Moving boot disk to new Mac Mini?

I've an old circa-2007 or 2008 Mac Mini (Intel Core 2 Duo) running 64-bit OS X 10.8.4, and using an SSD as boot disk and an external Drobo array for most of my data. I just ordered new quad-core Intel Core i7 Mac Mini to replace it. When it arrives, I plan to ditch hard drive it comes with and move SSD from my old Mac Mini into it. If I simply move boot SSD from my old Mini to new one, will it simply boot and work? Or will I need to do some magic to get it to boot properly? Or shold I start preparing for re-install and restore from backup workflow?

Alex-- wrote:
Well, I have 10.8.4 already installed on the boot disk I want to move to newer mini, and late-2012 mini shipped with 10.8.1. So I guess I should be fine on that part.
Not necessarily, the original build versions are different.
What worries me most is: When OS X is installed, will all the drivers and/or other hardware specific components be installed, or does the installer only install compnents needed by hardware at the time of installation?
I would setup the new Mini, move whatever into it's existing drive and then erase and copy all of that to the SSD before installing it into the Mini.
Replacing disk in mini (including late-2012 model) is non-trivial, but doable. Why on earth Apple makes replacing disk so hard is beyond me; disks die way too often (i.e. disks are consumables), meaning users have real and legitimate need to be able to easilly replace them. Yet something that is easy 5-minute task that requires only Philips #2 screwdriver with average PC tends to be an full evening project with Mac Mini. Sigh. At least it seems 2012 models doesn't require creative use of putty knife like my old Mini required.
The unibody models from 2010 on are easier to work on than the older ones.
see > Mac Mini Repair - iFixit
I'm not trying to be a party pooper or anything here, but personally I wait until the warranty is up on my Mac's and Mac Mini's before doing anything more than upgrading RAM.

Similar Messages

HT1338 OSX 8.6.8 boot disk on 2013 mac mini locks up with lines of code on screen, why?

boot up new mac mini and it locks up showing code ending with error: turn the computer off to restart, how can i make it work?

Your machine cannot boot with a Snow Leopard install disc.

Need help moving iPod library to new Mac Mini

The bad news is that my 4 year old Mirror Door Dual Processor PowerMacG4 finally gave up the ghost on me. The good news is that I then went out and bought a shinny new Mac Mini. Thinking it would be easy (what was I thinking) I then attached my iPod 2Gen 15GB to my new iTunes and it promptly wiped it clean for me (read as PANIC, as I have literally thousands of dollars invested in iTunes music). Not to be a snob, but I also own a iPod Mini (4 GB) that also had a copy of the library on it.
HOW do I copy the library to my new Mac?? I also have a Mac Powerbook 12" and it has a dated copy of the library on it...
Is there ANYTHING that is easy with these Mac's??
Jes
Power Mac Mini (1.5 Ghz 1 GB Ram) Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Please use one of the following software to copy the music library from your mini iPod to your new Mac Mini
iPodRip
Senuti
Ollies iPod Extractor

Rebuild Mac Pro boot disk on a Mac Mini - possible?

Hello-
A friend has a Mac Pro 8-core with 10.6.2. The hard drive is showing some issues so I would like to rebuild the installation from scratch on a new drive. I have an intel mac mini and I'm wondering if it is possible to create a new boot disk (via external firewire enclosure) and do all the updates and software installation (Final Cut Studio, Adobe suite, etc) on the mac mini and then simply drop the new drive into the mac pro. Or is the software installation hardware specific?
Thanks for your help,
Mark

you shouldn't do that. first, there may be hardware problems due to difference in available hardware drivers if the mac pro is very new. also, if you do this the system will be identified everywhere including system profiler as mac mini. if you need to do it do it straight on the mac pro.

Using Current FW Hard Disk with new Mac Mini..?

I'm using a G4 mini for over a year now, and intent to get an Intel version of it once the next product update occurs.
But is it possible for me to actually use the external FW hard disk which I'm booting my current system from right now, and use it as the bootup HD for my next mini, with all of the files in it remaining intact?
It is just a simple process of upgrading the FW HD with the universal version of OS X and then booting up from it? Or it is a more complicated process of having to format the HD first?
Hope seinors here can advise me on this, tks!
Mac Mini G4 1.42 GHZ Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Since the OS X Intel version uses EFI it also uses a different kind of partition scheme, so your F/W disk would not be bootable. You need to repartition it and select GUID partition table in the options (on your PPC machine, the Intel machine would choose the right one) in order to make it bootable for Intel Macs. All your data will be erased by repartitioning the HD!

