my MacBook Pro 10.6.8 i managed to delete my iphoto is it possible for me to relocate it? along with the photos it had on it?

    If your Mac came with iPhoto preinstalled, before the AppStore was introduces, iPhoto should be on the system install DVDs that came with with your Mac. Look for the DVD with the bundled additional applications.
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