SpillCraft

Q: Clone 1 partition to another partition

Hi!

 

So I bought a mid 2007 macbook for about a week ago. The mac had installed OS X Lion. After searching the web I found out that you could install Mountain Lion using MLPostFactor. So I followed this guide  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJQ0oTFYaoM . To install the Mountain lion I had to make 3 partitions. 1 was the lion(90GB), the mountain lion(20GB) and a installer partition(10GB). Well to say it short I managed to install Mountain Lion and it works like a charm. Because of my ssd the mac boots in only 25 sec. When I had lion and ssd it took 55-60 sec. Well the man in the video said that it was possible to make each partition bigger after the install but my Mountain lion partition is only 20 GB and there does not seem to be a way to make it bigger.

So this is maybe a stupid question but can I clone the mountain lion partition(20GB) over on the Lion partition(90GB) and then delete the mountain lion and the install partition? So that I can have 1 partition with Mountain Lion and 120GB of space. I do not have any files on the lion partition, I thought about saving the lion partition in case something went wrong with the mountain lion. But the mountain lion works so well that I do not think I will use lion again. Does anybody recommend keeping the lion OS? The tool I will use to clone is superduper.

 

My father also has a newer macbook and I copied his OS X Mavericks install. I was just wondering if my mac would handle that OS?

 

My system specs are:

- 2,16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

- 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

- Intel GMA 950 64 MB

- Kingston V300 120GB

 

Thanks for all the answers:)

MacBook, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), null

Posted on Mar 18, 2016 5:43 AM

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Q: Clone 1 partition to another partition

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  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Mar 18, 2016 6:36 AM in response to SpillCraft
    Level 9 (53,643 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 18, 2016 6:36 AM in response to SpillCraft

    My feeling is the newer the operating system the more it is going to expect the hardware to support certain features.  Reading about the installer you used that seemed to already be the case in some minor aspects.  Personally I would not push it too far.  Realize your machine is 10 years old and will have certain limitations compared to the newest.  I just transitioned from a 15 year old computer, but I never took it past OSX 10.4.11.  For 95% of what I wanted to do the old software worked fine, it was just a bit slow.

  • by SpillCraft,

    SpillCraft SpillCraft Mar 18, 2016 8:58 AM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 18, 2016 8:58 AM in response to Limnos

    That's what I was thinking too. I mean mountain lion works so good right now and I have almost all the programs I need too study with it, so I think I'm just going to leave it with mountain lion. I did also contact apple and they were pretty clear on that if I somehow brick the mac there was nothing they could do about it. I have also read about people installing newer OS X that where not supported that caused the mac to not work or even boot. So I think you are absolutely right that it's probably a good idea to not push the limits too far or I will end up with a unusable mac. 

     

    What do you think about the partition part?

  • by my ginger,

    my ginger my ginger Mar 18, 2016 2:29 PM in response to SpillCraft
    Level 4 (2,472 points)
    Mar 18, 2016 2:29 PM in response to SpillCraft

    If you have the installer for Mt Lion. You can just install it over the top of Lion, because all you are doing is updating the operating system. If you have files on Mt Lion you want, you can back them up to an external drive and migrate them. Then you can erase the partition.If you don't want any of the files in Lion, then just erase Lion and install Mt. Lion and do the migration.

  • by SpillCraft,

    SpillCraft SpillCraft Mar 19, 2016 5:47 AM in response to my ginger
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 19, 2016 5:47 AM in response to my ginger

    I'm not sure if I understand what you mean with "just install it over the top of Lion". We are talking about an unsupported mac. If I could install the OS X ML the normal way I would have done that. But since I have an unsupported mac I can not install the OS by just clicking the installer. If i do so I just get the message that my mac is not supported by this OS. And therefor I have to use 3 partitions and use MLPostFactor to install the OS.

  • by my ginger,

    my ginger my ginger Mar 19, 2016 7:41 AM in response to SpillCraft
    Level 4 (2,472 points)
    Mar 19, 2016 7:41 AM in response to SpillCraft

    I had to do some searching as it used to be called Xpofactor. Had forgot that it existed. But, it would seem that you can install all the way to Yosemite. Though it may not be stable if you do. Have To have Lion installed to do so. Which you do. Looking at it. You can install Mt. Lion on top of Lion. But you have to use MLPostfactor or MacPostfactor to do so. This is what I found. http://osxhackers.net/MCPF/  http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-success-install-10-8-on-old-unsupporte d-mac.1325709/

  • by SpillCraft,

    SpillCraft SpillCraft Mar 19, 2016 9:38 AM in response to my ginger
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 19, 2016 9:38 AM in response to my ginger

    Well I already have installed Mountain Lion on my mac and are running it right now. I have decide not to upgrade it to Mavericks or Yosemite because Mountain Lion is running so well. That's why I am asking if i can clone the Mountain Lion partition over to the Lion partition and the delete the old Mountain Lion partition?

  • by my ginger,

    my ginger my ginger Mar 19, 2016 9:54 AM in response to SpillCraft
    Level 4 (2,472 points)
    Mar 19, 2016 9:54 AM in response to SpillCraft

    I am not sure I am following you. Are you wanting to know if you can put Mt Lion on the same partition as Lion? And run them side by side?

  • by SpillCraft,

    SpillCraft SpillCraft Mar 19, 2016 10:39 AM in response to my ginger
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 19, 2016 10:39 AM in response to my ginger

    Yes, but not run them side by side. You see I have 1 ssd with 120GB of space in the mac right now, this ssd have 3 partitions. 1 has the old OS X Lion that holds 90GB. the 2 has the new OS X Mountain Lion that I'm currently using, that one only holds 20GB and are full at the moment. and the 3 is the installer 10GB, that's the one I used to install Mountain Lion. So what I want to do is to clone the 2 partition with 20GB OS X Mountain Lion over on the old and unused 90GB Lion 1 partition? The when i have my new Mountain Lion on the 90GB partition i can remove the 2 and the 3 partition. And then I have only the 1 partition with Mountain Lion.

     

    So in short clone partition 2 over on partition 1 and then remove partition 2 and 3.

     

    Do you understand and Is this possible?

  • by my ginger,

    my ginger my ginger Mar 19, 2016 10:54 AM in response to SpillCraft
    Level 4 (2,472 points)
    Mar 19, 2016 10:54 AM in response to SpillCraft

    I had to do a lookup on this. It reminded me of the old Xpofacto that I used to install a long time ago on an old Imac.  I'm not sure you can do it by cloning  it, as all that I read stated you had to install the app on the system you wished to update the software on. And then run the install. Perhaps you could do it in that way with a time machine backup or something like it. And then move the backup to the new system. There was another app that is supposed to work called Chameleon, but I did not check that one out. This is something I have not tried in years.