I am going to install a new hard drive as well as expand the RAM to 8GB in my early 2009 Mac Mini 3.1 with 10.6.8. I'd like to retain Snow Leopard and all of my applications, their plug-ins and settings.
What is the best way to assure that everything ends up on the new drive?
Carbon Copy Cloner is probably the easiest way to setup and copy everything from one drive to another.
It also gives you a couple of options for moving everything from the old to the new drive.
1. Clone your existing Internal HDD to an External Hard Drive and then swap out the Internal Hard Drives. Then Boot from the External HD and clone it back to the New Internal HDD.
2. Swap out the HDDs and put the iMac's original HDD into an External Enclosure. Then boot from the original iMac drive in the Enclosure and clone it to the new HDD.
Personally I prefer the first method, because it gives you a backup copy in case something goes wrong.
Carbon Copy Cloner is probably the easiest way to setup and copy everything from one drive to another.
It also gives you a couple of options for moving everything from the old to the new drive.
1. Clone your existing Internal HDD to an External Hard Drive and then swap out the Internal Hard Drives. Then Boot from the External HD and clone it back to the New Internal HDD.
2. Swap out the HDDs and put the iMac's original HDD into an External Enclosure. Then boot from the original iMac drive in the Enclosure and clone it to the new HDD.
Personally I prefer the first method, because it gives you a backup copy in case something goes wrong.
I was wondering if I could install the OS on the new drive and then do a Time Machine restore of the original drive to the new drive. Would that work?
New Hard Drive in early 2009 Mac Mini-How to Transfer Data and Apps
