Transitioning between Notebook Drives

[ompus]

I have a macbook w/a 120 GB hard drive. I'm upgrading to a 250 GB hard drive. To accomplish this, I plan on sticking the new drive into an external, USB 2.0 enclosure. Next, I'll clone the existing drive using SuperDuper. Once I've cloned the smaller drive, I'll stick the new drive into the Macbook and go on my happy way... hopefully.

If anyone can comment on the soundness of this plan, I'd appreciate the advice.

[dnanian]

Should work fine. Make sure the replacement drive is properly partitioned using the "GUID" Partition scheme with Disk Utility, and before you swap it, rename it to have the same name as the original drive.

[Kalli]

Originally Posted by dnanian

... and before you swap it, rename it to have the same name as the original drive.

I noted this advice and meant to do it, but plain forgot it. Well... I remembered it when I was about to turn the computer on again. Decided I was not in the mood to rip everything apart again etc. and went for it.

Seemingly no ill effects. Any special reason behind this step that I should be aware of?

[dnanian]

Basically, aliases on your Mac have the volume name in them. If that volume is available when the alias is referenced, it'll preferentially find the file there. By naming the new volume the same as the old, that alias will point to the new data rather than the old one.

[Kalli]

I see. I don't have a lot of aliases, but the one I clicked to check on this worked well enough. Does renaming the volume after the fact do any good? Also, is it sufficient to rename the volume in the Finder? I took a look in DiskUtility and found no way of renaming there.

[dnanian]

At this point you're probably just fine. (And, yes, finder rename is just fine, too.)

[nparker13]

Originally Posted by ompus

I have a macbook w/a 120 GB hard drive. I'm upgrading to a 250 GB hard drive. To accomplish this, I plan on sticking the new drive into an external, USB 2.0 enclosure. Next, I'll clone the existing drive using SuperDuper. Once I've cloned the smaller drive, I'll stick the new drive into the Macbook and go on my happy way... hopefully.

If anyone can comment on the soundness of this plan, I'd appreciate the advice.

I've done it, and it works beautifully. (same hdd though). i would assume it would be just fine. thats why we backup, isnt it?

[Kalli]

I'm in pretty much the same position and stumbled upon SuperDuper as the solution (well, I meant to use it AFTER the upgrade for backups, but hey!)

So, the important thing is that I can effectively clone the contents of my drive (ripping the 80 gig out of my PowerBook and putting in a 160 gig) but I wonder if I'm being rash, or plain old crazy, if I start by ripping out the old drive, replacing it with the new one, putting the old one in a FW enclosure and THEN cloning the drive?

Seems to eliminate one step from the job, but well... if I physically damage the old drive I'm up a certain creek sans paddle.

[dnanian]

Well, exactly. But it should work.

[Kalli]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Well, exactly. But it should work.

Thanks! Actually, by writing things out I started getting second thoughts. I wouldn't lose anything really, well no important data, but thinking about the bill for attempting to rescue a disk I've botched is sweat inducing.

Perhaps my flash of lunacy will get others to go the sane way