Replacing Boot HD

I need to replace the boot drive on my 2008 MacPro and would also like to organize all the drives better and need some advice on the what is the best way to proceed.
Currently installed are 4HDs: 1 is the boot drive (300GB), 3&4 are a RAID for files (1TB), and 2 is currently data (Aperture library, some video camera direct backups, FCS scratch disk) (1TB). The boot drive is failing and has had a couple of problems requiring a file structure rebuild using TechTools Pro, but still behaves oddly at times. I bought a 1TB drive to replace it.
My initial plan was to put the new disk in Bay 2 (leaving the RAID as is in drives 3&4), do a fresh install of OS X and then use Migration Assistant to move apps over from the old boot drive. However, I'm worried that there is a problem that could be copied over, but several large app packages (Final Cut studio and Adobe Creative Suite) take hours to install (and I have lots of apps) so if I can I want to avoid reinstalling all of them. Which would be the best course?
Also, should I move the Home Folder to the RAID set or will the new 1TB boot drive be able to handle everything? If I need to move it, how do I go about that? My Aperture, iPhoto and iMovie libraries are currently not on the boot drive.
Looking through the boards, I see people talking about Disk Warrior and Super Duper, neither of which I currently have. Would it be advisable to use these?

I would say that having TTPro 5, your need for Disk Warrior is somewhat less, otherwise I rate it a #1 must, and not to rely on Apple First Aid to first spot problem.
I love the WD 10K VelociRaptor ($199/300GB) for system, rock solid and very low seeks and latency, touch of SCSI.
Depends on your home folder and media library and files where it goes.
Wouldn't be without SuperDuper - use it weekly and before anything to modify or update (or install) on your working system drive(s).

Similar Messages

Want bigger hard drive and replace boot camp with parallels

Bought the 15" MBP on day one now more than two years ago. The 80 gig hard drive is nowhere near enough now and having to essentially shut down to run boot camp no longer works (I'm an accountant and need to be able to flip back and forth quickly).
Two questions:
1) Can I add a much bigger hard drive to my original version MBP?
2) If so, can I expand my pitiful 5 gig boot camp windows partition to, say, 20 gig and have parallels run it without having to reinstall all the windows programs?
That would be my perfect world, is it possible?

Are you under warranty? If so, you would probably want to get an Apple authorized repair shop to replace the hard drive so you don't risk voiding your warranty. But you can replace it with a much larger one, like the 320 GB Western Digital or the 500 GB Samsung if you can find one. There is another thread on this forum concerning the 500 GB drives. Not all 500 GB drives will fit in a 15" MBP--some are too tall.
Not familiar with either boot camp or parallels, but with the bigger drive, you should be able to easily have a bigger partition for windows. As to whether you would need to reinstall the windows programs, someone more familiar with windows would have to address that part of your question.
Good luck!

Procedure to replace boot drive.

Hi folks,
I'm feeling especially dense tonight. Have been googling and just can't find what I need. I have an Imac running OSX 10.8.5 My boot drive no longer passes SMART. I have an external drive running time machine. My question is...... When I install a new drive, is it just a simple matter of booting using control-R and restoring through time machine? If not, what exactly do I need to do?
Also, how dificult is it to take apart the Imac and replace the drive?
And lastly, I need to make sure I'm interpreting this correctly. In my disk utilities window, topmost it displays: "500.11 GB ST3500418AS" in red. If I select that, on the right side of the screen is displayed "This device has a hardware problem that can not be repaired" It does not give me any verify or repair buttons to use. Right below that on the left is my Macintosh HD. My computer was running poorly, and checking around utilities, I found that this drive had errors. However, verifying, then repairing that drive worked great. The computer is running great again. So, am I correct that "Macintosh HD" is a partition of 500.11.........? And that the drive is physically failing?
Thanks folks. I couldn't find what I wanted on Google, I don't know why.

