Clone to multiple hard drives

Trying to duplicate the contents of one laptop's hard drive to another.
I'm doing volunteer tech support for a local school, which has about 30 Satellite (C650D) and netbook (NB505). I would like to update software on one laptop (new anti-virus, update programs, remove random files from prior students), and then clone the contents of that scrubbed laptop onto the hard drives of the matching computers. Doing manual updates of two sets of 30-ish laptops is not practical.
I have USB / Sata cables to make a physical connection between the source laptop if I pull the hard drive of the target laptop.
I previously have done this type of cloning with WD hard drives (on old Dell laptops), which was quick and simple. For that I used the software provided by WD on their website, which is configured to only work on their drives. I looked but did not find anything similar on Toshiba's site.
So,... I am looking for recommendations on cloning software. I've tried a couple (Macrium Reflect Free; EaseUS), but neither worked well. EaseUS seems to want the target drive to be internal rather than accessible via USB. Macrium worked, but took an hour to clone, and corrupted the source disk somehow. Ignoring the corrupted source, an hour-per-copy won't work if I have 60 laptops to update.
As an alternative approach, a friend recommends I do a physical copy using a hard drive replicator. In his experience these take single digit minutes to copy, which is feasible.
Suggestions appreciated, or if you have tried and failed with other approaches.
Thanks.

Is having unique software keys a licensing issue, or a 'the laptop may not work' issue?
I believe it's only a licensing issue. I've done that once with two computers. That is, I created a duplicate of an OEM machine to another and it seemed to work okay online.
I then explained the situation to Microsoft on the phone and was issued a new product key for the duplicate.
As I said, best to get better advice in the Microsoft Forums.
Please let us know what they say over there.
-Jerry

Similar Messages

Im swithching from 2007 macbook pro 17" to 2011 macbook pro 17" . Can i clone the old hard drive and use OSX 10.5.8?

Can I install OSX 10.5.8 on a new macbook pro which comes with Lion? I would like to clone my old hard drive onto the new mac without lion causing compatibility issues????

trajan2050 wrote:
What if replace the new 2011 MBP drive with a brand new SSD with snow leopard pre installed?
Snow Leopard may be possible, depending on whether it was shipped from the factory with SL and had Lion installed in the supply chain, or if it shipped with Lion in the first place. However the SL version would have to be the one which was originally installed or later, which likely means 10.6.7 or.8. The retail 10.6.3 installer won't work, nor will an installation cloned from a different Mac unless it was from the exact same model.
Plenty of threads around concerning installing SL in place of Lion - do a search. Some have been successful.
Replacing the HD wouldn't be necessary, and won't make the OS version run the rest of the hardware.

Multiple hard drives question

Hi:
I have multiple hard drives on my Mac Pro and I also have an iMac. I currently have Photoshop CS5 loaded on both Macs using the Snow Leopard operating system. Does anyone know if I try to load Photoshop CS5 on another hard drive on my Mac Pro swith Lion as the operating system, will that be considered like another "computer" and go beyond the two computers normally allowed?
Herman R

Does anyone know if I try to load Photoshop CS5 on another hard drive on my Mac Pro swith Lion as the operating system, will that be considered like another "computer" and go beyond the two computers normally allowed?
To my knowledge the restriction for PS activation is per computer and not per drive or operating system. At least I was able to have an old and a new system on separate HD in my MacPro with both CS5 able to run while also installed a version on my MacBook. All using Snow Leopard but I have no reason to believe this has changed for Lion.
But you are always able to install PS on more then two computers, the only downside is that you first have to deactivate one of them and activate the version on another computer. And activating and deactivating is not much work, just select it in the Help menu

Hard drive is full, how to make iTunes span multiple hard drives?

My mp3 drive is full. How do I tell iTunes to use multiple hard drives? It seems to only want to deal with one.

Hi, Mister Beefy.
All you have to do is go to the iTunes Edit menu > Preferences > Advanced tab > General sub-tab and change the location of your iTunes Music folder.
New files added to your Library will go to the new location, old files will remain in the old location.

