How hard to switch hard drives

Anyone with experience swapping out drives in their MacMini?

Yes - there is a lot of information out there - including online video and photo guides:
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/mac_mini_2009_hd/
http://www.applefritter.com/Mac_Mini_Take_Apart_Guide
It's much easier for the 2009/earlier minis with the white plastic top, rather than the latest all-in-one 2010 model. Which do you have?
The "only" difficult part is getting the cover off in the first place. Make sure you run your newly modified mini with the top OFF for a few days to ensure all is well before replacing it. This saves having to get the top off again! (A common error is to forget to replace the small black fan temperature sensor cable, which means the fan runs at full speed when you start it up again.)

Similar Messages

I installed a 2nd hard drive and now my mac wants to startup on that drive. How do I switch startup drives?

I installed a second hard drive to my Mac Mini. After installing the operation system on it the mac will boot up on the second hard drive. How do switch back to the first drive?
Thank you.

No reason to. I always a cloned copy of my operating systems so I can reclone it back in case the the one I use dies.

2 Hard drives--How do I switch from drive c to drive d ?

I have a Satellite A135-S4499 with two hard drives..110 gb each. Drive C is now full. How do I access drive d so I can continue using the laptop?
Thank in advance for any help.
Beachwater
Solved!
Go to Solution.

In Windows, open "My Computer" or whatever it's called now, then can you see both drives?
Copy/Move some of your data from C: to D:
Empty trash.
Don't move items in C:\Program Files

HOW DO I SWITCH STARTUP DRIVE TO SECOND HARDRIVE

Installed second hardrive, how do i switch startup disk to new hd.

Syetm Preferences > Startup Disk. That sets the "default"
Press the "option" key at startup to have the all options each time.

Adding A New Hard Drive

I've been thinking about adding a second hard drive. The problem is that I'm not sure which configuration would best fit my needs.
Currently I have one 120GB Maxtor SATA drive which, after six months, is half full. This leads me to conclude that eventually I'm going to fill it up.
Since I have only this one drive and no DVD writer, I don't have any good way of backing up my drive in case something fails. I don't have any vital data, but I've spent a long time getting my settings perfect, and I don't want to lose them.
I also know that doing a RAID doesn't give me more space. I know that RAID 0 basically uses two drives in parallel to double the storage efficiency, but if one drive fails, all the data on both is lost. I also know that RAID 1 copies all changes to the second hard drive and thus also does not increase my overall storage space.
What are my other options? If I buy another SATA drive, what ways do I have to copy my entire disk onto the new one? How does XP handle installation on the new drive? How do I switch between drives? I was thinking that I could put all my large music and video files on the new drive and then optimize my old drive for my games. This will still make it possible for me to listen to my music in Winamp while playing a game, right?
How do I install the new drive? Do I have to go into my BIOS and configure something? Here's what it says about my IDE setup (I don't know what IDE means either.)
Primary IDE Master = DVD-ROM
Primary IDE Slave = CD - RW
Secondary IDE Master = n/a
Secondary IDE Slave = n/a
Third IDE Master = Maxtor HDD
Third IDE Master = n/a
etc.
What does Master/Slave mean as far as usage and performance goes? Which SATA plug should I use for the new drive?
Sorry for the silly questions, I've never used a machine with more than one hard drive before.
EDIT: What brand hard disk do you guys recommend? I have in mind either Western Digital or Seagate. I won't have any compatibility or performance issues from using two drives of different make and capacity, will I?
Here's my specs:
Intel Pentium 4 2.8e HTT @ 3.26GHz
Thermaltake Spark 7+ Xaser Edition A1715 CPU Cooler
MSI 865PE Neo2-PFISR motherboard (BIOS ver. 3.8)
2x512MB OCZ PC3700 Gold Edition Rev 3 Dual Channel Enhanced Latency DDR @ 466MHz (2-3-3-5)
Built-by-ATI Radeon 9800 Pro @ XT 128MB DDR 256-bit @ 415/744 (Catalyst 4.12)
Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer Revision 3
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum
Cyber Acoustics CA-4100 4.1 Surround
Maxtor 6Y120M0 120GB HDD 7200RPM SATA150 8MB cache
Sony DDU1612 40x/16x DVD-ROM
Sony CRX230ED 52x/32x CD-RW
Enermax Noisetaker EG475P 470W PSU(+3.3V = 34A, +5V = 40A, +12V = 33A)
Ultra Dragon ATX Mid-Tower Case
Windows XP Pro SP2

