Old data to new hard drive ...

I am about to upgrade both the RAM and hard drive in my early 2008 (black) macbook.
YIKES! I've never even changed the battery in a computer! Actually, though, I'm not so worried about the physical aspect but about the intelligence aspect.
I've purchased an enclosure for the current (old) HD and plan to do the restore from there. That was the suggestion of the very helpful people at Other World. However, just in case...
I have done a Time Machine backup to my WD MyBook. At least I hope I have. So, one question is:
How do I know that I've got a complete clone on my external drive?
When I look at "restore files" I don't see all of the applications, etc. But it doesn't really seem to give me the option to see that. I'm using WD SmartWare. (This may be a question for the WD boards but I'll ask it here too.)
Second question is - I know that when I turn on the computer again with its new HD I need to reinstall OSX. 10.5.8 is what I have but I'm assuming all that's on the disc is 10.5. Will I be able to just get the updates by going to software update? I am assuming that, like most things Apple, I will insert the disc and it will walk me through it? And then I plug in the old drive and manually just pull it all over to the computer again?
Third question is - while I'm doing this, does it make sense to go up to 10.6? and, if I do - when do I do it? Do I go to the store and buy a disc ($30?) and use that instead of the one that came with my computer? Or do I start off with the 10.5 and then go on line and update to 10.6?
Any advice appreciated.

Hello again Shadow,
The way I do this is to:
1) Install your new hard drive into your iBook
2) Get your iBook reassembeled
3) Place your old hard drive in your firewire enclosure
4) Insert your install DVD into your iBook and restart with the C key held down. When the installer launches, select your language in the first pane, click 'continue' and in the upper dropdown menu in the next page select Utilities > Disk Utility. After DU is open, select your hard drive from the list of volumes on the left (the very top one), and then click the 'Partition' tab to the right. Then select 1 partition (normal) and make sure that you have 'Mac OS Extended (journled)' selected in the lower section. Then click 'partition'
5)Quit disc utility, which brings you back to the installer. continue with your installation of OS X. In one of the first steps you will see a button on the lower left which says 'options' click on that and make sure that the option 'Installs OS X for the first time' is selected. It will normally be selected by default with a new drive.
6) After the installation, the Migration Assistant will ask if you would like to transfer your information from another mac. click yes then follow the instructions. but instead of using another mac, connect a firewire cable from your enclosure with your old hard drive installed. The installer will think that this is another mac and will transfer all of your account information and user files (everything!)from your old drive to your iBook's new drive. Just diconnect when it says to and complete the installation sequence.
You're done!
Check back again if anything is unclear.
Randy
Message was edited by: DesertSage

Similar Messages

Getting old data onto new hard drive

I've backed up my current hard drive and I will be replacing it with a new one tonight. My question is once I do this, do I just plug in my external drive with the back up and then...? How do I get my old data onto the new hard drive? Thanks!

How did you back it up, Surfer?
If you "cloned" the existing internal to the external, using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner, then you simply boot from the external drive, use Disc Utility to make sure that the new drive is formatted using the GUID partition scheme and HFS(extended) file system (and reformat it if it is not), and then clone back to the internal.
If you backed up using Time Machine or Disk Utility, then it will depend on what you chose to back up, but you may be best off re-installing the OS from your OS DVDs and then "migrating" the material from the drive (see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1553 and http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427 for some general information and links to other relevant material).
If you simply backed up data by dragging it across to the other drive then you will need to re-install the OS and applications from the original discs, set up a user account and then drag things back to the appropriate locations.
In all cases you should make sure that the drive is partitioned with the GUID partition scheme, and formatted as HFS(extended) first, though.
Cheers
Rod

Have Old Hard drive and want to move old data onto new hard drive in imac.

I am trying to get my files off of an old hard drive. I have it hooked up through a sata drive. I am able to access all the programs but for whatever reason I am unable to access any of the files, i.e- 1,00's of pictures, videos, music, and documents. Is there something else I need to do in order to get the files, or is it possible that all the programs could still be on it but the files are just missing? In the current Sata it only has two plugs but on my hard drive it looks like there is another place to plug something in.

