Getting a Macbook pro. Have iMac. Will I mess up anything on the book if I erase its SSD and clone in my existing iMac clone (it will fit). Never had laptop and don't know if anything unique resides in the drive, i.e., trackpad software, etc.
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)
If the OS you're cloning is at least as new as the MacBook Pro's original one, some commercial software may refuse to run, and a very small number of settings, such as the Energy Saver ones, won't carry over. You may also need to run the combo updater for the installed OS version.
If it's older, it won't start up the computer.
(142152)
Why do want to clone the older drive rather than moving content? (just curious)
It should work fine. They are both using El Capitan 10.11.4.
What I would do is to buy an external drive same size or larger than your MacBook Pro.
Open Disk Utility>Erase and format the external HD to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and a GUID partition.
Then use a third party application such as Carbon Copy Cloner Carbon Copy Cloner (Not free, but worth the price) or Super Duper to copy all data from the internal HDD of the iMac.
The clone will be a exact copy of your hard drive and it will be bootable.
Connect the cloned drive to your MacBook Pro and
Boot the MBP with the OPTION key (Startup Manager) and select the external drive. How to choose a startup disk on your Mac
If it boots the MBP, test the operation.
If you are happy that it works ok, then clone your external drive to your MacBook Pro.
Option 2: Use migration assistant and copy the data from your iMac to your MacBook Pro. Move your content to a new Mac - Apple Support
Kim
Good answer. don't know why I skipped the step of first cloning the new book. If my existing clone from iMac doesn't work properly, I can just clone the orig book drive back on. thanks
cloning brings over everything I now work with in one operation. It is a start and walk away operation I don't even have to think about (except all the thinking I have already done). thanks for replying.
Erase macbook drive and clone in iMac drive.