Automated deployments of Windows 7 on systems with multiple hard drives

Last week I helped a customer use MDT2010 to deploy Windows 7 to ThinkStation systems with multiple hard drives. The customer has multiple HDDs in the system and wants Windows to be installed to the HDD that is connected to SATA port 1. Unfortunately Windows does not always assign "Disk 0" to the HDD on SATA port 1 - in fact it is completely random what disk ID gets assigned to which SATA port. The bug is documented by Microsoft in KB937251:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937251
MDT2010 uses hard-coded disk IDs (0, 1, 2, etc) to specify where Windows gets installed. And because of the bug, sometimes Windows gets installed to the HDD on SATA port 1 and sometimes it gets installed to a different HDD.
The solution is to install Windows to the HDD identified by the "SELECT DISK SYSTEM" command of DISKPART. This will always return the disk that is connected to the lowest SATA port.
To configure this in MDT2010, use the following steps (refer to the attachment):
1. copy "FormatPartition.txt" and "SystemDisk.vbs" to your Scripts folder in the Deployment Share.
2. in your Task Sequence, disable the existing step called "Format and Partition Disk" (see TaskSequence.jpg)
3. create a new step at the same location called "Format and Partition Disk (custom)". The type is "General -> Run Command Line". The command line is " cmd.exe /c "diskpart /s %SCRIPTROOT%\FormatPartition.txt" "
4. on the main screen for Deployment Workbench, right-click on the Deployment Share and select "properties", then click on the "rules" tab
5. under section [Default], add the following entries (see Rules.jpg)
    - UserExit=SystemDisk.vbs
    - DestinationDisk=#DiskID#
    - DestinationPartition=1
Hopefully this info will help someone else!
Attachments:
MDT2010.zip ‏261 KB

Last week I helped a customer use MDT2010 to deploy Windows 7 to ThinkStation systems with multiple hard drives. The customer has multiple HDDs in the system and wants Windows to be installed to the HDD that is connected to SATA port 1. Unfortunately Windows does not always assign "Disk 0" to the HDD on SATA port 1 - in fact it is completely random what disk ID gets assigned to which SATA port. The bug is documented by Microsoft in KB937251:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937251
MDT2010 uses hard-coded disk IDs (0, 1, 2, etc) to specify where Windows gets installed. And because of the bug, sometimes Windows gets installed to the HDD on SATA port 1 and sometimes it gets installed to a different HDD.
The solution is to install Windows to the HDD identified by the "SELECT DISK SYSTEM" command of DISKPART. This will always return the disk that is connected to the lowest SATA port.
To configure this in MDT2010, use the following steps (refer to the attachment):
1. copy "FormatPartition.txt" and "SystemDisk.vbs" to your Scripts folder in the Deployment Share.
2. in your Task Sequence, disable the existing step called "Format and Partition Disk" (see TaskSequence.jpg)
3. create a new step at the same location called "Format and Partition Disk (custom)". The type is "General -> Run Command Line". The command line is " cmd.exe /c "diskpart /s %SCRIPTROOT%\FormatPartition.txt" "
4. on the main screen for Deployment Workbench, right-click on the Deployment Share and select "properties", then click on the "rules" tab
5. under section [Default], add the following entries (see Rules.jpg)
    - UserExit=SystemDisk.vbs
    - DestinationDisk=#DiskID#
    - DestinationPartition=1
Hopefully this info will help someone else!
Attachments:
MDT2010.zip ‏261 KB

Is it possible to use multiple hard drives with iphoto?