Hello again Shadow,
The way I do this is to:
1) Install your new hard drive into your iBook
2) Get your iBook reassembeled
3) Place your old hard drive in your firewire enclosure
4) Insert your install DVD into your iBook and restart with the C key held down. When the installer launches, select your language in the first pane, click 'continue' and in the upper dropdown menu in the next page select Utilities > Disk Utility. After DU is open, select your hard drive from the list of volumes on the left (the very top one), and then click the 'Partition' tab to the right. Then select 1 partition (normal) and make sure that you have 'Mac OS Extended (journled)' selected in the lower section. Then click 'partition'
5)Quit disc utility, which brings you back to the installer. continue with your installation of OS X. In one of the first steps you will see a button on the lower left which says 'options' click on that and make sure that the option 'Installs OS X for the first time' is selected. It will normally be selected by default with a new drive.
6) After the installation, the Migration Assistant will ask if you would like to transfer your information from another mac. click yes then follow the instructions. but instead of using another mac, connect a firewire cable from your enclosure with your old hard drive installed. The installer will think that this is another mac and will transfer all of your account information and user files (everything!)from your old drive to your iBook's new drive. Just diconnect when it says to and complete the installation sequence.
You're done!
Check back again if anything is unclear.
Randy
Message was edited by: DesertSage

Downloading my old library to new hard drive?

Hi guys, I'll say sorry in advance, I'm a new user and completely useless with a computer.
Here's my problem, My hard drive recently packed in on me, so I had to buy a new one. I'm currently downloading Itunes again and was wondering if there is any way to get my old library and purchased albums onto this new hard drive?
Any help or support would be greatly appreciated :)!

You're going to have to find someone who can extract data from a broken hard drive. They'll more than likely have to take it apart and do whatever it is they do to get lost data off a hard drive. This type of procedure is not cheap, either.
A good place to start would be http://www.diskdoctors.com. For your average hard drive, data recovery is going to start at about $500 and can range all the way up to about $3,000. So, if your hard drive has crashed, you're looking at a hefty expense.

HT203167 external hard drive died and have new one. how can i get my old purchases onto new hard drive?

help! my external hard drive died. have tons of tv shows and movies on it. how can i get my old purchases from itunes onto my new hard drive?

Just plug it in and sync it.
(60463)

HELP!!! CAN'T RESTORE OLD CATALOG TO NEW HARD DRIVE

July 12, 2010
Hello,
Thank you for any help you can give with this rather desperate problem.
I have installed a replacement hard drive in my Dell Windows Vista laptop and reloaded Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0. I am unable to reconnect Elements with my old photo organizer catalog.
Thus the system says I have Elements installed, with a catalog with zero photos in it. When in fact I have 12,000 fotos all captioned, dated and tagged for the Elements organizer.
Elements HELP has nothing about reconnecting to an old photo catalog.
Is it possible (???) that Elements does not keep the catalog separate from the program itself – so that when the program itself is lost in the switch to a new hard drive, the catalog is also lost (unless the user made a backup somewhere)?
Anyway, here’s what happened:
I had made a fairly recent backup of the catalog to an external hard drive, so I copied that backup onto my new hard drive. Then in the Elements Organizer, I clicked on File; Restore Catalog from CD, DVD or Hard Drive. In the window that popped up, I directed it to the backup file (Backup.tly) and specified a location for restoring files and catalog. Then I clicked on Restore.
Up came a window that named one of my 12,000 fotos and said these approximate words “File already exists, do you want to overwrite it?”. I finally said Yes, and then it went on to another of my 12,000 fotos and asked the same question. I assume it planned to go through all 12,000 fotos, but I can’t imagine why.
But instead of continuing, I then got a window that said, “Error encountered while restoring catalog. It is recommended that you contact your disc drive manufacturer and upgrade to the latest available firmware for your specific disc drive before trying again.” (By the way, all my other programs are working fine on the new hard drive.)
I sure hope someone out there can tell me what’s going on. Thank you so much.
Don

You copied the backup onto your new hard drive? Yes or no? Where was it before?
Then did you try to restore to the exact same location where you placed the copy?
HEre is the proper way to restore a catalog: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/402/kb402894.html
By the way ... you say: "Elements HELP has nothing about reconnecting to an old photo catalog." I disagree.
You say: "Is it possible (???) that Elements does not keep the catalog separate from the program itself" not only is it possible, but Elements does indeed keep the catalog separate from the program itself.