Hi. I will try to help with some of your questions. Its easy but time consuming to move/copy files from one hard drive to another. Just drag the files/folders from one drive to the other one. That moves them. To copy them Select them and the select copy then go to the other drive and select paste. With two hard drives its best to set them up as one for system files and apps (your c drive) and one for storage (your D drive). Your optical drives then become e and f. If your case you would leave your current drive as C and the new drive would become your d storage drive. Moving your mp3s, vids, etc (i.e, non-system files or not apps), could take some hours, but that is usually no problem because you can do small numbers of files at a time or do it overnight. By the way you never want to fill up your hard drive, especially your c drive. Always leave 20+ percent free so you can get quick reading/writing to it. Mp3's, vids, pix etc play just fine from your stoage drive and your games play great from the c drive. And you can do both at the same time.
Masters and slaves have the same performance but that only applies to IDE drives. There is no master/slave designation for SATA drives.
Backing up your system files can then be done on your storage drive, but as harib said you can back up the important system files to a CD. Windows provides a backup utility for that. You can also back them up to your storage drive if you want.
If you truly want backups of ALL of your files, including storage, is simply a matter of adding another drive and then copying all of the files to the new drive. Hopefully you would never have both those two drives go bad at the same time.
Western Digital, Maxtor and Seagate are all good drives. You first must decide if your new drive will be SATA or IDE. You might just get another SATA drive for storage, but a lower cost IDE drive of similar capacity for your storage drive likely will be just as fast for for mp3s,etc. SATA really helps on your system drive which you already have.
Installation of drives is a bit more complicated with SATA drives in the sytem but can be relatively easy to do once you decide what drive to get. Don't base your purchase decision on installationo ease.
When you are about ready to install come back to the forum with specific details of what you want to install and someone will be happy to talk you through the process.
Good luck!

Macbook pro hard drive apple claimed 'failed', has changed it's tune. BUT....

