New tech help install new hard drive

Installing a new drive in late 2007 MBP. Read about cloning drives et al. using carbon cloner.
Instructions for cloning to an already formatted external verbatim HD - by dividing an existing partition looks simple enough.
http://help.bombich.com/kb/overview/formatting-your-hard-drive-for-use-with-carb on-copy-cloner
I would do the clone just to see how it works and have a bootable copy of my existing drive...
But what I'd like to do is - Fresh Install - everything, and pull desired data over manually from time machine back up I have on external.
QUESTION - after I install the new "unformatted drive" into computer what happens when I start it up since there is no operating system? Will I just be able to restart and use my Snow Leopard disk - NOT ORIGINAL COMPUTER INSTALLATION DISKS - to format drive and install OS ?
If so, I would do software upgrades, then install applications and updates, then get my data from time machine back up.
Any advice appreciated. Thanks.
David Stamm

You will need to do this:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. When formatting is completed quit DU and return to the installer. Complete the OS X installation.
When done you will boot into the newly installed system on the newly installed drive. You can then restore what you want from your backup.

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On a macbook I purchased secondhand hard drive got corrupted and I started to get the flashing folder with the question mark, I purchased a new hard drive and snow lion install DVD I installed the hard drive and tried disc but kept getting blinking folder

On a macbook I purchased secondhand hard drive got corrupted and I started to get the flashing folder with the question mark, I purchased a new hard drive and snow lion install DVD I installed the hard drive and tried disc but kept getting blinking folder

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We're users here and do not speak for "Apple Inc."
Power on the computer and insert the DVD immediately.
Hold down the 'C' key to boot from the Snow Leopard DVD.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1533
After selecting the appropriate language, if necessary, select Utilities, and Disk Utility.
You'll likely need to partition and format the new drive before it's recognized.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA161/en_US/MacBook_13inch_HardDrive_DIY .pdf
(Yes, these instructions ARE 7 years old, but the procedure is the same for installing from DVD media.)

Before Mac OS X lion install I had over 50% free hard drive space on new MBP, but now my hard drive is full without me doing anything! How do I fix this??? Or should I just revert to Snow Leopard???

Before Mac OS X lion install I had over 50% free hard drive space on new MBP, but now my hard drive is full without me doing anything! How do I fix this??? Or should I just revert to Snow Leopard???

Sounds like the Time Machine Local Backup. Try turning Time Machine Off in System Preferences to verify.
See: OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs
But, your real problem is
I forgot to mention that I tried to use Disk Utility to Verify Disk, but it cannot. I get red errors that say the MacHD is corrupt and needs to be repaired. It says that in order to do this I need to use the Disk Utility on the install disk, but Lion doesn't have one!
Boot into Lion's Recovery (Hold ⌘R on Boot), select Disk Utility and then select Macintosh HD and click [Repair Disk]
Tony

Have a old macbook 2006 with newer 500 GB seagate Momentus hard drive. I took mac to apple store and they said logic board is bad. Can I purcase another used macbook and install my old seagate hard drive and have saved my information? Thanks for any imput

Have a old macbook 2006 with newer 500 GB seagate Momentus hard drive. I did not backup any docs or pictures. The macbook crashed my fault. I took mac to apple store and they said logic board is bad. Can I purcase another used macbook and install my old seagate hard drive and have saved all my information? Thanks for any imput.

mgott55 wrote:
Can I install my used existing hard drive in a compatible macbook to save everything?
If you need to extract the drive's content you can remove it and install it in a $10 USB enclosure. It will be readable by any recent Mac.

I've just bought a new iMac with 2 TB hard drive. Can I partition the startup drive?

I've just bought a new iMac with 2 TB hard drive. Can I partition the startup drive?