I am pretty new to Mac's so bear with me, I used to use multiple hard drives on my pc with my photos seperated by catagory in different hard drives. Is it possible to run iphoto with multiple hard drives without the photos loading onto my Imac? If so, How do I set it up. I have tried importing to a external drive, but when I check the file path of the photos it shows my Imac hd in the address. I seriously dont know why I cant just add the external hard drive as a library and have Iphoto work, Help

There are instructions - and not the caveats - on how to do what you want below.
However, you'e not quite grasping iPhoto:
I used to use multiple hard drives on my pc with my photos seperated by catagory in different hard drives.
When you do this, you're using the Finder (or file manager) to categorise the photos. All well and good, but why? That's exactly iPhoto's job. iPhoto is a database designed to help you manage your pics - including categorising them.
Anyway:
*How to do it:*
Simply go to iPhoto Menu -> Preferences -> Advanced and uncheck 'Copy Files to the iPhoto Library on Import'.
*What Happens:*
Now iPhoto will not copy the files, but rather simply reference them on your HD. To do this it will create an alias in the Originals Folder that points to your file. It will still create a thumbnail and, if you modify the pics, a Modified version within the iPhoto Library Folder.
*Some things to consider:*
1. Importing and deleting pics are more complex procedures. You have to to put the files where they will be stored before importing them. When you delete them you'll need to remove the files from the HD yourself.
2. You cannot move or rename the files on your system or iPhoto will lose track of them on systems prior to 10.5 and iPhoto 08. Even with the later versions issues can still arise if you move the referenced files to new volumes or between volumes.
3. Most importantly, migrating to a new disk or computer can be much more complex.
4. *Because iPhoto has no tools for managing Referenced Files, if, for some reason, the path to the photos changes then you could find yourself resolving aliases for +each photo in the Library+ one by one.*
My own opinion:
I've yet to see a good reason to run iPhoto in referenced mode unless you're using two photo organisers
If disk space is an issue, you can run an entire iPhoto Library from an external disk:
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
If you're concerned about accessing the files, There are many, many ways to access your files in iPhoto:
*For Users of 10.5 and later*
You can use any Open / Attach / Browse dialogue. On the left there's a Media heading, your pics can be accessed there. Command-Click for selecting multiple pics.
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
You can access the Library from the New Message Window in Mail:
Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
*For users of 10.4 and later* ...
Many internet sites such as Flickr and SmugMug have plug-ins for accessing the iPhoto Library. If the site you want to use doesn’t then some, one or any of these will also work:
To upload to a site that does not have an iPhoto Export Plug-in the recommended way is to Select the Pic in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export and export the pic to the desktop, then upload from there. After the upload you can trash the pic on the desktop. It's only a copy and your original is safe in iPhoto.
This is also true for emailing with Web-based services. However, if you're using Gmail you can use iPhoto2GMail
If you use Apple's Mail, Entourage, AOL or Eudora you can email from within iPhoto.
If you use a Cocoa-based Browser such as Safari, you can drag the pics from the iPhoto Window to the Attach window in the browser.
*If you want to access the files with iPhoto not running*:
For users of 10.6 and later:
You can download a free Services component from MacOSXAutomation which will give you access to the iPhoto Library from your Services Menu. Using the Services Preference Pane you can even create a keyboard shortcut for it.
For Users of 10.4 and later:
Create a Media Browser using Automator (takes about 10 seconds) or use this free utility Karelia iMedia Browser
Other options include:
1. *Drag and Drop*: Drag a photo from the iPhoto Window to the desktop, there iPhoto will make a full-sized copy of the pic.
2. *File -> Export*: Select the files in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export. The dialogue will give you various options, including altering the format, naming the files and changing the size. Again, producing a copy.
3. *Show File*: Right- (or Control-) Click on a pic and in the resulting dialogue choose 'Show File'. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected.
If you really want to spread your photos across volumes like this, Aperture would be a better fit.
Regards
TD