This is a very looooong story, but here's the short version of it (I swear). I can add more details as needed. And there is definitely a question at the end.
And I should preface this by saying I am a novice computer user, and really don't understand how hard drives, or permissions, or any of that stuff works.
1. Two weeks ago my mid 2011 17" top-of-the-line macbook pro wouldn't wake from sleep upon opening from clamshell mode (familiar story to many)
2. Did a hard shut down using power button
3. Powered back up and got spinny rainbow no matter what I clicked. Took 10 minutes for any single action to respond, even opening text edit.
4. Could not force quit, could not restart, system eventually froze
5. Did another hard shut down
6. System would then NOT boot normally
7. Booting in safe mode showed invalid node errors
8. Was able to get the OS to work, was preparing to do a backup, and in a "smack my head later" move, I closed the lid not thinking, when I went to the other room to get something to drink (had I know what was to come, that drink would have been a double gin & tonic). MBP not wake up again. Again- hard shut down.
9. This time would not boot at all- even in safe mode, even running repair disk permissions on screen while booting. Would get to the end of booting and just die- not start, not finish, nothing.
10. Brought to apple genius bar. They confirmed the hard drive had failed. They replaced hard drive for free (with the exact same model and make of drive!! TOSHIBA MK7559GSFX. Thanks for instilling more confidence apple!!)
11. I brought my failed drive home and swapped it out with the drive in my 2008 15" macbook pro, which is where it has been living since then.
12. Fired it up in target disk mode with my iMac, and the drive never appeared as an external drive/device. Tried this multiple times after multiple restarts
13. Booted the 15" mbp to Lion's 'over the air' recovery, and was able to get disk utility open that way
14. Will NOT boot from the drive (get the apple logo, the spinny circle and the bar that never progresses, no matter how many hours/days I leave it for)
In the past week I have:
used DiskWarrior (says drive is damaged and can't be repaired)
used Data Rescue 3 (which I was getting error messages with too but now is telling me it can't do anything because the drive is the bootable drive, and not an external (presumably because it's in the machine?)
In Disk Utility I have verified permissions, repaired permissions, verified disk and repaired disk. They all report errors, including repair disk, which tells me the drive is damaged and can't be repaired. (I get it, I have a bad hardware problem)
booted from Lion-installed external travel drive, to try and have the drive be recognized
attempted to run Drive Genuis 3 with no success
attempted to create a new image using both disk utility and one of my software programs (don't remember which) with no success
attempted to restore disk image using disk utiltity with no success
am now running Stellar Phoenix 'recover lost volumes' with what appears to be success- it has found 5 lost volumes, but appears to be only 1/15th of the way done after about 24 hours. I'll let it run intil it's done- however long that may be. I have no idea what happens when it ends.
Now, here is where the story gets interesting.
For 5 days the drive would not only not boot, but it wouldn't mount either. It just didn't exist. There was no information on the drive in disk utility, and I couldn't access it no matter what mode I chose.
BUT THEN, sometime shortly after hitting 'repair disk' about 12 times (getting failure messages each time), it mounted. Wahoo!
Not only did it mount, but it has been mounting reliablibly each time after many restarts, using an external drive loaded with Lion as the boot drive.
AND, now the drive's S.M.A.R.T. status says it's verified- both on the main Toshiba drive and the volume that contains my user account. It also shows the correct GB of data on the volume: 316.73 GB.
I can also run verfiy permissions, which completed successfully.
AND, I was able to click on the volume name (Louise. My iMac's name is Thelma. They work great together, LOL), and see the contents on the drive!
First, when I opened the applications folder, it showed it as empty. But then I left it alone for about 5-10 minutes, and suddenly all of my apps appeared in the folder. Awesome!! There were a few in there I didn't have on my iMac, and didn't purchase through the app store, so I backed those up right away to another external hard drive I had plugged in.
This was surprising and encouraging until I got to my user folder- 'jamie'.
I opened it and it too shows as being empty. Zero kb. Left it alone for a long time, but sadly no files appeared. This was a few days ago- still no files appearing.
To make this clear- my main user folder- called 'jamie'- says 'zero kb', 0 items. This is the folder that houses all of my documents and image files.
BUT, disk utility, and Stellar Phoenix, and Drive Genuis 3 all are reading 'Louise' and telling me the data is there- 316.73 GB worth. I just can't see it.
So I realized this may be a problem with permissions because I am using a new- different- user account. I was also thinking that if I could show hidden files, I might be able to see something in the folder that might help. So I downloaded TinkerTool and selected 'show hidden and system files'. No dice, still empty. Then I right-clicked on my user folder to get info and under 'sharing and permissions', the users, and the settings at the bottom are greyed out and I can't change anything.
In system preferences, the user for the failed drive does not show at all, and when I try to add it by using the same name and password, it tells me the user already exists.
Now I'm stumped. I feel like I've made progress and am getting close to getting the contents, but not sure what to do next, or if I'm fighting a losing battle.
Here is what I am doing now:
I am going to let Stellar Phoenix finish finding lost volumes, because it's the only app that seems to be doing anything.
I purchased an external drive enclosure from amazon (this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00655YT9C/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00), which I will be receiving on Monday.
I'll pull the drive out of the 15" mbp and put it in the new external enclosure and will then try to run Data Recovery 3 on the drive
If that's unsuccessful, I'll try DiskWarrior again, and/or maybe one of the other software programs
And then if those don't work I guess I'm done.
Based on the information I provided, do I indeed have a failed hard drive, and will NOT be able to recover the contents of my drive, and am SOL and am just wasting my own time?
Or is there a way I can get the files in my user account to show?
I wanted to provide all of the backstory on this first, instead of just saying "user folder empty" in case the backstory helps someone know what's going on.
Anyone want a crack at this? I can upload screen grabs if that helps. Insight? Suggestions? Ideas? Thank you in advance!!
================================================================================ ================
BTW: about backing up. I am diligent about backing up and always have redundant backups of everything (I'm a professional photographer). I DID have my mbp fully backed up via Time Machine to an external drive, but due to my iMac ALSO failing recently and needing repair work, I had to wipe the drive clean and do a full backup of my iMac, which filled the last drive I had left, because I also recently purchased a Canon 5D Mark III, which produces insanely huge RAW files which helped completely fill a single drive I had used to back up both the iMac and mbp. Couple that with writing a book under deadline for a major publisher and not having time to research or purchase another drive, and a failing macbook pro drive a short time later and it was the perfect storm- a total cluster.
(Also, tried Data Rescue 3 on the external drive that DID have the mbp backup on it and was unsuccessful).
The good news is, since the hard drive was less than a year old when it failed (again, thanks Apple!), and it was all mirrored content to my iMac to begin with, (most of which I would pass over to the iMac whenever I had the chance), only about 15% of the data on this failed drive is data I don't have on my iMac. Unfortunately it's all documents- word docs, pages docs, text docs, excel docs, that can't be recreated, including, what I think is the funniest blog post I've ever written. Sigh...... No client work or images thank god, But still. I really want it back.

