Can I image my hard drive

Yes by doing the following:

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 external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

Kappy's solution is great, cause it does not require any additional resources, save the external drive. If you want to have more control on the cloning process, you can use either the Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! utilities. Both can be had for free or paid for additional features.

Restart, hold the option key down at the chime, select the external drive (in the boot manager) as the startup drive.

Once you made the clone, reboot holding the option key down, the external clone will be a bootable option, whcih you then can run CCC and clone onto the SSD drive or get online for assistance like normal.

Of course you need to format the internal drive in Disk Utility first before cloning onto the SSD.

Options: GUID, Format OSX Extended(J) under the parititon tab.

You need a powered external drive for the clone, no Filevault on OS X.

John Tasinas wrote:

it doesn't let me drag the mac drive to the destination..........

Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Just use the free Carbon Copy Cloner for OS X, it's very easy, the default setting is perfect, just select a too and from and click clone. 🙂

http://www.bombich.com/index.html

For Windows bootcamp you'll need the free Winclone.

http://download.cnet.com/Winclone/3000-2242_4-172338.html

Windows Bootcamp adds a wrinkle, because once you've got OS X cloned and setup you need to restore Bootcamp/Windows and that's where Winclone comes in.

good Luck. 🙂

Drag the volume, not the drive entry.

Yes, cannot write to an NTFS drive. You would need to repartition and reformat the drive to use with Mac.

Yes, it will.

If you intend on cloning your current drive to the SSD and then using the SSD as the internal drive do this:

Use CCC or SuperDuper to clone your internal drive to the externally connected SSD (use the defaults in either of the 2 programs suggested) your internal drive will be the source and the external SSD will be the destination, it looks like this in CCC (see below), SuperDuper is very similar.

The default settings will get you what you want. Make sure the SSD is partitioned and formatted correctly for use with OSX (DS Stores instructions are correct.)

When the clone is complete reboot to the external and verify that it works, then swap the internal and external drives.

John Tasinas wrote:

same result either way, is it because the drive is NTFS?

You obviously have a lot to learn before attempting anything, I suggest you read through my extensive thread here, perhaps consider having a local Mac/PC geek do the SSD upgrade for you.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3358920

Try cloning to a external drive a few times until you get the hang of things before attempting the SSD upgrade.

There are videos here how to perform the manual hardware upgrade

http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/

Perhaps you should explain your hardware specs and why you feel a upgrade to a SSD is going to help you.

If you don't know, older Mac's use a slower SATA 3 connection, unlike newer Mac's with SATA 6, even if you upgrade to SSD your hardware may still slow you down. Also the limited storage of some SSD's may be a hinderance to Bootcamp, you'll have to buy a very expensive 500GB to hold both OS X and Bootcamp.

Sometimes it's better to get a larger 750GB -1TB 7,200 RPM hard drive for older hardware, it's a better match, you get the fast speed and large storage. 🙂

SSD in your case may be a waste of money. Or perhaps you have a software issue in OS X that a reinstall will cure better.

So please explain your reasons and state your hardware specs, operating system and installed software so we may assist with perhaps a more tailored solution to your real problem. 🙂