Upgrade Your Apple MacBook: Data Backup and Preservation.

Step 4 Clone Your MacBook

To ensure that you will have all your files and applications you will need to clone your mac. Get this program: Super Duper, it's free and it will help you create a disk image that you can store on your new hard disk that you can boot from later. With Super Duper and your new drive this is incredibly easy on your mac.

• Download & Install Super Duper
• Open the program
• Select your current hard drive on the left, and the USB external new drive on the right
• Select Backup - all files
• Click Copy Now

This too will take some time, it took mine 3 hours to run. Perhaps this is a good time to make dinner.

Comments

[thewineguy]

Very good, well-illustrated guide overall. Just a small correction:
Yes, SuperDuper! is free_{, to try. But, we who continue to use it buy it for, at present, $27.95 with free upgrades for life. As a frequent—often daily—user of SuperDuper! for more than five years, I assure you it's well worth it. It's simple, flexible, fast and very easy to operate. And, when you're not sure about what you're trying to do, you can expect to receive a detailed answer to your email within a couple of hours, if not a few minutes.}

[drips]

And when you buy SuperDuper! you get access to the 'SmartClone' feature which only copies files that have changed since your last clone, so you can finish the process in a relative blink of of an eye (20 minutes vs. several hours in my experience).

[thewineguy]

Agreed.

[winexprt]

Hi. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the third task above in step 4 confuses me.

"Select your current hard drive on the right, and the USB external new drive on the left"

Which, the way I'm reading the menu fields would mean I'm copying a new, blank hard drive onto my existing one? How does that help me??? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Please clarify...

[lamedust]

Yes, it should. Sorry I flipped them, picture 3 shows you the correct way, I'll fix the text. -bg

[Evermorian]

You can also accomplish this with Carbon Copy Cloner. CCC is donationware - free to use, donations appreciated.