u can give try to using external enclosre and backup ur files. I hope u will get files back. or using external enclosre with ur hdd boot into Linux and try to mount ur harddisk.
there are multiple no of tutorial to mount apple partion in Linux.

Restoring backup problems with new hard drive

Recently had to replace my hard drive (OS X Tiger 10.4.10). I had backed up iLife, iTunes and documents using the Backup utility (saving to external hard drive) and iDisk, so thought all would be well. My new hard drive has the updated OS (Leopard 10.5.5) and I cannot work out how to retrieve my stuff.
The Time Machine application obviously has no memory of my backup plans, and 'Backup' doesn't seem to exist, so I can't follow the restore instructions on that application. I can see that iLife and iTunes have been backed up on my external hard drive - I just can't see how to put the contents back. I have re-installed iLife and the iTunes application is ready and waiting.
My iDisk is completely empty - which means something is wrong or I completely misunderstood the point of it...
Any help gratefully received
Ross

Hi Lupe!
If you post the exact model number of the Seagate drive, I'll give the jumper setting a look to see it there is a limitation on setting to "slave." I wasn't aware anyone was doing that.
As near as I can tell, the basic problem is that the first-gen 733 QuickSilver does not have support for "large hard drives." That means that 128G is the maximum it can deal with. You can use the 160G drive, however, by using Disk Utility to create a partition of under 128G, say 125G, leaving the rest of the drive unformatted. Then it should work. Select the partition format as Mac Extended HFS+ Journaled.
Your G4 is older than the ones that this forum covers, thus the difference in hard drive capacities and also how hard drives are jumpered. You may want to make friends with folks in the forums for older G4s here:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=113
Some of the same people haunt both forums so it's not a big deal if you decide to stay here. We're glad to have you either way!

How to switch Organizer catalog from one hard drive to another?