Restoring data after new hard drive installed

I just got my MacBook Pro laptop back from Best Buy after having a new hard drive installed. I did not have them restore my files, as I have backed up files on my external hard drive- WD My Passport for Mac. I never originally did anything to the external drive in terms of setting it up, partitioning it, or anything. I just plugged it into my laptop and assumed it was doing the backing up. Also, now that I have my laptop back, I wanted to see if the external hard drive did what I hoped it was doing- backing up my files. I have have now plugged My Passport in hoping to restore my laptop and have discovered that I can't open some files from my iWorks files, as it appears that I may now have to reinstall that app. I guess I was assuming this app would have been saved to My Passport. In order to fully restore my files myself (trying to be more computer independent) what should I do? I have been reading some of the other questions people have asked that seem to be related to what I'm trying to do and read about partitioning My Passport. Should I go in now and make the one partition under the Volume Scheme on My Passport and then switch the name and the partition scheme from Apple Partition Map to GUID Partition Table? The message I'm getting is telling me that partitioning this disk in this way will delete all the data on this disk, so I cancelled and reset everything back the way it was, concerned I would lose all my data. Any help is greatly appreciated.

You can download iWorks from the App Store. Since you purchased it previously it should be a free download.
Repartitioning or reformatting a disk will erase all the data on it.
If you are already testing your iWork files it sounds like you have restored or can restore the files. Other than iWorks, what did not get restored?

Transfer data to new hard drive.

I have a MacBook Pro with a 750GB hard drive, but I have ordered a new 1TB one. I do not have any other Macs that are available easily to me so how can I transfer all of my data to my new 1TB HDD when it comes? I am making the 750GB into an external USB 3.0 and I also have a 500GB external HDD that I can use for Time Machine if That would work.
How will I install Mountain Lion onto my new HDD?
Thank you,
Sam

1. Connect the new hard disk and press Command and R keys in boot
2. Go to Disk Utility and erase the new hard drive
3. Install Mountain Lion
4. When the computer asks, select the older hard drive to restore to the new one

Old Domain Files- New hard Drive

Apple just replaced my 120gb hard drive in my Powerbook. Successfully transfered files from an external bootable clone. The clone was about a month old, but I also have regular backups on external drives, including iLife backups. Trouble is, I tried to use "Backup" to restore the incremental backups but the program seems to hang indicating that it is locating backups??? I'm looking right at the backups on two different external drives. I even clicked on the incremental backup to start the "Backup" program.
Please help getting the incremental backups added to my existing hard drive so that my files will be current? I'm very concerned that my domain files are not current, so I can't publish any new iWeb work. The Domain files on the new hard drive are not the most current--publishing will actually erase some of the published work currently on the web. Anyone?

Double clicking the incremental backup file should bring up the Backup 3 window. After a short pause you should get another window - iWeb Backup - or whatever you called your backup plan.
This window has a "Restore" button.

How to recover data onto new hard drive

I have a hard drive that is failing, and I was going to get a new one. If I reinstall windows on the new hard drive and then transfer a system image from my backup external hard drive, will this work? Also, what about the system repair disc?

BB probably wants to sell you a copy of Windows.
Watch this>>
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/videos/restoring-your-pc-after-a-hard-drive-failure...
******Clicking the Thumbs-Up button is a way to say -Thanks!.******
**Click Accept as Solution on a Reply that solves your issue to help others**

IPad won't sync with old iMac with new hard drive.

The new drive recognizes the iMac, and the photos on the iPad were successfully imported into iPhoto, but 2 home videos on the iMac will not transfer. I have tried to manually drag and drop, different cords and ports, over wi-fi, etc... The Summary box says the iPad has never backed up to this computer, but when I try to do that, it tries and then stops with no error message. The Movies tab has the two videos I want to transfer, but the sync button is gray. I have hard rebooted the iPad and restarted the iMac. Also deauthorized and reauthorized the iMac. I suspect that somehow the iPad is not recognizing the new hard drive. Is that possible? Any suggestions? Thank you for your help!

I don't mean the latest version of iOS. I mean the latest version of iTunes on your Mac.
Open iTunes on your Mac. Click Help and then Check For Updates

Restore Old info on New Hard Drive

Greeting,
I recently sent in my Powerbook G4 (Tiger) to the depot center in order to get my screen fixed (screen was completely dark). The good news is, they fixed the screen and upgraded my hard drive. The bad news is, there is nothing on the updated hard drive.
Prior to sending the unit out, I did two backups to an external drive:
1. Backed up the entire drive using .mac backup utility
2. Created a clone using disk utility
(these were the only two options I had, since I could hardly see the screen and I have used these utilities before)
My first question is, what would be the best way to restore the new hard drive with the backups that I have?
My second question is, I briefly powered up the unit and saw the welcome screen. I assume that I will have to go through the set-up again in order two complete either of the above options. Is this correct?
Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Connect the external drive and restart the computer. After the chime press and hold down the OPTION button until the boot manager screen appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the large right arrow button.
After startup use Disk Utility to clone the external drive to the new internal drive:
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Old ipod Touch, new hard drive on old computer

My laptop recently crashed and I was unable to get a backup of my music.
It was taken away and a new hard drive was put in, now it's fine.
Here's the problem. My music's still on my ipod, is there any way to get it back on my computer through the ipod?
If not is there at least a way I can put new music on the ipod without deleting the music I had on it before?