Glenfern wrote:
The reason I'm considering partitioning is - I'm going to transfer about 50 GB of family photos & music to the iMac. Over time the photos & music library is going to grow. My idea was to point the iphoto & itunes library to the new partition so that the application programs (that will will reside in partition 1), will not get congested with photos & music over time & degrade performance. Also, I dabble a little bit with the music editing program LOGIC & Sound Track Pro, which creates lots of little music files in the process.
In your case I would strongly recommend against partitioning, as dwb mentions a drive loaded with data on an
O SX system doesn't equate to performance loss. However partitioning does. If you were going to tell me you were partitioning to load different OS's on the computer then you would have a good reason to think about partitioning. My suggestion is do not partition.
What I would also recommend is getting some high quality high speed external HD's to store your photo and music libraries on. This helps keept the 2GB drive available while maintaining performance. I have 3 external HD's attached to my iMac, two are backup drives (1 Time Machine & 1 Bootable Clone) the third drive is for storing my my music, photo & movie libraries on. If you go this route the 3 drives I'd recommend are:
http://g-technology.com/products/g-drive.cfm
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10330
Personally I use the Lacie's however OWC or G-Tech would also be welcome on my desk.
Again if you want to take this path Apple has instructions for how to move the libraries to EHDs, if you want those links let me know.

New User Account has No Hard Drive Space

I also have a different problem and started a thread here. It was that thread that lead me to start this new one.
One of the people helping me there suggested I make a new user account and see if that solved my problem. I made two new user accounts, one a 'standard' and the other an 'administrator.' In both cases the new user accounts have no hard drive space, and no download or document folder in the dock.
Logging out of either of those accounts and back as myself (administrator) I have 410 gb of free hard drive space.
Any thoughts on what could be happening or how to resolve? My hard drive recently disappeared so I took it in to a Mac Genius and under AppleCare the hard drive was replaced. I did a full restore from Time Machine and have repaired permissions countless times since then and also run DiskWarrior. Repair Permissions returns a message that Apple has posted can be ignored; no other issues. DiskWarrior found two errors related to directory structure and repaired/replaced them. Other than my original problem and this new one regarding the new user accounts having no hard drive space my system runs fine.
I am running Mac OS X 10.5.5.

Sorry I wasn't clear in the first post. On my way into work today I started thinking it may be time to start over as well. You mentioned archive and install - would a clean install be better (I know it will be longer)?
Also, just for clarification - when I did a Full Restore from Time Machine was that the same as say restoring from a program like SuperDuper (that clones the hard drive)?
My thinking on this is if I do clean install, I should not restore from Time Machine if the structure carries over. That could be what is causing these problems. Instead I should back up my iPhoto and iTunes libraries via the built in back-up (to an external hard drive or DVDs), back up any documents, etc. and then really start over. Do a clean install, then reload 3rd party software from the original disks and restore the iPhoto and iTunes libraries, etc.

I would like to transfer my iTunes and photos etc from my PC to my new iMac via a external hard drive. Would somebody recommend one. I read that the Western Digital Mybook Essential 3.0 is good.

I would like to transfer my iTunes and photos etc from my PC to my new iMac via a external hard drive. Would somebody recommend one. I read that the Western Digital Mybook Essential 3.0 is good. Though as Mac has 2.0 is this fast enough? I am a basic user, surfing only.

If you plan on using the WD with the Mac after the iTunes transfer I would strongly recommend against WD. WD external HD's tend to be the most troublesome with Macs. If you intend to use the drive for backup using Time Machine or creating a bootable clone then I'd recommend a higher quality drive than WD. The drives I'd recommend in that case would be:
OWC Mercury Elite Pro series
LaCie d2 Quadra series
G-Tech G-DRIVE series
These are all high quality drives and enclosures with similar features. Personally I use the LaCie's however I would be happy to have OWC and G-Tech on my desk too. FWIW I've been using the LaCie's for 4 years and have 4 of them, all work perfectly and have never given me any trouble.
You also my find this article helpful: Move an iTunes library from a PC to Mac (and back)

I transferred all my itunes music from my old pc to a new laptop using an external hard drive. I can drag songs to out ipods, but when i try to add songs to my Iphone 4, I get the red circle with a line through it. It will not allow me to transfer music

I have transferred all of my itunes music for my old pc to a new laptop via an external hard drive. All songs are sucessfullt loaded in itunes and I can drag songs to my husband's ipod without any problems. However, when I try to drag songs to my iphone 4, it will not let me. I get a red circle with a line through it. Why would it work from itunes to ipod but not to my iphone? HELP!!!

