How do I transfer my entire old hard drive contents to my new macbook pro?

So I'm planning on upgrading from my normal Macbook to a Macbook Pro, but I don't want to lose any info or files. Can apple help me transfer my files? Or should I do it myself?
If I do it myself, what program, or steps should I use to do it safely to ensure I don't lose anything?
Thanks!

Read this link which will provide you with instructions hot to do the transfer:
http://http://pondini.org/OSX/Setup.html
Ciao.

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How do i transfer all my old stuff from g4 to my new macbook pro

Hi there,
All my itunes songs, gigabytes of pics and all my other info is still on my old g4, it does have ethernet. I want to get all my stuff onto my new mac book pro which will be here in a week or so. obviously without using rw-cds if i can help it!!!!!!!
expert needed!
please advise!!!!!
leigh

Here's how:
Get a Firewire cable. With both computers turned off connect the two with the Firewire cable. Boot the PB into Target Disk Mode. After the TDM screen appears on the PB boot the MBP normally. The PB's hard drive should appear on the MBP's Desktop. You can then transfer the needed files using Drag and Drop.
Here is a list of where your important data is stored ("~" stands for "Home"):
In your Home folder copy the contents of Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures, and Sites.
In your ~/Library/ folder:
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Application Support/iCal (copy the whole folder)
Also in ~/Library/Application Support (copy whatever else you need)
~/Library/Keychains (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Mail (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist (* This is a very important file which contains all email account settings and general mail preferences.)
~ /Library/iTunes (copy the whole folder)
~ /Library/Safari (copy the whole folder)
If you want cookies:
~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist
~/Library/Application Support/WebFoundation/HTTPCookies.plist
For Entourage users:
Entourage is in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data
Also in ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft

How do I transfer music from old hard drive to Mavericks?

how do I transfer music from old hard drive to Mavericks?

You need only post once.
More information would help. The simplest answer is drag the files from the old drive to the iTunes window when you have the application open, or the Automatically Add To iTunes folder. If you mean the whole library that is a different answer.

How do I transfer data from old hard drive to new mac exactly the same as it was on my old one?

Unfortunately my 2009 iMac has been written off due to a faulty motherboard. Thankfully the company we got the mac from are providing me with a brand new one at no cost as I am under warranty. My old hard drive had many important documents and applications on it and we have requested for the old hard drive back. What I would like to know is how to I go about transferring all the stuff of my old hard drive to my new iMac? I would like everything to be set out exactly the same as it was on my old mac so basically I would like it cloned identical on my new mac from my old hard drive.
Thanks Nathan

In general, most people will recommend Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! You can find either one easily enough with a web search.
However, in your case, I imagine you are going to have a hard disk returned to you all by itself, and you will need to install it in an enclosure. Don't let that bother you as this is easy to do and the enclosures are not expensive ($40 or so).
Once that is done, I would recommend you set up your brand new Mac by answering all the questions during initial setup as usual. Be sure to use your correct Apple ID - probably the same one you used to log into this support forum. When you reach the point in which it asks you if you would like to transfer your old documents and settings, connect the old hard disk and select it as the source. It will take some time as it copies all its contents to your new Mac. All your familiar items will be exactly as they were on the failed Mac.
After that, you can use the old hard disk as a Time Machine backup. When you are satisfied everything on your new Mac is running as it should, go ahead and erase the old disk. Then, tell Time Machine to designate it as a backup, and the rest is automatic.

How do I transfer my songs from my iPod Touch to my new MacBook Pro?

Okay so I have read many similar questions, but I have not found any that share my exact problem. I got an iPod Touch for Christmas and bought songs from the iTunes app it has, NOT FROM A PREVIOUS COMPUTER. I have boughten 83 songs so far. Now I just got the new MacBook Pro for graduation and haven't touched the iTunes on this computer. It is all set up through the same Apple ID. So again, all 83 songs that I have on my iPod did NOT come from a previous computer, they all have been bought through iTunes on the iPod Touch, how do I get those songs on my new computer? Thank you!
P.S. OH! I also just got the Time Capsule (2TB), so I am not sure if that would solve my problem.

This is answered often.
open itunes, connect ipod, click File>Transfer Purchases

Why won't my new hard drive mount on my new MacBook Pro but will mount on my old MacBook Pro

I bought a new MacBook Pro to replace an older MacBook Pro. I also bought a new Toshiba 1T portable hardrive to backup my new computer. The Toshiba hard drive will not mount on the new computer, but it will mount on my old computer.
However, I have two other portable hard drives (320 MB and 500 MB) that do mount on the new computer. I am puzzled as to why the new MBP will not display my Toshiba 1T portable HD.
Any ideas?

The only way I could get my Toshiba 1 TB USB 3.0 drive to work was to buy this cable from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005M0ICG2/ref=oh_o05_s00_i00_details
I tried a Kindle cable, I also ordered a thick data / power cable and it would not work. So I tried this dual USB cable and my drive is working great now.
You may be able to find it else were but the bottom line is you have to use both USB ports on your MacBook in order for this drive to work. I'm using a late 2011 MacBook Pro.
SyN

How do I transfer Notes from my iPhone4s and iPad to my new MacBook Pro?

How do I transfer Notes from my iPhone4s and iPad to my new 13" MacBook Pro with retina display?