What model year is your iMac? If it is new enogh that it came with Lion or Mt Lion Pre-Installed then yes once you change the hard drive you use Command + r key (Not Control + r) and that may boot you to the Online Internet recovery system from which you can Restore your Mac from your Time Machine backup drive.
If it older and originally came with Snow Leopard then you;ll need to use the original system reinstall disc to boot the computer and then Restore fron your time machine backup drive. Once you repplace the hard drive on system older than when Lion came out you might not have access to the Online recovery system as it wasn't included on older Mac computers and the drive that has the built in Recovery HD partition from the install of either Lion, Mt Lion or Mavericks is no longer in the system.
So what model year is your Mac and what version of OS X came on it when it was new?

Pavilion Notebook Hard drive replacement boot problem

Hi .. hoping for help...
Just purchased a zv5000 pavilion notebook with a bad hard drive ....
Replaced hard drive with a western digital 160 gig ...
When I try to boot with the original application and driver Recovery DVD, I get the following message ...
Intel undi, pxe-2.0 (Build 082) Copyright 1997-2000 Intel Corporation.
For realtek RTL8139(X) 18130/810 PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE Rom ...
This is as far as I can get and the message just repeats ...
I have gone into set-up andmade sure I am booting from the CD Rom drive, but still have same problem.
Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong ?
Thank you for any tips ... have a great day
Sam
This question was solved.
View Solution.

I have not replaced my hard drive on my Pavilion notebook, but I am getting the same message when I try to turn on my computer.
Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.
What does this mean?
Did you find an answer to this problem?

Replacing Boot Drive on Power PC G4

I have a Dual Ghz, Power PC G4 (2.1), OSX 10.4.7
The original hard drive (80gb) is just about full and
I wanted to upgrade to another, larger drive.
I do have two other 80 gb drives in the computer used
for other files. But that is a separate issue.
I was told that I can only add up to a 120 gb drive to
replace my 80 gb drive. But when I went to Fry's they
didn't have any 120 gb so I bought a 200 gb Maxtor
ATA/100 internal Harddrive kit.
But on the box it says that for a driver larger than
137 gb it requires a Mac compatible ATA PCI card with
48 bit bios support.
So I bought an eXrack Serial ATA Mac PCI Host Adaptor
Card, 2-Port Serial ATA 133 Dual Connection card.
But before I tear into my G4 and replace the harddrive
and try and install the card, I was hoping somebody
might tell me if I'm on the right track. Can I install the 200 GB drive and if so, do I need the PCI card I purchased?
Or should I hold out till I find the 120 gb drive?
Or should I try and get an external drive and boot
from that?
That's all for now.
Dual 1 Ghz Power PC G4 (2.1) Mac OS X (10.4.7) 2 additional 80 gb seagate drives

This is the first time I have posted and I do appreciate the responses. It's good to know there is a community out there that gives a darn.
As for what I ended up doing...I believe my Mac is one of the Pre June 2002 Macs so I bought a lacie D2-250 GB external drive, connected it via firewire, and then dragged most of my applications and other files (Sound Track Loops, etc.) to the Lacie and now I have enough room on my boot drive to make new installs.
And for now that's how I'm going to leave it until I buy my Pro Mac next year.
Thanks again.

Order replacement boot dvd

I know there is a place on Apple's site to order a replacement install DVD that came with a MacBook. I was there yesterday and I can't find it now. Anyone know where to go?

Call AppleCare to order replacements for your software restore discs.

Using External HD as Boot Drive

The original HD in my 17 Flat-Panel expired.
I can't bear to part with this computer and its great widescreen swivel monitor. I only wish to use it as a family web surfer, so I'm not interested in paying to have the repair shop break into the shell nor am I capable of doing it myself.
Would an external HD used as the boot drive be enough to run this Mac in this way?
If so, can anyone suggest the minimum HD specs necessary to do this?
Many thanks in advance.
Vince

