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  #1  
Old 07-24-2008, 04:02 AM
zestyping zestyping is offline
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Migrating from one hard drive to another

Hello,

Thank you so much for creating SuperDuper!

The hard drive in my PowerBook is showing problems (SMART is giving warnings; booting will sometimes fail, but the drive seems to run normally when kept cool). I expect its remaining lifetime to be short.

So, I would like to use SuperDuper! to migrate everything to a new drive. I would like to make the new drive a bootable clone of the current one, so I can replace the laptop's internal drive with the new drive, boot up and go on using my PowerBook seamlessly.

I have a USB enclosure for 2.5" hard drives. The PowerBook runs OS 10.4. What's the correct procedure?

Plan A:
1. Take apart the PowerBook, remove the dying drive and replace it with the new drive.
2. Boot the PowerBook using the OS 10.4 install DVD.
3. Running Disk Utility off of the DVD, partition the blank internal drive as one big "Mac OS Extended" partition.
4. Open a Terminal window and use it to launch SuperDuper! from a flash memory stick.
5. Put the old drive in the USB enclosure and plug it in (the clock starts ticking...). Using SuperDuper!, copy the external (dying) drive to the internal (blank) drive. Reboot.

I also have access to a friend's MacBook Pro running 10.5, which gives me a couple of other options:

Plan B:
1. Put the blank drive in the USB enclosure.
2. Using Disk Utility on the MacBook, partition the blank drive as one big "Mac OS Extended" partition.
3. Boot the PowerBook (the clock starts ticking...), then plug in the enclosure and a flash memory stick containing SuperDuper!.
4. Running SuperDuper! from the memory stick, copy the internal (dying) drive to the external (blank) drive.
5. Take apart the PowerBook, remove the dying drive and replace it with the new drive, and reboot.

Plan C:
1, 2. Same as Plan B.
3. Connect the PowerBook to the MacBook with a FireWire cable. Boot the PowerBook in Target Drive mode (the clock starts ticking...).
4. Running SuperDuper! on the MacBook, copy the PowerBook-as-target-drive to the external (blank) drive.
5. Take apart the PowerBook, remove the dying drive and replace it with the new drive, and reboot.

Regarding these plans, I have three questions:
1. I'm likely to have only one shot at the copy, so I want to be sure that the resulting drive is ready to use. Which of these plans is most likely to work? Or is there a better plan?
2. For all of these plans, is there anything I need to know about setting the correct options when partitioning?
3. For all of these plans, when I run SuperDuper, should I "Backup - all files" or "Restore - all files" from the dying drive to the new drive?


I've looked in the FAQ area and didn't find answers to these; my apologies if I missed something. Perhaps other users of SuperDuper! would also benefit from a step-by-step guide to migration? I imagine this same procedure would be useful for replacing a dying hard drive, upgrading to a larger hard drive, or migrating to a new computer with the same hardware.

Thank you again for your generosity in creating SuperDuper! and taking the time to answer questions here.
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  #2  
Old 07-24-2008, 08:27 AM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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If your drive is already failing, it's kind of too late to do this kind of thing, but a few comments:

- Plan A won't work, because you can't run SD! from Terminal when booted from the DVD.
- Plan C won't work, because you shouldn't copy Tiger from Leopard

That leaves B. Not quite sure why you're running SD! off a flash drive, but that's what I'd try. But there's also Plan D:

- Get a FireWire case that would normally work as a boot drive
- Install Tiger or Leopard, clean, to the external
- When prompted to "migrate from another Mac", point it at the internal drive. That'll bring in your files and applications and avoid copying the OS, so at least you'd be copying a minimal amount of data
- Swap the drives

Yes, there's no SD! involved there, but since it copies as little as possible it might be your best shot.

Plan E would be the same as C except running Tiger, not Leopard. That'd be OK, too.

Finally: make sure you're using "Apple Partition Map" as your partition scheme, since you have a Power PC Mac.
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Old 07-25-2008, 05:26 AM
zestyping zestyping is offline
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Thanks for the advice!

> Plan A won't work, because you can't run SD! from Terminal when booted from the DVD.

If this is a kext issue, I remember at some point in the past I was able to start apps on the internal hard drive from a DVD boot, after doing some kextloads... a hassle, but it worked.

Alternatively, would Disk Utility's "Restore" function copy the external drive to the internal (yielding a bootable internal drive)?

> Plan C won't work, because you shouldn't copy Tiger from Leopard
> Plan E would be the same as C except running Tiger, not Leopard. That'd be OK, too.

Hmm, this is a surprise. I thought SD! would just make an exact copy from one drive to the other -- why does it matter which OS version SD! happens to be running on?
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Old 07-25-2008, 08:22 AM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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Without a read/write user folder, running SD! is really not going to work from the DVD, specific kexts or not. Certainly, users who aren't terribly sophisticated shouldn't try this.

The file system in Leopard is significantly different than Tiger's, has much more metadata included, etc. While copying from Leopard might work, it also might generate structures, EAs, etc that could cause issues: remember we're copying file-by-file, with system calls, and those calls will be Leopard calls, not Tiger. It's a generally bad idea.
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