Can the new Mac Mini boot Snow Leopard from an external hard drive?

I currently boot my 2009 Mac Mini from a FW800 external drive with 10.6.8. If I just plug my external drive into a new 2011 Mac Mini, will it boot into Snow Leopard if I set it as the startup disk or will I get a kernel panic?

I bought a 2011 Mac Mini, which came with Lion installed. I thought maybe I could repartition it and have a Snow Leopard partition. So I repartitioned it (500gb split into two 250gb partitions). I named the new partition "SnowLeopard" just to make it easy for me to tell the difference.
I attached the external DVD and put in a Snow Leopard installer disc, holding down the C key so it would boot and install from that, but it just spun for awhile. Doesn't appear to work.
Then I read somewhere else that someone had managed to clone a copy of Snow Leopard onto an external drive and boot from that. In their situation they were talking about a MacBook, but the principle seemed sane.
So I rebooted, holding down the T key to put the Mac Mini into Target hard disk mode, and attached it via Firewire to another MacMini (circa 2008 or so, not sure of year, but it was upgraded last year to Snow Leopard and has been upgraded along and along). Then I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy Snow Leopard (that is, the entire hard disk-- System and all applications and data) to my newer Mac Mini's "snow leopard" partition.
For yucks, when it was done cloning, I restarted the older Mac Mini, and had it boot from the newer Mac Mini's snow leopard partition--- it worked! To make it easy to tell the difference, I changed the desktop background to something completely different. I think I tried booting from Lion but I can't remember if that worked.
Then I rebooted the newer Mac Mini, which booted up in Lion, of course. Going into System Settings, I changed the startup disk to the "snow leopard" partition, and rebooted, and it booted up in Snow Leopard.
I have yet to test the applications on the Snow Leopard partition. Another problem has arisen.
Because with both of the Mac MInis being active on the network, they both had the same computer and user name. So I renamed the newer Mac Mini to something completely different, and changed the password.
Unfortunately, now I cannot change any other setting in the System Settings that requires a password. While the newer Snow Leopard lets me log in with the new user and new password, whenever I try to click the "lock" icon to change something, I'm prompted for a username and password. Apparently this is some different username and password than either the new or old username/password.
I've tried various combinations of both: new user/old password, old user/new password, old user/old password, etc.
So if you do what I've done, be careful about changing the username and password on your cloned computer. I think it may be wiser to create a new user and then delete the old cloned users. I may just have to re-clone the old Mac Mini to the new one again.
If anyone has any ideas about this password conundrum, please pass along!

Bootcamp will no longer boot after deleting partition #3 of my new Mac Mini. What happened? Was it the way I tried to reclaim the HDD space for Mac?

Here's my dilemma. I have a new Mac Mini - a week old. I installed Windows 7 on it using Mac's Bootcamp assistant. I then set up and configured my Windows 7 world and everything worked fine. No issues logging in between Lion or Win7 via the restart/option key procedure. Well, yesterday I split my Mac HD partition one more time to create a third partition (was created as an "extra", e.g. possible future partition for another operating system). After creating it, I then decided that I didn't really need it. So I deleted it in Disk Utility and attempted to drag the Mac HD partition line downward so as to "fill in the gap" and reclaim the lost hardrive space. It seemed as if I could reclaim about 1 gig or so, but I figured...oh well.
Well, the Mac HD partition seems to work just fine, but now I've noticed that I can't get into the Bootcamp partition anymore. It wont boot. If I try to verify the partition [doesn't even give me "repair" as an option), then it fails and gives me the following error message: "verify volume failed. invalid request." When I go to the Startup Disk option in my System Preferences section, it displays the bootcamp partition as a folder and not as a drive anymore.
I'm assuming that I messed up some permissions or lost some vital links during my attempted resizing/reclaiming of harddrive space. How do I fix this without having to reload either all of my Mac info or all or my Win7 info? I'd hate to consider the last two days of my life loading this crap up a complete loss.
Thanks in advance!