Hi there:
An external FireWire enclosed hard disk drive (boot-capable FireWire - not all are able to do this
due to some differences in the chipset which controls data flow in the enclosure.) With an external
power supply, and an installed hard disk drive probably larger than 250GB, a buffer of at least
16MB, and a spin rate of 7200 RPM should do the job. To avoid WD brand internal hard drives
may be an advised choice to save you concerns later on. Some people like them, but there are
more compatible choices in Seagate, Maxtor, Hitachi/IBM, and a few others. - Western Digital is
not high on my list of replacement boot disks.
As to the brand of the enclosure, you may have to consider some of the Mac-friendly vendors
who have a good return policy should the drive unit or enclosure fail to perform as desired. If
you someday chose to have this external drive (outside of the FireWire enclosure) put into
the iMac G4 17" to replace the worn-out one, this drive should match those of the original's
size (shape) specifications to physically fit; & it cannot be an SATA-type drive. PATA or ATA
and not serial ata, is the kind that would work in the older G4 as an internal replacement, too.
An external enclosure with an SATA drive could work, solely as an external; but you could
save a bit of time by having a drive on hand just in case you find opportunity to actually fix
the tired iMac G4 correctly.
The cost to get into the iMac G4 to change the clock battery, is almost the same as having
someone go inside and replace the hard disk drive. Only the parts differ in cost; plus a bit
for the time. The big chunk of time is knowingly attending to details, such as thermo paste
and torquing screws, cleaning dust out, and putting it together correctly.
If you already have a suitable drive on hand - {probably an extra, so you still have the FireWire
enclosure as a bootable backup to the computer, and a source for a clone to move into the
computer whenever that gets the proper fix} - that would save you from some higher costs if
you do get a best brand internal hard disk drive replacement for that fix.
Is there a mac user group in your area? You may find someone among those members in a
local group who has successful experience and a place to properly replace parts in the iMac
G4 you have, and restore its functions correctly. The internal RAM chip can be at least 512MB
and that can give the computer a good basis for functioning in Tiger; and a 1024MB laptop RAM
in the user-accessed slot would be more than adequate for most uses the machine could see.
...In addition to the hard disk drive; fast, large, with large buffer, and new, inside the computer.
The clock battery, a new hard disk drive, larger internal RAM in hard to get to slot, and a
de-dusting. Those could be good to do when thinking of ways to keep the iMac running.
Good luck & happy computing!

I would like to do a full restore from time machine but have lost my boot/install disk.

Hi,
Recently had my HDD replaced (with fresh OS installed) and even though I have everything backed up on time machine am struggling to complete a full restore.
After reading time machine help understand I need to mac os install/boot disk to get to the time machine full restore utlility.
I cannot find my install disk. Can I create one from my current mac?
Any suggestions? Thanks!

The install disk cannot be created. If you call Apple (1-800-MYAPPLE) they should be able to order you a new set of disks specifically for your computer.
I found this old answer talking about what the disks are:
If you bought your computer new, you may be able to contact Apple about buying a replacement boot/install disc#1 for your specific computer. If a disc is lost or damaged, they have been known to be able to help. Not sure if a call to Sales Support would be the direction to take on this; but it would make more sense to ask them about the replacement.
The disc #1 and #2 that come with the machine will (or more, if it has a CD packet and the OS is not on a DVD) restore the computer to how it was new. If you upgrade to an all new OSX version and wanted to add the original applications (instead of buying new ones; not always a good idea if the leap was a great one from original OS to the last version) you could use the disc #2 to add applications to a system. It has installers, & won't boot.

G5 PPC Won't boot After New Drives, Battery & RAM Installed

Since installing new boot drive, new battery, and additional matched RAM, when I start up I'm expecting DVD drawer to open automatically for installation of MAC OS, but all I get is a screen icon of a Mac folder, without a question mark. Tried starting up again and this time got black screen. I popped DVD drawer open and inserted MAC OS Leopard disc then restarted once while holding down C key. Nothing, but after a few minutes fans went into overdrive. Restarted again without holding C key, got black screen. I really can't hear the install disc spinning either.
I've replaced boot drive a long time ago and didn't have this problem. Wondering if RAM or new battery caused anything to go wrong. I had a grounding strap on during all my internal work on the mac.
Thanks for any suggestions
Steve