As far as a little background, i have just finished two high definition projects in Premiere Elements, the last one being 73 projects combined into 6 blu rays. It had completely filled up my 1TB hard drive, so i have purchased an additional 2TB internal hard drive, in hopes of being able to switch all my photoshop to the larger internal hard drive. I am also archiving the old stuff as i finish each project to an external hard drive to free up space.
But i am PETRIFIED at the possibility of trying to move my Elements Catalog because of all the stories i have heard about having the majority of the photos needed to 'reconnect' after switching it to an external hard drive and I assume the same thing will happen to me if i move it to another internal hard drive???????   I have had several computer smart gentleman who have often helped me out when i had a problem and one refused to even venture how to successfully move the catalog and other guy's suggestion is to backup the entire Catalog and then restore it on the new drive.   Steve Grisetti said this morning on his webpage that i should cut and paste the file from one drive to the other but not quite sure how easy that is going to be, because when i have searched out the "move' option, it does not allow me to do anything there. Could that be because i have files that need to be 'reconnected' first before i could accomplish that 'move.'    Steve suggested i come over to this Forum to get some opinions, which is what i have done. That sounds like being more complicated than just cutting and pasting one folder with 16,000 photos. What is the safest way to accomplish this without losing anything, and avoiding the need to 'reconnect' 16,000 files which i am not looking forward to.
So that is my first and foremost question about the Elements Organizer, but i do have some other related problems with the 'reconnect' problem, some of which i have figured out, but not completely. After finally completing these two big projects, my next goal was to clean up my files, get things organized better, and i seem to be finding more and more problems to address. The list of problems decreases with each project but i am still able to find new ones. I am not a computer whiz, and probably shouldn't be trying to accomplish what i am doing with the basic Photoshop programs, something i know the majority of you would be using other more advanced Photoshop programs and much more easily, but i am starting to get this program down, and i don't need more challenges right now.
So i have 3 additional concerns and questions if anyone can help me out to prevent future problems with the next high definition project for Premiere Elements to burn onto blu rays.
1. Because i ran out of space totally on my old internal hard drive, i set up a temporary file on the new drive for the blu ray projects, and I was able to finish the remaining mpeg2s for the final 2 blu rays from Premiere Elements. But when i finished, i started to clean up the files, and realized that the catalog was not recognizing any of the mpeg2 files that i had used to assemble the first 4 blu rays, which was the time i set up the new file on the new internal hard drive, and had copied and pasted my blu ray files. It all seemed to go well, and i was able to finish the final 20 something projects and 2 final mpeg2s for the final blu rays which i prepared and burned on Sony DVD Architect. . But when i went back and was looking at the final mpeg2 files for the previous 4 blu rays, they all needed to be 'reconnected', and i assume it was because the last 2 were on a different drive. And after some effort, i was able to reconnect everything i think successfully. And i am assuming that this will not continue to be a problem if i can get the entire Catalog on the same hard drive. So write that one off to experience.
2. But i hadn't taken the time before doing the blu ray project to label my pictures completely, so the next project i started was renaming the filenames, which quickly presented a new problem, and that made for more 'reconnect' problems again for every picture that i renamed that was used in any of the Premiere Elements Project, so i was back to where i started but even worse off; however, the good news is that my photos were the best organized they ever have been. So all the mpeg2's on the catalog once again asked for 'reconnect' and came to the conclusion that it must mean any name change in the 'filename' also makes it not recognizable. With my first big Premiere Elements project which ended up with 4 blu rays, i made the very big mistake of organizing and moving files in windows, and that is problem #3. So i have come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter, but lots of effort is not obtainable, but i guess i am wondering if it was really worth saving in working condition anyway?? The good news is that the individual photos are fine for the most part, but it is all the mpeg2 files that i combined the original photos into 73 projects, making a mpeg2 of each, then combining about 10-15 of the mpeg2s together and adding music to it, and forming the final mpeg2 which is what i then prepared to burn to blu ray in Sony Architect Studio. The finished product is still present in the Sony Architect software, and i even burned a copy of them again to make sure that was possible, So my gut feeling is just to delete all the mpeg2 files in my organizer, and forget they were ever there! Does that make sense?????    I am not sure that i would ever use them again anyway, but what i am asking is obviously that something as simple as change in the filename screws up the catalog once again????? Yes, i have learned my lesson, and they will all be finalized with the filename ever before i start the next project. Just like with the first project, i learned to stay out of windows all together, and now i only use albums which i found no problems using at all.
3. Last problem is the oldest one, but one i still cannot solve. It was from the first blu ray project when i was doing stupid things like moving folders, and photos from one folder to another to make it better organized. And that was super-organized, and there was absolutely no need to change filenames!!!!! I have two separate problems. Some of the 'reconnects' do not have a picture but the gray square and the ?. I have been able to find most of the files that i had 'displaced' and have recovered them, and knew where they were, and were able to change file names, and it looks like they are back in the catalog. There was also a big file of photos that i found in a file that was the original download file for a given date which is how i NOW download my photos into Photoshop in the first place. But i have not been able to reconnect any of them successfully. They are there and i have renamed them, but the catalog still does not recongize them as being in the Catalog. The other group are photos where the picture shows in the catalog, but there is a ? to reconnect, but i cannot find the photos anywhere. These are of a trip of a once in a life time variety, so i have refused to just press delete, and i thought i had perhaps somehow deleted them all, but i have either found them in another file or the photo is present but i can't rename, i can't reconnect, and for all practical purposes they don't seem to be there. Any suggestions at all? Do i have any other options other than just to delete those whole period of my trip?
I am longwinded, but i wanted to try and give enough background information. The problem seems simple, but i just want to confirm the problems i have run into are for the reason i think they are, and any help on how to successfully move the catalog to the second internal hard drive will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any comments and or suggestions.
Ron