Wiki: Using multiple hard drives, LVM & encryption

I have lately found myself with the issue of having multiple hard drives and wanting to do LVM stuff & encryption with while retaining maximum flexibility. After scanning through wikis, manpages and forum entries I came up with a solution for myself. The only thing I don't cover with it is mounting while booting as I don't need and can't test it.
I want to share the knowledge I gained and help other people find a solution faster and so I wrote a Wiki entry (first on my user page). I would now like to hear the opinion of the community regarding the following questions:
Do you see any security risks with my solution (especially the part on storing the unencrypted keyfile on a ramdisk)?
Do you think this text is worthy for a wiki entry or should I keep it in the forums?
Do you spot any errors (typing or else)?
Would you improve this article anywhere?
Of course, if you have further comments, I would like to here them as well. And now without further ado: Using multiple hard drives, LVM & encryption.
Regards,
javex
P.S.: As a small side question: Is my user page a good playground for article creation or would you recommend some other area where to do this (since here noone else could improve the article while in this early stage)?

mwmmartin wrote:
I have a 1 TB hard drive; but I have a 500GB and 250GB usb external hard drives.
Wouldn't it be cool if I could make the two external hard drives a RAID drive and use Time Machine to use all the 750GB of external memory to do my backups???
You can, but I would +*strongly recommend against+* it. See +Concatenated RAID+ in the Help for Disk Utility.
There are several potential problems:
Depending on how much data is on your 1 TB drive, 750 GB may not be enough to back it up. See #1 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
To set up a +Concatenated RAID+ set, both drives will be erased.
When (not if) either drive fails, you'll lose all the data on both.
Both drives must be connected any time you do a backup or want to browse your backups.
Especially with USB, if one drive wakes from sleep, or spins up, quickly enough, but the other one doesn't, the backup may fail and/or your backups may be corrupted.
For now, it looks like my only solution is to go buy a bigger external hard drive and spend more money,,,
That's your best solution +*by far.+* Anything else is taking a large risk with your backups.

Combining Multiple Hard Drives

If I have a lot of data that needs to be split between multiple hard drives, is there any way of installing the drives but having the OS treat them as a single drive? The idea being that my file system would be just as easy to manage but I could have a huge amount of extra storage.
I've read a bit about using a RAID 0 array in order to do this, but apparently this splits up individual files between the drives to make the system faster, so if one drive fails, you've lost everything.
Is there a way of setting up the drives so that one drive is filled to capacity, then the second is filled and the third and so on? So it's just treated as one big hard drive without any file separation taking place?
Any help appreciated,
Thanks,
Adam
Message was edited by: AdColvin

what drives & capacity do you have? are they the same - match with one another?
RAID 0 "stripes" your data between a pair of usually matched drives - capacity, brand, model. 1TB drive + 1TB drive = 2TB of total storage. This makes things go fast, but isn't safe.
RAID 1 "mirrors" the data between a pair of usually matched drives - capacity, brand, model. 1TB drive + 1TB drive = 1TB of total storage. This isn't fast but keeps data safe.
RAID 10 combines both qualities above. it takes at least 4 drives, all identical, & is half of total storage. 4 x 1TB = 2Tb of total storage.
SPAN is when you take a group of disks & "add" them together to make one big pool of storage. it's not safe nor fast. a drive falling out of the array can create data loss.

I am trying to upgrade my hard drive in my mac book pro using the disk utility in an attempt to clone my old hard drive. I can only get so far, just before cloning may start and receive an "error 254" and can go no further. Any idea what this error is?

I am trying to upgrad the hard drive in my mac book pro using the disk utility in an attempt to clone my old hard drive. I can only get so far throughj the process where its about to start cloing when I get a message " error 254". Any idea what that means and how do I get around this issue so I can use my new hard drive? Thanks for your input.
Vince

Connect the HDD to your MBP. Open Disk Utility>Erase and drag the HDD icon inrt the Name field. The format should be Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click on the Erase button.
Then try the clone process again. You may use Disk Utility>Restore or a third party cloning application such as Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.
Ciao.