Thanks for the reply.
Don't see logic in booting without either optical or HD as I can't go forward without both online. Hard drive is unformatted. But one thing: I had pulled the jumper to make it SATA 3 for better performance. Maybe replace jumper?
Battery polarity is correct, positive to the left. I even reinserted the old battery to see if that made a difference.
Are you suggesting reseating all the RAM or just the new RAM? I'll try removing the new RAM.
Tried resetting PRAM but system never chimed a second time, system didn't recognize the command for it.
Won't boot up in OF mode.
Sometimes boots to black screen, other times to white screen. Sometimes the folder icon, sometimes not.
In every case system will go into fan overdrive after about 4 minutes.

How do I install a 512MB SSD in my ENVY dv7-7212nr Notebook PC?

My dv7-7212nr Notebook has a 640GB HDD & a 32GB MSATA running Windows 8.1 on Intel 4-core CPU. I bought a Crucial 512GB SSD and an Install Kit with cloing software. I cloned the drive onto the new SSD with no issues. I removed the HDD and installed the new SSD.
Upon boot up got "Your PC needs to be repaired Error Code 0xc000025".
I removed the new SSD and reinstalled the original HDD and it booted up fine. I removed the HDD again and installed the new SSD but this time I also removed the existing 32GB MSATA SSD (what a pain getting to it).
Upon boot up I got "A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed Error Code 0xc000225"
The new SSD shows up in the bios boot order. What am I doing wrong?

Just boot from it and select repair your computer
Here is a Microsoft tutorial:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/how-do-i-fix-a-boot-startup-problem
You are going to perform a startup repair and it should replace boot files onto the SSD. The files you cloned from the old drive onto the SSD should be enough for the repair disk to see that there is a repairable Windows 8.1 installation on the drive and put the extra files needed to boot up onto it. It could take 2 or 3 restarts.

How do I transfer all data from my old internal hard drive to a new internal hard drive

How do I transfer all data from my old internal hard drive to a new internal hard drive? I have an iMac with a 320gb internal HD that is full and I am replacing it with a 2tb internal drive. I have several external drives; 1 tb, 2tb and 3 tb. The 2 tb is being used for Time Machine. Do I have to buy an enclosure? If so, where would I get an inexpensive one?
I also want to partition the new internal drive for Windows, and I'm not sure how much space to use for that. I plan to use Windows to check my work in PowerPoint created on my Mac for clients on PCs.

Do you already have Time Machine making backups onto the 2TB drive? If so, after you get the internal drive replaced, boot up into the recovery partition (hold down ⌘R) and restore the latest Time Machine backup that you have onto the new internal drive.
I recommend always having two backups. I'd use SuperDuper to make a complete clone of your internal drive onto an external drive in addition to having the Time Machine backup.
Boot Camp is what is used to make partitions for Windows. How much space to allocate depends on how much space you expect Windows to use up based on how you plan to use it.

Trying to free up space on hard drive, with an external hard drive, but don't want to lose the files!

So I am really stressed out right now.
I have a macbook pro, with a 750 gb hard drive in it. My internal hard drive filled up a while back so I bought a 3TB external hard drive. I backed up my files onto my external a while ago, but I don't really remember how... There is a folder on my hard drive that is called " wd smartware.swstor" , and inside that folder is about 1.7 TB of files (when I click 'get info')... So I'm guessing that is where all my stuff is being backed up. But I also moved files from my computer onto that hard drive, like pictures and videos, that I wanted to delete off my internal... So I may have duplicates?
But my 3TB hard drive is almost full, it has 400GB free on it. And my 750gb internal hard drive on my macbook pro, has filled up again so it only has 10gb free space. So basically I have almost 3TB of files on my external hard drive, and 740gb on my internal.. This can't be right. There is no way I have this many files. I am guessing I have some of the same files on my internal that I do on my external.. Most of my files are high quality HD video files that I imported through final cut pro x....
So I bought another 3TB external hard drive that I haven't used yet. Basically, I just want to move all my files that are on my internal hard drive (roughly 750gb) onto my NEW external 3TB hard drive- and then delete the files off my internal so I have more free space. I just don't know if these files are already being backed up on my OLD external 3TB hard drive.
Can someone please help? Thank you!