Finally figured it out...
1) Open mail/compose notes on your macbook...
2) copy and paste every note from Outlook to a new note in Mail.
3) Open iTunes. In Info/Advanced tick Notes. This will replace / copy all Notes from Mail to your iPhone...
4) Voila! Notes are on iPhone...
I must say in spite of all the fabulous advantages of a Macbook and an iPhone, syncing really does suck...
Transferring data from another smartphone to a Mac or an iPhone is tough...
Features like "one way / two way" sync for Phone / computer or allowing us to select which whose, phone or computer, will be considered more important so that you can choose whose data will overwrite the other, are not there in iTunes... This is something which really needs to be there...
Anyways... problem solved for now...
ciao...
Jesal

Reformating external hard drive for use with new MacBook Pro

I'm trying to figure out how to use an existing external hard drive (formatted for a Powermac G4) with my new MacBook Pro. I understand that the file formats are different and that I need to erase the hard drive and reformat it with a GUID partition, but how does one do that?
I've already erased the drive with disk utility (using the old Powermac) and connected it to my MacBook with the hope that it would be recognized. No dice, alas. It doesn't mount at all.
Any suggestions on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

My external harddrives all work just fine with the MacBook Pro. You shouldn't have to reformat anything. I think if you did then it would not be backwards compatable with the older systems. Stick it back in your old computer and try to mount it again, repair permissions shutdown your macbook pro and connect the external drive then reboot

WD External Hard drive not working with new Macbook Pro

I have recently upgraded to a new Macbook Pro and when connecting a WD 1 TB Passport external hard drive, it doesn't appear on the MBP, but when I connect it to my old Macbook running 10.5.8, it appears normally. Is this a problem with formatting or an issue because it is USB 2.0...
Any help appreciated as I have a lot of data on the hard drive and would like to be able to use it with my new MBP.

I'm on Lion, with similar issues with two WD external HD. But what I found fixed the problem was to:
1. go to the manufacturer's website (in this case Western Digital),
2. locate my external HD, download the download.
For instance, I downloaded the WD Drive Utilities for Mac (for My Passport for Mac USB 3.0):
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=219&sid=157&lang=en
Install the downloaded app.
3. Plug in external (this part, I think is important) directly into your tower or laptop (as opposed to through a USB multi-plug extender). Possibly this is because you access more power?
[I'm trying to remember in which order everything happened. But I think at this point the external hard drive mounted]
4. Install the software that is found on the external HD (in my case, it was a brand new device, so that had never been installed).
5. Run "WD Drive Utilities" and run diagnostics.
6. Test to see if it holds. Unmount the External HD. Unplug. Replug in and see if it mounts.
Note: I have not yet tested to see if plugging in the external somewhere other than directly into the tower also works. But I think the main problem is getting it to mount the first time and installing the software. That's what I think.

Missing hard drive memory on brand new Macbook Pro

Hi all,
Forgive my lack of technical knowledge here, but I've just bought a new Macbook Pro Retina, and despite migrating literally about 1GB worth of files, the system is showing approx. 22GB of storage space being taken up by 'other.'
I know these questions are asked a lot, but could anybody help me out with what might be eating up this space and how I can reclaim the it? I appreciate that devices rarely come with the storage space cited on the box, but that seems excessive.
Thanks.

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then restart the computer. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation—not the mythical 10%, 15%, or any other percentage. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
Deleting files inside a photo or iTunes library will corrupt the library. Changes to such a library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install the app in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
For ODS:
security execute-with-privileges /A*/OmniDiskSweeper.app/*/M*/* 2>&-
For GP:
security execute-with-privileges /A*/GrandPerspective.app/*/M*/* 2>&-
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password.
The application window will open behind other open windows. When you scan a volume, the window will eventually show all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Can I just plug in my PC formatted Hard Drives (Vista) to my new MacBook Pro?

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Do I need to download any special application to allow my MacbookPro to connect, read, and write to these drives? (I haven't tried to plug them in yet - afraid to damage them)
Do I need to reformat my external drives to a Mac format to make them run better?
thanks in advance for the help.
Jon

What's done is done and your probably full(ish) drives in NTFS format will remain as they are. When you add a new one to the collection, might want to investigate formatting it in ExFAT format instead. OS X will happily write on it as will Windoze. And you have the advantage over the ancient Fat32 format that you can create and store files over 4GB in size safely and without data corruption.

How do i transfer all of my files, mail, data to my new macbook pro from the old one?

I'm about to finally upgrade and buy a MacBook Pro retinal display. Upgrading from a MacBook built in 2006 (running Lion & the best speed/memory it can do). How do I transfer everything from the old to new?

When you turn on a new Mac, it will offer to transfer everything for you, using the Migration Assistant. You simply connect your two Macs using FireWire, Thunderbolt, Ethernet, or wireless and follow the steps.
How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

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Hello,
I would like to clean up / reformat the Windows 7 side of my partitioned hard drive, and then re-install.
Any direction - advise will be appreciated.

Have you tried booting directly to the Windows 7 DVD instead of running setup.exe from Boot Camp? Hold down "Option" as soon as you hear the chime on restart, and eventually you'll be presented with available boot options.
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But I recommend booting from the DVD directly first, though.
HTH,
S.

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How do i do it?
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Not necessarily. As I said the new models have a different build installed. The build you are now using may not work because it will not contain all the needed new hardware drivers. You can give it a try. If it doesn't work properly then you will need to reinstall OS X using the installer discs that come with the new computer.

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Macs running 7.5.3 or later can share files easily with Macs running any version of Mac OS X up to 10.3.9, and with a little more complexity any Mac OS X through 10.4.10.
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http://homepage.mac.com/car1son/os9xnet_nfilesharing.html
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How do I transfer my entire old hard drive contents to my new macbook pro?

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