Upgrading a hard drive with Boot Camp partition

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Level 1

6 points

Upgrading a hard drive with Boot Camp partition

Hi everyone,

I'd like to upgrade my black MacBook's 250 GB hard drive to 500 GB. Before going any further, is this a good idea? If so, which brand and specs do you recommend?

My biggest problem is the Boot Camp partition. I've messed with partitions before on Linux using "parted" and on Windows using various tools. I know in advance this will probably be a headache, especially to make sure the new hard drive is bootable and be certain I can still boot in Windows natively and via Parallels. Any suggestions on how I should proceed?

Finally, I do have a blank external 320GB hard drive. Can I transfer my data from my internal 250 GB HDD to the external one, than back to the new internal 500 GB HDD? I know it's time-consuming, but I'd rather to this than having to buy a hard drive enclosure which I'll probably just use once.

MacBook (Black, 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo), Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jul 3, 2009 5:18 PM

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Answer 1

remino Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 3, 2009 5:33 PM in response to remino

Wait... I just thought of a way, and I think one of my coworkers suggested something similar before.

1) Format external hard drive.
2) Export Boot Camp image using Winclone to external HDD.
3) Turn on Time Machine and use external HDD as backup volume.
4) Wait for Time Machine to copy all the files from the internal HDD to external HDD.
5) Swap internal 250 GB HDD with new 500 GB HDD.
6) Boot from Leopard install disc.
7) Select "Restore System from Backup" in Utilities to copy the system and user files from external HDD to new internal HDD.
8) Reboot with OS installed on HDD rather than install disc.
9) Launch Boot Camp to recreate a new Boot Camp partition on new hard drive that will match the same size than the old Boot Camp partition.
10) Import Boot Camp image from external HDD to new Boot Camp partition on new internal HDD using Winclone.

Am I on the right track?

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Answer 2

dwb

Level 7

33,100 points

Jul 4, 2009 7:09 AM in response to remino

Too bad you can't award yourself a yellow. Here's my solution:

1) buy a drive adaptor or enclosure (an adaptor is a device that you just plug the drive into and is meant more for techies than home users but it would be slightly more convenient for this task) and put the new drive in it.

2) partition and format the drive. You aren't setting up BootCamp so don't create a BootCamp partition.

3) download SuperDuper! or CarbonCopyCloner and clone your computer's drive to the new drive.

4) download WinClone and copy your BootCamp partition to the new drive - this will create a file on the Mac drive which you'll use later.

5) Install the new drive into the computer and boot up.

6) run BootCamp to partition the new drive - you can create a larger partition than you originally had just don't make it smaller.

7) run WinClone to restore your Windows installation.

8) Boot up into Windows - don't panic. The first startup will want to repair the drive - that's okay. It will reboot the computer when the repair is finished. The second time you restart BootCamp all should be well.

You could use TimeMachine to populate the new drive but by spending a bit more money for an enclosure you'll save lots of time and you'll have another external drive. A computer user NEVER has enough hard drive space.

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Answer 3

remino Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 8, 2009 3:57 AM in response to remino

Thanks for the instructions! I ended following mine, since I already have four external hard drives and didn't want to spend money on an enclosure. The Time Machine restore was done overnight.

There is one step I did forget, and that was to format the hard drive before the restore. Here are my revised steps:

1) Format external hard drive.
2) Export Boot Camp image using Winclone to external HDD.
3) Turn on Time Machine and use external HDD as backup volume. Wait for Time Machine to copy all the files from the internal HDD to external HDD.
4) Eject Time Machine volume and unplug external hard drive.
5) Swap internal 250 GB HDD with new 500 GB HDD.
6) Boot from Leopard install disc.
7) Select "Disk Utility" in Utilities and format the new hard drive.
8) Select "Restore System from Backup" in Utilities to copy the system and user files from external HDD to new internal HDD.
9) Reboot with OS installed on HDD rather than install disc.
10) Launch Boot Camp to recreate a new Boot Camp partition on new hard drive that will match the same size than the old Boot Camp partition.
11) Import Boot Camp image from external HDD to new Boot Camp partition on new internal HDD using Winclone.

I didn't restore the Boot Camp partition yet, but I'm certain it's going to work at this point. Also, I'm still wondering if I should do it, considering I rarely boot in Windows and Parallels offers features, such as the Pause function, only available to disk images (not Boot Camp partitions) which are really convenient if I only want to start Windows quickly and test something in IE6, for example.

Thanks again for your help, dwb!

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Answer 4

remino Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 8, 2009 4:02 AM in response to remino

Only one note I wish to add. My Mail.app had to re-import all my messages and re-index all the folders before I could use it after the Time Machine restore. Spotlight also needs to re-index my volume, but I just think that's normal.

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Answer 5

dwb

Level 7

33,100 points

Jul 8, 2009 6:16 AM in response to remino

Reindexing is normal. Mail import? To be honest, I don't recall, it has been a while since I've done a full restore with Leopard and TimeMachine. I prefer the cloning method for time saving and use TM for restoring specific files.

Glad I could help confirm your plan. BTW either VMWare or Parallels (I don't recall which and maybe it is both) has a utility that can copy a normal Windows installation into a virtual drive to use with the program. You might want to see if it is Parallels - if so, and if you are happy with your BootCamp's Windows installation it would be worth restoring Windows so you could create the virtual drive. That would be easier than having to sit through the entire install of Windows again.

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