craigbuckley wrote:
If I get rid of my TIme Machine, will I lose all my files from the past?
Yes it will unless you back it up first out of TM.
TimeMachine is a self rotating image of your boot drive with saved states, it manages itself based upon the available space on the drive. As new states are created, old ones are deleted along with older versions of your files.
Also if you incur a drastic large change to your boot drive, TimeMachine will DELETE older versions of your files.
TimeMachine is not a archival solution!
To rescue yourself from TimeMachine, you will first need to save the recent copy of file(s) to the new 3TB, then restore the older version of the file from TimeMachine to the boot drive and then rename it/date it and save that older copy to the new 3TB drive.
This way you have both the new copy and the old copy of the file pernamently archived on the new 3TB drive.
Once you have exhausted all of TimeMachines older files, you can free yourself from it, erase the drive.
For your needs, I suggest this.
Internal drive and bootable clone
1: Your internal 750GB boot drive contains active working files.
2: You have another external drive that's either 750GB or 1TB, you use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable clone of your boot drive, update it when you know you have a stable OS X system on your boot drive and before updates or changes, this way if the update goes bad and the machine will not boot. You can connect the clone, hold the option key down and boot the comptuer from the clone. You then can get online to get help, or simply reverse clone your software problems away.
CCC has the ability like TimeMachine to save states between clones, it's on be default but you can turn this off as to maintain a pure clone, this is what I advise you do as to avoid confusion. You clone is a perfect copy since the last update of the clone, which you can setup to do nightly if you wish or every few days or every few weeks, whatever.
Your bootable clone is your lifesaver if your boot hard drive dies or refuses to boot up, you can boot from the clone in seconds and only be slightly off since the last update of the clone. TM won't run the computer like a clone will.
I highly adise keeping your clone in a very safe place, away from theft, fire, electrical, etc.
http://www.bombich.com/
External Storage Drives
3: Your first external 3TB drive (sans TimeMachine) will be your storage drive, this will contain any files that you don't wish to have on the internal drive and as a result also not on the clone.
You maintain folders that are dated, with older copies of files in those folders if you wish. This way you can control the space on the drive and not make multiple duplicates of all the large files like TM does.
For instance if you work on a 100GB project for three days, instead of having three copies taking up 300GB like what TM does, you can rather choose to have just one older copy at 100GB. You can decide you don't need a particular older version of a file and remove it, thus managing your drive space yourself.
4: Your other external 3TB is a Carbon Copy Cloner backup of the first 3TB, maintain a perfect clone of that as well and update it periodically as your needs change. Since CCC can be schedualed and works in the background, you can have it update your clones overnight or another time your not using the machine. This free's up performance as TM isn't running in the background while your trying to work.
Also with no TM local cache file, that also will free up space on the boot drive.
The general rule is you need both hardware AND software protection for your data, thus with too much data to fit on the boot drive, you need a external storage drive and then a backup of that as to maintain TWO hardware copies of your data at all times.
This method is also scaleable, if you need more room than 3TB externally, you then get another 2 3TB drives, one for the new data and one for backup.
The bootable clone of your bootdrive is kept in a very safe place, it's designed to protect your OS X investment in software etc. and espectially, to get your Mac booting in as short as a time as possible while you plan on a replacement boot hard drive/repair.
Read more about the advanced options bootable clones give here.
Most commonly used backup methods
With your large storage needs, you basically have outgrown TimeMachine by hitting the hardware limit of drives.
If there were 10-20TB drives, you likely could keep on going with TimeMachine, but you can't.
Your clearly in the more "professional" catagory with your storage management needs, not in the TM "newbie to computers" where it's managed for you.
If your finding your needs are going to exceed 6TB, you might want to consider a external hardware RAID 5 box with 5+ drives, they will self redundancy so if a drive dies you just switch it with a new one and the missing data is copied from the other drives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
http://www.macgurus.com/
Good Luck

