Tutorial: Clone/Installing new hard drive (hdd) & install windows(FAT NTFS)

Question

This is a tutorial for people looking to clone their internal hard drive and install it into their macbook (usually because you've upgraded to a larger hdd). I have also included an installation of windows vis a vis boot camp style. Ive been battling this for the past 3 days, so hopefully this tutorial will answer some questions and save you some time.
1. Firstly get your external drive (clone) ready. Go to applications---->utilities---->disk utility. Click on your external drive and then partition it. I used 2 partitions, one for mac (200 GB) and one for windows (40 GB). For now partition in GUID partition format (found in options). This is important. You can check whether it actually as in GUID at the end of the format when you click on the drive and on the bottom part of the screen it will give you all the drive information. (NOTE: if you have a standard windows installation you can have 1 partition at this stage and then later let boot camp create a partition for you. Boot camp will only format in FAT, so all windows using NTFS are out of luck).
2. if you ve decided to go for 2 partitions, format the windows partition into FAT or NTFS. If you are using windows 7 (which by the way, is a pretty good effort by microsoft and WAS free to download on beta), anyways if your using a windows which requires NTFS obviously format so. WINXP runs just fine on FAT and is probably the easier option. (This is a note for those formatting on NTFS; sometimes OSX with have some error in formatting NTFS at this stage, God knows why, dont download NTFS 3G or Disk Warrior, nothing will fix it. Just leave it for now and when your finished cloning and ready to install windows, use the XP CD to boot from and then you will be presented with the option of formatting in NTFS. I did this then exited before the actual XP install to get my windows 7 in there. (NOTE: you cannot clone windows installations, ntfs partitions, etc)
3. With your external drive ready. Download carbon copy cloner or super duper. I used super duper. So just choose your internal drive and 'backup all files' to your external. This disk will be bootable. It will not be necessary to use a third hdd to restore to. infact i tried both ways of doing it and both worked just as well as each other. No need for a third drive as some have suggested.
4. Once finished, check out the clone. Restart, just when the mac is starting HOLD down the 'option' key....you will be presented with a list of devices to boot from, choose your external (usb or firewire------> note usb only works for INTEL macs, if your not sure if you have an intel mac. In OSX click on the small black apple on the upper left hand corner of the screen and 'about this mac'....it should say whether its intel or not. Also if your pressing option and you get a padlock wanting a password (like i did), but you dont know the password. Dont worry. Get your OSX installation discs, reboot from those (it will do so automatically). Go to Utilities drop down menu and choose reset firmware password. The other 'reset password' resets the password which would come right before entering into OSX at startup.
5. Anyways, assuming your all good booting from your external drive, check out drive, whether everything is where it should be. if it check outs your good to go.
6. Disassemble macbook to install your clone (not that difficult, get a good youtube tutorial for this like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXqJn465lxs and be careful with disengaging your keyboard cable, otherwise its fairly straight forward. I did this about 6 times trying to get everything right and experimenting with installations. So im pretty blase about it
7. Start up your machine hold OPTION at startup, choose your now internal hdd. Your in. (NOTE: if you reset your firmware password the first time, you will have to do this again with your OSX discs)
8. If you have a standard windows installation you can download boot camp assistant or alternatively it will already be in applications---->utilities---> boot camp assistant. Boot camp will create you a partition and then ask you to put in the windows installation disc, is fairly automated.
9. If you decide to do it manually because you have 2 partitions already. Just restart with your windows cd in there and wait for it to boot, if it doesnt, restart, hold option key. Then just go through the usual windows installation, choose the partition with FAT or NTFS.
10. After all this you will have a working copy of OSX and Windows. I use VMWARE to use windows inside OSX, like a virtual drive. VMWARE has a more straight forward installation then Parallels Desktop (which is apparently faster).... but choose whatever works for you. To look at OSX files through Windows install MACDRIVE and you will be able to view and alter all files as you see fit.
Hopefully this tutorial was of some help. I don t generally read any mac forums so i cant really reply to any questions. I just wanted to post my experience so if someone else out there is searching for answers like i was, then these words will be guide and save you time trawling through numberless webpages......Good luck.

Answer 1

I would approach the situation as follows;
install Acronis, if your new HDD is from Seagate or Western Digital I believe you can download this free from their support sites.
create an Acronis Rescue Disc and when it's created uninstall Acronis as you don't need it any more.
attach external HDD and ODD and boot from the Acronis Rescue Disc
create an image of the current main HDD to the external HDD
remove current HDD from your X61 and insert the new HDD in it's place - this is very important.
boot from Acronis Rescue Disc and recover the image you created to it.
Enjoy your new hard drive.
Alternatively, if you can put your original HDD in the external HDD caddy (connectors are the same) or purchase a 2.5" caddy, you could clone after creating the Acronis Rescue Disc, step by step instructions for cloning can be found here.
Andy  ______________________________________
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