You might want to check your process for moving your iTunes music against this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527.

Have a new PC desktop with 4 hard drives, new c, d and old c, d, My ipad library is in old c, how to get my itune open the right drive, it keeps on open in new c drive.

Have a new PC desktop with 4 hard drives, new c, d and old c, d, My ipad library is in old c, how to get my itune open the right drive, it keeps on open in new c drive. It said my computer is not authorized. I want to move all the old c to the new c drive, or get the itune to open my old c drive when I log in.

might be some help on one of these links.
Windows - Change iPad default backup location
http://apple-ipad-tablet-help.blogspot.com/2010/07/change-ipad-default-backup-lo cation.html
Windows - Changing IPhone and iPad backup location
http://goodstuff2share.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/changing-iphone-and-ipad-backup- location/
Sync Your iOS Device with a New Computer Without Losing Data
http://www.howtogeek.com/104298/sync-your-ios-device-with-a-new-computer-without -losing-data/
Syncing to a "New" Computer or replacing a "crashed" Hard Drive
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141
 Cheers, Tom

I tried transferring my iphoto library from my old macbook onto my new macbook pro (via external hard drive), but when i open the new iphoto, it seems to have transferred ALL images ever used on my old macbook. so i tried to just del

i tried transferring my iphoto library from my old macbook onto my new macbook pro (via external hard drive), but when i open the new iphoto, it seems to have transferred ALL images ever used on my old macbook. so i tried to just delete all those images so i could try a different approach to transferring, but the new iphoto won't let me do anything and every time i try to delete anything it crashes (since the image amount is so high). please help!!
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), iphoto '11, version 9.4.2

To move an iPhoto Library to a new machine:
Link the two Macs together: there are several ways to do this: Wireless Network,Firewire Target Disk Mode, Ethernet, or even just copy the Library to an external HD and then on to the new machine...
But however you do choose to link the two machines...
Simply copy the iPhoto Library from the Pictures Folder on the old Machine to the Pictures Folder on the new Machine.
Then launch iPhoto. That's it.
This moves photos, events, albums, books, keywords, slideshows and everything else.

My New Computer and My External Hard Drive Not Compatible

I just purchased a brand new Dell Inspiron with windows 8. I had a Seagate back up hard drive on my old Dell. I wanted to move some things (especially my pictures) to the new computer from the external hard drive, but when I tried to install, I get a message "Operating System Not Supported". Now what? I'm somewhat technologically challenged.
Thank you.

You need to go into your BIOS settings and make sure that the external drive isn't set to boot.
An easier way around this is to unplug the drive from the computer until it has fully loaded.
If that doesn't work, post back.
If you like my post, or solution to your issue/question, go ahead and click on the little star by my name and/or accept the post as the Solution. It makes me happy.
I'm NOT an employee of Best Buy, or Geek Squad, though I did work as an Agent for a year 5 years ago. None of my posts are to be taken as the official stance that Best Buy will take on your situation. My advice is just that, advice.
Unfortunately, that's the bad luck of any electronic, there's going to be bad Apples... wait that's a horrible pun.

