How can I make an exact bootable copy of my 120GB mac hard drive to a larger hard drive?

December 18, 2007 6:27 AM

How can I make an exact bootable copy of my 120GB mac hard drive to a larger hard drive? I am hoping that there is a way to make a copy of the existing drive so that I can just replace the current drive without having to install the new drive / OS/ software/ settings etc.... Any ideas? Thanks in advance MeFites!
posted by pleuroma to computers & internet (7 answers total)

SuperDuper! is a utility that does exactly this.
posted by chrismear at 6:36 AM on December 18, 2007

MaxBlast 5 does this, is free, and is available for MacOS 10.x.
posted by hjo3 at 6:39 AM on December 18, 2007

Carbon Copy Cloner is amazing. I use it several times a week.
posted by -t at 6:48 AM on December 18, 2007

I also use Carbon Copy Cloner, and would recommend it.
posted by Lucinda at 7:08 AM on December 18, 2007

SuperDuper isnt fully compatible with Leopard. Just something to keep in mind, if you've upgraded.

++ on both CCC and SuperDuper though. Either will work well.
posted by jsoh at 7:10 AM on December 18, 2007

Carbon Copy Cloner does exactly what you want. I just swapped the 100GB drive out of my MacBook Pro for a 250GB drive this past weekend.

AFter I did that, there was a post on gizmodo on how -- if you've already gone to Leopard and are using Time Machine -- you can just use that.
posted by birdherder at 8:14 AM on December 18, 2007

Can't you just use the Unix command dd for this kinda stuff?
posted by Sukiari at 12:46 PM on December 18, 2007