Hi,
There are lots of applications for this task available, just Google.
This question has been answered many times on this forum e.g see this post from [Zevoneer|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8618988&#8618988]
Good luck,
Dud.

Can't access old data on external hard drive.

Hello all,
I purchased my Macbook Pro about a year ago, and never really had any problems unless I was slow on updating. Well, I recently updated, and that's when everything went to pot. My computer became really slow - constantly giving me the spinning rainbow ball - and it would do this for up to an hour. I would have to keep manually shutting down and restarting. Then, it would show a loading bar when I tried to restart, but then it would just shut off completely by itself, without ever fully loading. I tried Safe Boot, but to no avail. After that, I attempted to boot from the Mac OSX Snow Leopard disc, but that didn't work either, because it said the disc was damaged when I did a disc repair. So, I did one the other options in disc utility: Restore. However, I did this on an external hard drive (1 TB, Western Digital) that I had just purchased after the Safe Boot failure because my 250 GB was too small for me to run Time Machine on. I placed the Macintosh HD as the source and the external hard drive as a recipient, for I had read that this works effectively in transferring files before erasing the hard drive. I then erased the internal hard drive, and booted from the disc, completely reinstalling the whole system.
My computer works just as smoothly as it did before all this happened, but now there's just one problem - I cannot access anything off of the external HD. I can see the music and video files that I used to have in iTunes, and they are .m4v, .mp3 and .m4p, but iTunes and Quicktime do not recognize them. If I double click on them, it says the files are not complete (as with the Applications on the external HD). I cannot find any of my old Word Documents or pictures, just music and movie files, and Applications. When I plug my external HD into my computer, it shows up as "Macintosh HD" and a notification that it cannot be changed and that it needs to be reformatted.
Is there no hope in recovering my old pictures and Word Documents? They were all on my first 250 GB hard drive, but I erased that in attempt to make more room for Time Machine.
Thank you for your help!

raneyeb wrote:
They were all on my first 250 GB hard drive, but I erased that in attempt to make more room for Time Machine.
If you simply reformatted the drive, but didn't overwrite it with new data, there is a chance recovery software can recover your files.
You need something like DataRescue that reads the 1's and 0's of your files directly off the platters (not what anything else says) and you need another new drive to send those recovered files too when your doing it. (can't write to the same drive, it would overwrite the deleted data)
If you let TimeMachine use the drive, or you copied data onto it, or did a "Security Erase Option" then it's all gone, sorry.
Next time, once your all stable again, take a look at Carbon Copy Clone your entire boot drive (no filevault or bootcamp) to another HFS+ journaled formatted drive, it's hold option bootable and will save your bacon if a boot drive dies or if OS X gets hozed due to some unforseen software issue.
I maintain 2 clones, rotate them every few weeks, they get auto-upddated nightly.
TimeMachine I don't use, but if I did, it would be in addition to the two clones, as TM isn't bootable and is not quite reliable when you restore back from it sometimes.

How to restore data on new hard drive

My old hard drive crashed and now I need to move the data I'd been backing up on an external hard drive. I believe I did a whole drive backup weekly.
How do I go about transferring the data from the external to the new internal drive?
Thank you.

Have you formatted the new HD to HFS+ (Journaled)?
Is your backup HD connected via Firewire? If so boot to the external HD & use the same cloning software to transfer the files back to your new HD.
If your external HD is connected via USB, you'll have to use your Tiger install DVD to install Tiger on the new HD. Then boot to the new HD & install* the update to 10.4.11. Then, drag & drop the files/applications on the external HD back to the new HD.
*After you install the base 10.4.x, update to the final Tiger version 10.4.11. Here's the link for the 10.4.11 combo update http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24901?viewlocale=en_US
 Cheers, Tom

Old data to new hard drive ...

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