Clone Old HDD to New MacBook's HDD

Yes, we really should take this to email or FaceTime if we are to get into metaphysics. 😁

Yes, that is my opinion. It's the best option for ending up with a clean, operating computer.

Install or Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch

Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Erase the hard drive:

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.

2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the

left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on

the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.

Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.

Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible

because it is three times faster than wireless.

This should install a completely fresh copy of Mountain Lion. When you start up it should be into the Setup Assistant. Use the Setup Assistant to migrate your normal user account from your other computer (or its backup.) This time be sure to choose to migrate only the account(s) you want.

Ok, here is what I am trying to do. I took out the old 250 HD out of my Macbook Pro, running mountain lion. I installed a 1TB Hard Drive. After a couple of months, I have decided to instead, put back the old hard drive and to use the 1 TB for a Music for DJing. After I switched drives I turned it on and it is saying I need to either do a backup or a system restore. I plugged in the 1 TB to a USB and when Mac rebooted it is now running of the TB and not the old drive. I need to copy all the stuff off the TB to the 250. The reason is, I do not have Mountain Lion disks, I do not have my Microsft Office anymore... long story but everything is on the TB drive. I need to copy it just the way it is to the 250. There has to be a way to do this. Also in Windows you can swap out Hard Drives that were used in the same computer and have no issues. So not sure why you cant do this on Mac... any takers on this? This is the old Macbook 13 from 2009. I have those orginal disks but that is a few OS back.

OK After looking at the drives again, I must have erased the old drive. Nothing is on it... so I need to get all stuff off the TB drive to the 250 drive. Any easy way to do this?

Never mind... I just reformated the old 250 and put ML back on it. Then going to try to copy my files over and see if there is a way to reinstall or have to buy and replace the stuff I had... which I did not buy thought the App store..

Thanks