Thanks for checking in, BDAQua.
Problem solved.
In the docs that came with my Powerlogix accelerator card, I found this sentence buried:
"If you reset the PRAM, the NVRAM code for OS9 compatibility is cleared, so you will have to boot from the Firmawre Update CD and perform this process again in order to boot in OS9."
The "process" it's referring to is the process of setting up the NVRAM for booting into OS9 from the CD.
Fortunately, I was able to find the disk, and it worked as expected. I can now, once again boot into OS9.
Conclusion: My (unadvised) attempt to load Leopard on this old machine apparently reset the PRAM on the accelerator card and cleared the NVRAM code for OS9 boot. Although I did attempt to reset the NVRAM via Open Firmware, it did not reset it on the accelerator card.
So, thank you BDAQua, for your "Ah yes" . . . that's all I needed to steer me in the right direction.
Gratefully,
tupester

New mac mini, why so much hard disk space used

Hi All
Just bought a new Mac Mini, 1.4 with the 80gb disk,
After powering up and setting up etc, i noticed that over 10gb of the 80gb hard disk was already used out of the box!!!
How come all that disk space is used, im sure the OS doesnt need that amount of room? I have found a folder of about 1.2gb with a load of garage band samples and loops in, but where is the rest hiding???? Seems a whole waste of space to me??
Thanks
Rich
Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.3) Belkin USB and Firewire Hub, Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse

You have heard correctly, most Mac software, including GarageBand, can be deleted by moving the application (or whole folder if it's in one) to the Trash & emptying the Trash. Some programs may install some support files, but usually not until they are run for the first time. Those few programs that do scatter bits around (can you say Microsoft?) should come with an uninstaller.
There are freeware/shareware programs to remove unneeded language files. DeLocalizer & Monolingual come to mind.
But, since you are setting this Mac mini up from scratch, you might want to do what I do with a new Mac. I erase & reinstall the OS & bundled software from the CD/DVDs that come with it, doing a custom install of both so that I get only what I want. For me, this was important because I don't need any additional printer drivers & I already had full versions of Office & iWork to install.
Peggy

New Mac Mini Server, two Hard drives, Can I install an older Mac OS on the second drive and switch start up disks to run PowerPc applications?

New Mac Mini Server, has two Hard drives, could I install an older Mac OS on the second drive and switch start up disks to run PowerPc applications?

I haven't purchased a Mac Mini at this time and I may not if I can't use it as a non server. I need to update my system I would be better off buying a new Mac with Snow Leopard the last app that will run Rosetta. The Mac Mini Server has a quad 2.0 processor and 4 GB RAM and two internal hard drives and should out perform my dual 1.25 G4. I can run PPC apps on my G4 but it is 8+ years old and seems to be getting noisy. I don't want to tie myself to another old machine. I want a machine that will work with Intel Apps I was hoping that the two hard drives would allow me to boot from the second with Snow Leopard and use Lion on the first drive to be able to keep up to date with all my other universal apps and Mac OS up grades. The application I use the most is my CanvasX app with drawing & vector effects, text & typography, sprite technology, painting, image editing, and multimedia tools are all in this one app but will not be updated to run Intel apps. I am frozen in time because my most valuable Application won't be updated and Apple has cut me off by not supporting PPC in Lion and onward; Apple used to backward support but I guess that they are no longer as user friendly and concerned with a happy user. I have always been a loyal Mac user and I will not migrate to Windows under any circumstance; I hate windows!
Thanks for your prompt response,
Dick Deaton

Created 3 partitions on new Mac Mini, deleted one, and now Bootcamp wont boot anymore! Need help please!

Here's my dilemma. I have a new Mac Mini - a week old. I installed Windows 7 on it using Mac's Bootcamp assistant. I then set up and configured my Windows 7 world and everything worked fine. No issues logging in between Lion or Win7 via the restart/option key procedure. Well, yesterday I split my Mac HD partition one more time to create a third partition (was created as an "extra", e.g. possible future partition for another operating system). After creating it, I then decided that I didn't really need it. So I deleted it in Disk Utility and attempted to drag the Mac HD partition line downward so as to "fill in the gap" and reclaim the lost hardrive space. It seemed as if I could reclaim about 1 gig or so, but I figured...oh well.
Well, the Mac HD partition seems to work just fine, but now I've noticed that I can't get into the Bootcamp partition anymore. It wont boot. If I try to verify the partition [doesn't even give me "repair" as an option), then it fails and gives me the following error message: "verify volume failed. invalid request." When I go to the Startup Disk option in my System Preferences section, it displays the bootcamp partition as a folder and not as a drive anymore.
I'm assuming that I messed up some permissions or lost some vital links during my attempted resizing/reclaiming of harddrive space. How do I fix this without having to reload either all of my Mac info or all or my Win7 info? I'd hate to consider the last two days of my life loading this crap up a complete loss.
Thanks in advance!

Hi surroundsound,
you can't put more partitions on internal HD once you install winOS with Boot Camp.
The sure fix is to delete the windows partition (with Boot Camp Assistant, not Disk Utility), then getting rid of the extra partition (with Disk Utility).
then you can re-install your win& (recreate the win. partition with Boot Camp) - don't add any partitions after.

