Q: SSD upgrade?

There may be some problems with your internal that just can't be fixed by DU. If DU gives you the green light on your SuperDuper backup, it's safe to assume that the problem lies with the internal itself but not the clone. I would go ahead and install the SSD, boot from the clone, format the SSD and use SuperDuper to copy everything over to the SSD. You should be fine.

Clinton

But my clone is a Smart Update, so it is way to big to just clone over to the 128GB SSD. That is why I was wondering if I should go ahead and clone my laptop to the new SSD and see if I avoid the corruption issues, the way the Super Duper clone did.

Read this link:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448

once you've read it and determined it's similar as what you see in yours- you can proceed with your clone...

after the clone is done, install your ssd - boot from it and verify your disk permissions again.

let us know how you're doing - Clinton and I will give you a hand.

Thank you. I will run Repair Permissions on my internal drive as soon as Tech Tool Pro is done. Some of those Java messages seem familiar. But mine had a lot for Remote Management, and A LOT from my Brother printer. Are those of concern?

Also, I have put my new Crucial m4 SSD in a Vantec Nexstar TX enclosure and plugged it in by USB to my work Macbook Pro. The Pro doesn't seem to recognize it. It doesnt show up in the Finder or in Disk Utility. Do I need to do something special to have it appear so I can run Disk Utility on it? Is all of this better with Disk Utility running from the Install Disk?

Sorry for all the questions. But I am very worried!

Thanks again,

RJ

The unformatted drive should show up in Disk Utility, but not in the Finder.

Have you tried simply restarting and then running DU again?

With the USB drive plugged in of course...

Clinton

gogogut wrote:

 

But mine had a lot for Remote Management, and A LOT from my Brother printer. Are those of concern?

 

Those you can safely ignore - as long as it doesn't affect the performance of your Macbook - you're fine.

gogogut wrote:

 

Also, I have put my new Crucial m4 SSD in a Vantec Nexstar TX enclosure and plugged it in by USB to my work Macbook Pro. The Pro doesn't seem to recognize it. It doesnt show up in the Finder or in Disk Utility. Do I need to do something special to have it appear so I can run Disk Utility on it? Is all of this better with Disk Utility running from the Install Disk?

Sorry for all the questions. But I am very worried!

Thanks again,

RJ

Not sure why it's not detected in when you connected it in your Macbook Pro at work - I had something similar that happened to me and mine turned out to be a bad usb cable...

I've always formatted/erased my new SSDs in a USB external and never had any issues - you can invest in another USB enclosure if you wish to do so - about $10 if you can't find a cable.

No need to apologize, that's what this forum is for - Q & A - you've got a question - We'll try to answer..

Ok. Solved one mystery. My external enclosuBe actually comes with a Y USB cable to plug into 2 USB ports for more power. My work Macbook Pro has 1 USG port on each side, making it impossible to use the Y cable. I pluged the Y cable into 2 ports on my personal laptop (while running Tech Tool Pro) and Disk Utility recognized it, asking me to initialize it.

So when Tech Tool Pro is done, I will report back with any new info. I will also have my laptop format my new SSD drive so it is ready to go. Do you recommend Zeroing Out the SSD for this first run? Time is not an issue as I will leave it doing its business while I sleep. Then hopefully in the morning, I can clone my internal drive to the SSD and get this over with! By the way, do you recommend Super Duper over using the Restore function of Disk Utility? Does it matter?

Still thanking you,

RJ

No need to take the time to zero it out. It's a new drive. Since you've a SuperDuper backup, I'd just use it (the DU Restore just takes too long in my opinion).

Going to bed? Let us know how it goes in the morning...

Clinton

Tech Tool Pro finished and reported back that everything is fine (how can that be?). It tested RAM, SMART, Volume Structures, Directories, etc.

I have left the SSD formatting. I have no idea how long that will take so I am going to bed.

I will look through the Tech Tool Pro manual tomorrow to see what it says for disk repair and recovery (e-Drive?). Maybe I can fix something AFTER I clone to the SSD.

Let me know if you think of anything. I will check back in tomorrow.

Thanks again for al your help.

RJ

Let us know how you make out......

If you need more - just ask...

Have a good one...

I'm back. Drive is formatted and now readable with only one usb port connected to the Y cable. Is it better to use 2 ports anyways? Or does it not matter.

In following the directions on the other thread, Kappy recommended to use Disk Utility to make sure the SSD had SMART verified BEFORE formatting. But my new SSD says SMART "Not Supported" AFTER formatting. Is this normal? Can I go ahead and move forward with cloning?

THanks,

RJ

You're fine - it will say smart not supported when you're connected externally.

Proceed with your clone........

Great! I had gone ahead and started the cloning anyways. Super Duper says it is almost done after 2 hours, averaging 6.8 MB/s. It says it has evaluated almost 90GB and copied almost 50GB. Why the discrepancy? I have almost 100GB on the HDD (160GB capacity) so I assumed all of that would be copied to the SSD. I thought it would copy over al 100GB. Thoughts?

not too sure why it didn't copy over the whole thing and why it took 2 hours to do it...  Carbon copy did mine for less than an hour.

in any event, once the clone is done, go through your files and see if everything got copied over...

You capacity and your actual files copied are sometimes different - it will not copy over your swap file and cache files - this is through Carbon Copy - haven't used superduper for a long time so i don't know if superduper does the same.

Ok. It finished. Took 2 hours and 24 minutes at an "effective copy speed" of 6.71MB/s. Sound good?

I will now look through all the files on the SSD to make sure it is as expected. Then I will boot from it externally to make sure it is ready to install inside the laptop. Any other things I should do at this point? Firmware? Disk/Permission Repair? TRIM?

Thanks,

RJ