Tutorial: Clone/Installing new hard drive (hdd) & install windows(FAT NTFS)

This is a tutorial for people looking to clone their internal hard drive and install it into their macbook (usually because you've upgraded to a larger hdd). I have also included an installation of windows vis a vis boot camp style. Ive been battling this for the past 3 days, so hopefully this tutorial will answer some questions and save you some time.
1. Firstly get your external drive (clone) ready. Go to applications---->utilities---->disk utility. Click on your external drive and then partition it. I used 2 partitions, one for mac (200 GB) and one for windows (40 GB). For now partition in GUID partition format (found in options). This is important. You can check whether it actually as in GUID at the end of the format when you click on the drive and on the bottom part of the screen it will give you all the drive information. (NOTE: if you have a standard windows installation you can have 1 partition at this stage and then later let boot camp create a partition for you. Boot camp will only format in FAT, so all windows using NTFS are out of luck).
2. if you ve decided to go for 2 partitions, format the windows partition into FAT or NTFS. If you are using windows 7 (which by the way, is a pretty good effort by microsoft and WAS free to download on beta), anyways if your using a windows which requires NTFS obviously format so. WINXP runs just fine on FAT and is probably the easier option. (This is a note for those formatting on NTFS; sometimes OSX with have some error in formatting NTFS at this stage, God knows why, dont download NTFS 3G or Disk Warrior, nothing will fix it. Just leave it for now and when your finished cloning and ready to install windows, use the XP CD to boot from and then you will be presented with the option of formatting in NTFS. I did this then exited before the actual XP install to get my windows 7 in there. (NOTE: you cannot clone windows installations, ntfs partitions, etc)
3. With your external drive ready. Download carbon copy cloner or super duper. I used super duper. So just choose your internal drive and 'backup all files' to your external. This disk will be bootable. It will not be necessary to use a third hdd to restore to. infact i tried both ways of doing it and both worked just as well as each other. No need for a third drive as some have suggested.
4. Once finished, check out the clone. Restart, just when the mac is starting HOLD down the 'option' key....you will be presented with a list of devices to boot from, choose your external (usb or firewire------> note usb only works for INTEL macs, if your not sure if you have an intel mac. In OSX click on the small black apple on the upper left hand corner of the screen and 'about this mac'....it should say whether its intel or not. Also if your pressing option and you get a padlock wanting a password (like i did), but you dont know the password. Dont worry. Get your OSX installation discs, reboot from those (it will do so automatically). Go to Utilities drop down menu and choose reset firmware password. The other 'reset password' resets the password which would come right before entering into OSX at startup.
5. Anyways, assuming your all good booting from your external drive, check out drive, whether everything is where it should be. if it check outs your good to go.
6. Disassemble macbook to install your clone (not that difficult, get a good youtube tutorial for this like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXqJn465lxs and be careful with disengaging your keyboard cable, otherwise its fairly straight forward. I did this about 6 times trying to get everything right and experimenting with installations. So im pretty blase about it
7. Start up your machine hold OPTION at startup, choose your now internal hdd. Your in. (NOTE: if you reset your firmware password the first time, you will have to do this again with your OSX discs)
8. If you have a standard windows installation you can download boot camp assistant or alternatively it will already be in applications---->utilities---> boot camp assistant. Boot camp will create you a partition and then ask you to put in the windows installation disc, is fairly automated.
9. If you decide to do it manually because you have 2 partitions already. Just restart with your windows cd in there and wait for it to boot, if it doesnt, restart, hold option key. Then just go through the usual windows installation, choose the partition with FAT or NTFS.
10. After all this you will have a working copy of OSX and Windows. I use VMWARE to use windows inside OSX, like a virtual drive. VMWARE has a more straight forward installation then Parallels Desktop (which is apparently faster).... but choose whatever works for you. To look at OSX files through Windows install MACDRIVE and you will be able to view and alter all files as you see fit.
Hopefully this tutorial was of some help. I don t generally read any mac forums so i cant really reply to any questions. I just wanted to post my experience so if someone else out there is searching for answers like i was, then these words will be guide and save you time trawling through numberless webpages......Good luck.