Transfering iTunes files to new computer using external USB hard drive

Thought this could be useful:
If you want to transfer your complete iTunes library to a new computer preserving all your playlists and library information, but without using your iPod as a hard dive, or without burning a CD or DVD, you can do it by using an USB external hard drive following these easy steps:
1) Quit iTunes
2) Connect your USB external hard drive to your computer and acccess it thru My PC or Windows Explorer.
3) Create two new folders in your external hard drive (you can name them LIBRARY Backup and PLAYLISTS Backup).
4) Open the LIBRARY Backup folder.
5) Open another Windows Explorer or My PC window; open the iTunes Music folder (usually located in C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My documents\My music\iTunes).
6) Copy all of its contents (only the contents, not the whole folder) to the LIBRARY Backup folder you created in your external USB Hard Drive.
7) Close both the LIBRARY Backup folder from your USB external hard drive and the iTunes Music folder.
8) Open the PLAYLISTS Backup folder from your USB external hard drive
9) From your iTunes folder, copy the iTunes Music Library.xml to the PLAYLISTS Backup folder.
10) Close all the windows and extract your USB external hard drive from your PC ()
11) Install iTunes in your new computer.
12) Using Windows Explorer open the iTunes Music folder (usually located in C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My documents\My music\iTunes).
13) Connect the USB hard drive to your new computer and open it using another Windows Explorer window.
14) Open the LIBRARY Backup folder and copy all of its contents (only the contents, not the whole folder) to the iTunes Music folder in your new computer. After the copying is complete, close this folder.
15) Copy the PLAYLISTS Backup folder to you new computer’s desktop.
16) Close Windows Explorer and extract USB hard drive.
17) Open iTunes
18) From the File menu, choose Import. Navigate to the iTunes Music Library.xml file on the Desktop and click Choose. The imported playlist will show only songs located on the computer's hard disk or external media.
19) You can now delete the xml. file from your new computer’s desktop if you wish.
PC Windows XP Owner of 5th Generation iPod

Type "move itunes library" into the Google search bar.
Type "ipod touch not recognized by itunes" into the search bar at the top of this page by "Support"

Can't create new folder on an external hard drive, and how to transfer files?

Hello everyone,
the non-English speaking videographer I translate for is having problems operating his Premiere CS5 for Mac from an external hard drive. He cannot create new folder on the external hard drive (the "New Folder" button is grayed-out when tries to export media onto the external hard drive) and when he simply tries to create new folder, the "new folder" option isn't available.
He suspects it's because the hard drive was formatted for PC.
Questions:
- should PC-formatting cause that problem?
- what's the proper way to transfer media files from PC-formatted external hard drive to the internal hard drive on Mac?
Would appreciate your advice.
Dimitri Vorontzov

He is right on the money
Now, for the sad or FAT part. You need to format the drive as FAT32 to make it work both on PC and MAC but, and that is a big BUT, the max file size of any given file will be 4GB. I haven't treid other formats yet, like the journaled MAC OS extended, but I don't think that would work. We transfer our files through or own gigabit network so I never had to try it, other than FAT32 formatted SDHC cards.

I have over 1000 songs on an old computer and I want to copy them to a new one - I have a hard drive but it seems to only copy my purchased songs - any ideas?

I have over 1000 songs on an old computer and I want to copy them to a new one - I have a hard drive but it seems to only copy my purchased songs - any ideas?

Hi Le Etta,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities!
Take a look at the article below, it provides details and instructions for multiple ways of moving the music from an old computer to a new one.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
Method
Considerations
Home Sharing
The easiest option, as long as your new computer is already connected to the Internet.
External drive
Requires additional hardware but backs up your iTunes library.
Transferring purchases
Fastest, but only moves the content you purchased from the iTunes Store. Also requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod with the content on it.
Windows Migration Assistant
Works best for migrating from an old PC to a new Mac, and transfers more than iTunes.
-Jason

Why is my new Mac telling me my hard drive is full? It says I have 100 gigs used and I should have another 400 gigs of storage left. What is up?

Why is my new Mac telling me my hard drive is full? It says I have 100 gigs used and I should have another 400 gigs of storage left. What is up?

Are you using FileVault perchance?
FileVault-protected Home shows less capacity than what's available on the hard disk...
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24068

New tech help install new hard drive

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