Thanks for your suggestions, i knew i had overdone it when i wrote the entire story. Just a couple direct questions based on your response!!
Just a couple of questions, i am assuming all the reconnection problems have to be taken care of either by connecting or deleting before the catalog can be moved. Correct?
The reconnect problems i have were not renamed outside of Photoshop, and the renaming does not seem to be an issue except for mpeg2s that are in the catalog that were used to generate the blu rays but i think it was me screwing things up when i didn't know better and was moving folders and photos in folders (Window type) .   Since the blu rays are in the Sony software complete and ready to reburn easily, i assume it would be okay to delete all those that are in the catalog, that need to be reconnected for whatever reason. Plus the individual photos of most of them are just fine. I am talking 376 'reconnect problems' counting all those mpeg2 files which are at least the majority of the 376. Probably would be nice to have, but is there any reason i have to keep them since the photos are okay and the blu rays are burned and still in the Sony Architect program intact?
What i don't understand is the important photos that are worth trying to save seem to be in the proper folder, which is what is stated in properties, but the photo is in the catalog, but with the ? and cannot do anything with it at all, without just going to reconnection, and when i try to identify the folder, it says it is empty, which those are NOT.   If it takes 'forever', then albeit, at least for these few pictures. I really don't want to delete those!
And is it possible to do what my computer tech is telling me that it will all transfer accurately and completely if we backup the entire catalog and then restore it to the new drive?. It seems like after i complete the reconnects one way or another, it might be an easier process that can be completed totally within Element?    Since the catalog is on c drive, i guess i can't do what you suggested buy why?
I kept to those tips you gave me. It seems like an impossibility to save these pictures, but these were from my very first efforts with Premiere Elements and blu rays. Other than the renaming the changing and affecting the Premiere Elements projects in the second one, i have no other problems, and have no recconect problems. So i guess i am moving in the right direction. I just don't need to keep finding ways to make more problems for myself.
Ron

How do i switch wma files from an external hard drive to mp3 on itunes?

how do i switch wma files from an external hard drive to mp3 on itunes?

Can you not just drag them from the external drive to a folder on your new computer?

Switching iTunes (older version) from an old latptop with mechanical issues to iTunes on a new computer. The hard drive, issue free, was placed in external drive enclosure. How do I recover iTunes?

I'm trying to moves iTunes (older version) from an old latptop with mechanical issues (non working screen, keyboard, and battery) to iTunes on a new computer. The hard drive, issue free, was placed in external drive enclosure. This was a cost effective way instead of dumping lots of money in an outdated old laptop while I can invest it into a new laptop. How do I recover iTunes?
I'm switching from a 3G phone to a blank 4GS in the process. I would like to have everything that was on my 3G phone and iTunes on my new phone and computer.
Thanks

iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music [library] to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the new location of the library.
Windows users see tip at: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18879381

Can I make a second libary on a second hard drive and how do I switch back and forth

I woud like to creat a second libary for itunes on a second hard drive. I am using the latest itunes and lion on my imac and how do I switch back and forth.

Yes. You can.
Start iTunes with the Option depressed and that will allow you to select the library.
Allan

How do i deny access to an External Hard Drive while using user switching

Hello,
I have a QuickSilver running Tiger (Leopard upgrade coming when RAM arrives) and have 4 users ( fast user switching enabled). I would like to deny all access to the external hard drives except for the my account on the box.
I have already have gone into the info Sharing & Permissions and only allowed myself to have access, others have "no access" however when I switch user (using fast user switching) they assume ownership of the drives and have access.
Just so you understand the overall direction I would like to go. I'm a photographer and my images are loaded on various external hard drives which is plugged in to the desktop. Family uses the desktop and do not want them to access my work on the external hard drive, however I do need to connect via my laptop to edit images via ethernet which I would obviously enter the admin username and password for the desktop when challenged.
Any ideas???
dsh
P.S. I also changed the permissions via unix to 700 but guess what it doesn't matter! It still assumed the other users ownership upon switch. Does anyone have a proven solution?