Reinstall failure

Hi guys
I'm running into some problems with my iBook. Lately it has been extremely slow..nothing will start with less then 10 bounces. I figured it's time to re-install my OS, but then i realized i lost my install disk. I tried using the disk from my mini, but that didn't work either. I booted the iBook into target mode to try and re-install that way when i received the error "the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" I'm stuck, anyone know what i should do? thanks.
-alex

Hi there:
You may have to use the computer's Activity Monitor and other internal
means to see how full the hard disk drive is getting; since that may be
the cause of the slowdown and sluggishness you've observed there.
If you have many saved files, music, images, .mov and other stuff,
you probably should see about making an off-computer archive and
then go into the computer and remove the originals saved in there.
You may be able to order a replacement boot-install disc specific to
your computer from Apple Support (or sales support, maybe) for a fee.
There may not be enough free-space on the Mac's hard disk drive to
support a new system folder; so installing one may be out. And this
problem, if based on too-full a hard disk drive, won't change that way.
An 'archive and install' would create a new System folder and put
the old one into a non-bootable file named 'previous system' on
the hard disk drive of your computer; if there were enough room to
have the correct installer do this. You can't use a different model
Mac installer (as you are finding) to do this; the OS X on retail boot
disc must be newer OSX version than the one shipped in the Mac.
There are some basic rules that have remained consistent overall.
And a few work-arounds, if you happen to have more tools.
Good luck & happy computing!

How to migrate to a new 4TB disk (switching from MBR to UEFI)

I have an HP Pavilion p7-1167c running Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1.
My 1TB drive ran out of space, so I want to migrate to a new 4TB drive. However, the current drive is a MBR drive and I understand that I need to use UEFI to be able to utilize the full 4TB (ie I am limited to using 2TB of the 4TB if the 4TB drive is formatted as an MBR drive).
In the past when migrating to a new drive, I just cloned the drive. Can I still do this, even though they are formatted differently? I'm not sure if a cloning process would clone data from a MBR disk to a UEFI disk while keeping the disk formatting, or if a clone requires that the source and target disks be the same formatting.
If I can clone a drive from a MBR disk to a UEFI disk, how would I get my PC to boot using the new disk? Do I maybe need to change something in the BIOS to cause the PC to support UEFI?
If I can't clone the drive due to needing to go from MBR to UEFI, what should I do? Is the only option to do a build from scratch (ie reinstall the OS from scratch with the UEFI disk installed, then re-install all the apps, and then re-load my data from a backup)? I'm hoping to avoid this, due to the obvious large amount of effort that would take.
Thanks in advance for any guidance as to how how I might migrate my system to this new drive, while being able to utilize the full 4TB of space.
Thanks!

Hi Steve,
Another point of clarification. You should be able to use a 4 TB hard drive for data. To use it as a replacement boot drive would required some special efforts using retail media and provided that the boot sources will support UEFI boot devices. If you boot up W8 installation media in UEFI mode then you could try installing W8 to the GPT formatted hard drive. I haven't tried this on your particular model so I can't say for sure that it will work.
HP DV9700, t9300, Nvidia 8600, 4GB, Crucial C300 128GB SSD
HP Photosmart Premium C309G, HP Photosmart 6520
HP Touchpad, HP Chromebook 11
Custom i7-4770k,Z-87, 8GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650,GTX 760
Custom i7-4790k,Z-97, 16GB, Vertex 3 SSD, Plextor M.2 SSD, Samsung EVO SSD, Corsair HX650, GTX 660TI
Windows 7/8 UEFI/Legacy mode, MBR/GPT

Reinstalling CS2 on new hard drive from download. Disk 1 installs and asks for Disk 2 which I can't get to install.

I'm trying to reinstal CS2 on my newly replaced boot drive from a download. Disk 1 installs and then request me to insert Disk2. How do I direct it to the disk2 download?

move the unzipped contents of all three files to the same directory. then install.

Replacing Boot HD

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