Can I image my hard drive

John Tasinas wrote:

Hi ds store,

I recently found a good deal on a 128 gb SSD for my 2009 version Macbook Pro

Ew, that's not very much. You must have really light needs of OS X and Windows.

Figure your going to 50/50 that, that's a mere 64GB for each operating system, plus programs and files.

Heck, my music collection is over 64GB 🙂

Ideally for longivity it's better to go 500GB or more for two operating systems, perhaps a 7,200 RPM 500GB, 750GB or 1TB drive would suffice at the same price range. A 500GB SSD is a fortune. 😟

Look here of my Windows virtual machine sizes, and they have hardly anything in them.

Windows 7 is a big drive space hog compared to other OS's and Win 7 is the only OS you can install with Bootcamp.

As you know, your current boot drive of OS X needs to be under 64GB to fit, and Windows under 64GB to fit on the SSD.

Perhaps you shoudl look in Activity Monitor in your Utilities folder to see if a 128GB SSD is going to work for you, you can't image larger data to a smaller capcity drive, you'll have to delete some things and do a fresh install in the process.

IMHO, 128GB is way too tight. A 500GB-1TB 7,200 RPM will be less expensive and offer more space.

A "good price" on a 128GB is because not many people can use that small space. 🙂

Are you willing to forfiet using Windows? Even OS X on 128GB is really tight. I'm using 200GB presently.

John Tasinas wrote:

I have reformatted and replaced hard drives numerous times in windows but have never done it on a mac.

Well it's easier on a Mac because you can image or clone the whole shebang, also run OS X from a external drive, no messy re-install or validation like on Windows.

However a fresh install may be necessary if the target drive is smaller than the original data, some pruning is in order.

For disk formatting there is the Apple Disk Utility in your Utilities folder as you know.

John Tasinas wrote:

Was wondering if there was a better way than moving all my files to an external drive, installing the new hd and running the OSX restore discs and then brining the files back

Kappy's Disk Utility image mehtod or Carbon Copy Cloner for OS X, again, provided the data used is smaller than the target drive.

John Tasinas wrote:

I had never tried imaging a current system and was curious on how easy it was or if there were any negative impacts

Only if you try cloning/imaging over existing data on a NTFS drive 😉

Format a new powered drive GUID OS X Extended (J) (in the DU partition tab) and then you can clone (or image) and it should be (I don't know in the case of DU imaging) "bless" the drive and make it bootable.

CCC is bar far the easiest, simplest and troublefree method. The default settings will clone OS X no sweat to the external drive. Hold the option key and you can boot from it no sweat. 🙂

Now another option is to place the old internal drive into a powered enclosure or use a IDE/SATA to USB adapter, however some won't allow the option key booting. So that could leave you stuck. 😟

So I rather recommned a external powered drive.

Clonng OS X is simple, your working with a copy on the external drive, so it's not like your doing anything pernament deleting. The old internal will still have everything too.

So that takes care of OS X cloning, a piece of cake.

Your next mission is address the Windows bootcamp partition, I know Winclone is the preferred and free, method to clone the Bootcamp partition from OS X.

How it's done exactly I don't know as I haven't tried it personally as i run virtual machines, not Bootcamp. You might have to ask for further details in the Bootcamp forum.

Questions you might ask are this:

1: Does Winclone need a specially NTFS formatted drive to target Bootcamped Windows too?

2: Is everything included from the Bootcamp partiton, including the hybrid MBR that Apple supplies to work with the GUID of Mac's?

3: Explain your SSD transfer issue, do you need to setup Bootcamp on the SSD first?, then use Winclone or will Winclone make all the changes required directly?

Since your issue has two problems, cloning OS X and cloning Windows, and a problem with drive/data space, hopefully what Iv'e supplied will assist in your decisions.

Good Luck. 🙂