Boot Camp bug with new Mac Mini?

OK, so I have used Boot Camp now for years, on a variety of Mac platforms, and I have always been able to set it up and run Windows, including Windows 7 64 bit. That is, until I purchased my new Mac Mini i7 (non server version) with the WD 750GB internal, with 8GB ram. As the new models no longer offer a built in SuperDrive, I purchased a Pioneer external Blu-ray drive and have it connected via FireWire 800.
I have a brand new retail Windows 7 64 bit installation disc and have downloaded and burned the Windows 7 drivers to a CD.
I followed the instructions implicitly, but always hang on the reboot that should go into Boot Camp and begin the Window 7 install. Instead, I get the dreaded "Boot disc not found. Please insert a bootable disc and press any key" error, from which there appears to be no return.
Anyone have any ideas or is this just a known bug?

This same message was displayed in my MacBook Pro yesterday when I partitioned the HDD, however in my case I hit the "Quit & Install Later" Option as I planned to install win 7 later. When I rebooted my Mac to my surprise it had defaulted to my DVD drive and could not find the disc (obviously, since I wasn't planning to install it). I remember that in SL this issue was not present. Ultimately, I had to hit the option key to boot back into OSX Lion and reset my Macintosh HD as my start up disk via system prefs.
As for your case I would suggest hitting the "option" key during start up and see if your Mac can recognize your Windows 7 disc. If it recognized select it with the keyboard arrow keys and when it is selected hit the "return" key. Then the Win 7 DVD should boot and then follow the instructions of the Windows 7 Installer.
My suggestion is to fill a bug report to Apple via their feedback section:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
As far as I know Bootcamp 4.0 is extremely buggy, yet I do think that OSX Lion overall is a very stable and snappy OS, I noticed that my system performance has not been that much impacted by it very much. My boot times went up by 3-4 seconds longer than SL and shutdown times went up by 1 sec only, as for app launch time they have remained the same. Hopefully further updates to OSX lion will address these and other issues.
Good Luck!

New MAC Mini w/OSX Lion - will not boot from USB or external optical drive when attempting to use BootCamp to install Windows 7?

The University recently purchased 6 brand new MAC minis for deployment in classrooms I support. I am attempting to create a dualk--boot environment comparable to our existing computer systems, only these machines wil be running MAC OS X Lion and Windows 7. After following the procedures outlined in the BootCamp on-screen prompts, and attempting a few techniques I found in the tech support user-base, I am still unable to get the MAC mini to boot up from the USB flash drive, or from an external optical drive, so that I can complete the installation of Windows 7. When using the Boot option key at start-up, all devices are displayed suggesting that they are being properly recognized, however the computer boots to a black screen with an error message indicating that "No bootable devices are found - press any key to continue." I am able to boot into the computer's internal drive, but not from any external devices. I fully expected that the semi-automated BootCamp procedure properly prepares the USB device for booting, and for installing the Windows 7 OS.

Meh, with the price they take for a drive in Denmark, I don't think it's worth it... They take around 160 $ for the drive (that's the cheapest MacBook drive I could find), and I am not even sure that's the one I need.

How do I create a backup DVD OS disk for my new mac mini ?

how do I create a backup DVD OS disk for my new mac mini ?
in case of failure HD etc
no disks came with it

No disk-version of Lion, but a Lion Thumb Drive http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD256
For the downloaded OSX Lion form the Mac App Store you can use this http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/39701/lion-diskmaker to make yourself a disk.
And have a read here http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=getting-lion-installers on how-to get/make a machine-specific OSX Lion installer disk.
Stefan

How do I clear the Disk and reinstall the OS on my new Mac Mini without an Optical Drive?

How do I clear the Disk and reinstall the OS on my new Mac Mini without an Optical Drive?

If it's a new mini, should have Mtn Lion on it. In any case, restart into recovery mode, and follow the instructions.

If I have an old disk with iWork 08, how can I download it on my new Mac Mini?

My new mac mini doesn't have a disk drive, so I'm not sure what to do. Will it still work on Mountain Lion?

You can certainly try disk sharing.
Don't you have a Flash drive or external Hard Drive? That would be the simplest.
The DVD is not crucial to the installation, only the installer on it. I keep mine on a dedicated installer passport HDD along with all my other software, their serial numbers and purchase info and the updates to those.
Peter

Moving boot disk to new Mac Mini?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for