Best Way to Move OS to a New Hard Drive?

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Level 1

9 points

Best Way to Move OS to a New Hard Drive?

I currently have two internal hard drives in my G5 (a 160 GB, original System disk, and a 320 GB, which I installed myself). The disks are both reaching their capacity. What I would like to do is replace the 160 GB drive with the 320 GB drive and then install a new, larger hard drive in the second bay.

If I copy everything from both drives onto an external drive, and then copy all of the 160 GB drive contents to the 320 GB drive, will this work? That is, will the MacOS copy properly in this way?

PowerMac G5, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 1.8 GHz, 7 GB RAM

Posted on Jan 21, 2011 11:37 AM

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Answer 1

Jim-K Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 21, 2011 12:27 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks.

In thinking this over, maybe what I will do is buy a new (larger) internal hard drive, pull out the 320 GB disk, put in the new one, and then "restore" over the contents of the 160 GB disk to the new one. Then I can pull out the 160 GB drive and replace it with the aforementioned 320 GB drive. Less data swapping that way, I think.

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Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jan 21, 2011 11:55 AM in response to Jim-K

To replicate your startup volume use the Restore option of Disk Utility. This will make a bootable clone. The clone should be to either a separate drive or a separate partition on another drive (the partition will be erased.) The partition or drive needs to be large enough for the data usage on the source drive which in your case sounds close to 160 GBs.

Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility

1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the backup drive.
Source means the 160 GB startup drive.

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Answer 3

Jim-K Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 1, 2011 12:25 PM in response to Jim-K

I did it. New 1 TB drive is in place in the upper bay, and the old 320 GB HDD is back in the lower bay. Everything seems to be working as previously.

Thanks again.

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