I would approach the situation as follows;
install Acronis, if your new HDD is from Seagate or Western Digital I believe you can download this free from their support sites.
create an Acronis Rescue Disc and when it's created uninstall Acronis as you don't need it any more.
attach external HDD and ODD and boot from the Acronis Rescue Disc
create an image of the current main HDD to the external HDD
remove current HDD from your X61 and insert the new HDD in it's place - this is very important.
boot from Acronis Rescue Disc and recover the image you created to it.
Enjoy your new hard drive.
Alternatively, if you can put your original HDD in the external HDD caddy (connectors are the same) or purchase a 2.5" caddy, you could clone after creating the Acronis Rescue Disc, step by step instructions for cloning can be found here.
Andy ______________________________________
Please remember to come back and mark the post that you feel solved your question as the solution, it earns the member + points
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Can I switch out a hard drive for an SSD without having to clone the existing hard drive, and then install Yosemite from an USB Boot Drive onto the new SSD?

Can I simply replace a hard drive with a new SSD and just install Yosemite from a USB boot drive onto the SSD? I recently bought a used MBP and it has absolutely no files on it except for the OS, and so I'm assuming I don't need to clone the current hard drive as I can just reinstall the OS onto the new SSD.

Honey_Revenge wrote:
Thanks.
Just a quick follow up question, is formatting the SSD with HFS+ done in Disk Utility?...
It's possible that the SSD will be set up for use on a PC, which means it will have a Master Boot Record partition table rather than a GUID Partition Table, which is what Yosemite needs. In Disk Utility, select the SSD and click the Partition button. Create a new Partition Layout and click the Options... button at the bottom. You'll likely see MBR is selected. Choose GUID instead and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the Format.

I'm trying to clone a internal hard drive from another mac using a usb connection.

I'm trying to clone a internal hard drive from another mac using a usb connection to an external drive so that I don't lose the file before reinstalling the software but I keep on getting a message:
"Restore Failure
Source volume is read-write and cannot be unmounted, so it can't be block copied."
Any advice on how to make a copy of this internal drive?
Thanks!
....also the internal hard drive i am trying to copying run on a mac os x 10.5 and i'm reinstalling the software because the computer is not starting and only shows a grey folder with a question marks inside.

I've had my Maxtor external OneTouch 250GB for about 18 months now and it hasn't skipped a beat. I have hear of people having their Maxtor drive just up and die but you will probably find that goes for all manufacturers.
By the way, Maxtor is, amongst others, an OEM supplier to Apple.

If I clone my Internal Hard Drive, will it also clone the operating system (Lion Mac OS X 10.7.3)?

Hello everybody,
I own a MacBook Pro 13" i5 with 8GB of RAM (late 2011). I just bought a Crucial 128GB SSD. I would like to clone my actual hard drive and paste it in the new SSD, I know how to do it but, will this also clone the operating system (Lion Mac OS X 10.7.3)? If the answer is yes, that means that when I'll have the SSD in place, I'll only need to start-it up and all my data will be there, as well as Lion, right?

Of the two popular cloning utilities, SuperDuper does NOT clone the Recovery Partition, CarbonCopyCloner will, but only if you enable block mode copy. This partition is important cause it is the only way to recover/repair the main volume if it gets damaged and you don't have reasonably fast Internet access; Lion does not come with install media.
wjosten: no need to flip the disks about prior to cloning. Just go ahead and do the deed with Disk Utility and swap until you are certain and happy with the results.

What is the Best way to consolidate projects from multiple hard drives?

I am working on my first tv show. My team and I have been editing various clips on multiple hard drives. What is the best way to put all these different projects into one timeline while still maintaining the ability to edit individual "tracks"?
xmls?
omfs?
Please help

In project library > right click on project > consolidate media
Also
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12706?viewlocale=en_US

Image Selection Rule Properties - Multiple Hard Drives

How can I specify machines with multiple hard drives? I only see options for Hard drive size.

On Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:46:01 GMT, jayen wrote:
> How can I specify machines with multiple hard drives? I only see
> options for Hard drive size.
only in the script I would say..
Marcus Breiden
If you are asked to email me information please remove the - in my e-mail
address.
The content of this mail is my private and personal opinion.
http://www.didas.de

Clone to multiple hard drives

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