D. Fraser wrote:
When you Get Info on the Drives, who is the owner of the Drives? What exactly are the permissions? Do all of the other users use an admin account? You might have to chmod the root user of the drive to your admin account, change the user to no-access, and everyone to no-access.
how does one "chmod the root user of the drive to your admin account"?
can that be done with terminal inside an administrator account, or does root need to be enabled and logged into?
-db

How do i find my license key? I am switching hard drives and OS's and need my key/

How do i find my license key? I am switching hard drives and OS's and need my key/

Good Question,
I am formatting my drive, and upgrading to latest OS, but I'm not going to purchase elements again, just want to reinstall PSE10 on NEW OS, same old machine.
Looking for help with this.

Switching upsizing my internal hard drive - how to ensure Time Machine backup works

I'm replacing my 250 gig hard drive in my Macbook Pro with a 500 gigabyte version. I'm concerned about being able to use my Time Machine backups. Can anyone shed some light on how to do this properly?

As far as I know, you can use Time Machine back up on new 500GB HDD as well.
Time Machine drive connect MacBook Pro, then boot with pressing Option key with new drive to select Time Machine back up drive as boot drive to restore or make clone back up with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper on another external HDD, then boot from it to restore.
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-upgrade-an-os-x-lion-systems-hard-drive/

Screensaver won't automatically bring up picture from my iphoto since I switched to Mountain Lion. Any suggestions on how to get it to work. My photos are located on an external hard drive that I keep connected to my laptop.

My screensaver won't automatically bring up pictures from my iphoto albums as it always did in the past since I installed Mountain Lion. I do use an external hard drive to save all my pictures and music on that is always connected to my MacBookPro. Any suggestions what I may be doing wrong. I find it frustrating to have to set it daily as I close my computer down every night.

Back up all data.
Quit System Preferences if it's open.
Triple-click the line below to select it:
~/Library/Preferences/ByHost
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Open
from the contextual menu. A folder should open. Inside it there should be one or more files with a long name beginning with "com.apple.screensaver." Move those files to the Trash. Set your screensaver preferences and see whether they stick.

How to partition 120 GB hard drive MacBook for OSX+Win (BC+Par.)? Fat/NFTS?

After many happy years with my PowerBook G4 12" (I will miss it definitely, as compact and cute as it is ;-() I'll now switch to a new MacBook 2.16 GHz with 2 GB RAM and a 120 GB hard drive.
I will have to use Windows (not yet sure if XP or Vista), as I need special software not available for the Mac, so my choice will be Parallels, so that I can work in Os X and at the same time use those Windows Apps I need.
However, I also want to be able to boot Windows-only with BootCamp, so I already learned I have to install Windows on its own partition.
So my question is:
How shall I partition the hard drive?
* If I have one big partition for OSX + documents and the rest (maybe 30 or 40 GB) for Windows, I won't be able to access my documents from Windows, right?
* So I would have to keep the data I want to access from within Windows on a PC formatted partition (if I don't want to pay for a software like MacDrive)?
Or can Windows running in Parallels read from a HFS partition?
* Does this mean: if I want to access (read and write) my documents in OSX and Windows, I have to keep them on a Fat32 partition?
-> This could be the partition where Windows is installed (but I'm not sure if I feel comfortable with that solution) of I would need a 3rd partition (Fat32) for data which would cause quite a big "segmentation" of the hard drive.
How did you resolve this problem?
Unfortunately, I don't see that I could really "separate" data I only have to access from Windows and those I only want to access in OS X, so in my opinion for me they all have to be in one place.
Looking forward to your comments,
Martin
MacBook 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB HD (white) Mac OS X (10.4.9)

You should probably ask all your Boot Camp quesitons in the Boot Camp discussions:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1165
And your Parallels questions in the Parallels forums:
http://forums.parallels.com

How hard to switch hard drives

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for