Moving files from naked hard drive to new Macbook Pro
January 13, 2018 8:53 AM   Subscribe

How do I move my entire hard drive contents to my new MacBook Pro, when the old hard drive is removed from the computer? (the old macbook, a mid 2012 won't turn on, thus hard drive will have to be removed)

The google and Apple employees have been failing me and y'all know computers. Thank you!

The old had drive is from a mid-2012 Macbook, the new one is the new 15 inch Macbook Pro, I heard the ports are weird (USB-C?). Mine does not have a touch bar, etc, it is this model:

15-inch MacBook Pro - Silver
With the following configuration:
2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB of 1600MHz memory
512GB SSD
Intel Iris Pro Graphics
Two Thunderbolt 2 ports
Backlit Keyboard - US English
Accessory Kit
posted by Kombucha3452 to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Ok, so that's a 2.5" SATA hard drive. Easiest thing to do is to get a drive enclosure kit that you can drop your old drive in. A quick poke on Amazon says they're about $20-25 (here's one example).

Assuming you have the drive out of your old laptop (if not, getting it out of the old one is just a matter of a bunch of tiny philips head screws and about ten minutes of work), you open the new case, plug the drive in, close up the case and plug the USB-C cable from the enclosure to your new laptop.

Once you've done that, you should be able to run Migration Assistant to move your user account with a minimum of bother. Failing that, you can move things manually.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 9:02 AM on January 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: If the old drive is a typical SATA laptop drive, you would buy something like this to hook it up to your new MacBook Pro and then manually drag and drop stuff over (or rsync it or...whatever you want, really...)

You're right - the new ports are USB-C on the MacBook Pro, so you'll need something like this from Apple, or I'm sure you could find a cheaper alternative from another vendor.
posted by kbanas at 9:04 AM on January 13, 2018 [2 favorites]


Or, here's an adapter that goes right to USB-C.

Just Google, "SATA to USB-C"
posted by kbanas at 9:05 AM on January 13, 2018 [1 favorite]


Another product that makes it clearer how easy it is to use is this docking station. You just push the drive into the slot and it is ready to connect.
posted by megatherium at 12:24 PM on January 13, 2018


Response by poster: Thanks y'all! I ordered the stuff that Making You Bored For Science said to and a Phillips Head 00. Fingers crossed that my harddrive survived the tea flood of 2017 (it looked fine when a friend opened it earlier; just a small part of the logic board was damaged, but it's an old machine and I hope all the dough I spent on this one goes well).
posted by Kombucha3452 at 6:06 PM on January 15, 2018


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