[rnp614]

Hey guys, I was wondering if someone could point me to a good how to on the HD swap. I want to copy my current data to the new HD and then swap. I do NOT want to lose my old data. How do I best accomplish this?

[frdmfghtr]

I've done this twice, once on an iBook and once on a MacBook. I've used two means of moving data, each with good results.

FULL DISK BACKUP/RESTORE
I backed up the entire hard drive to an external unit in a USB enclosure. After installing the new drive, I partitioned it and restored form the USB drive. Aside from a few license keys I had to re-enter for a couple pieces of software (don't know why they didn't transfer) all was smooth. All my apps were there, all my data was there...a breeze.

FRESH INSTALL/HOME DIRECTORY RESTORE
I backed up just the home directory to an external drive. With the fresh hard drive installed, I did a clean OS X installation. After I created the my new user account, I restored the home directory and re-installed my applications.

I like this method better, as you start clean and don't copy extraneous files that my have been part of programs installed, then removed. You can modify the OS X installation to include only the apps you want, leaving the rest behind (I saved about 7 GB of disk space this way.)

[rnp614]

could I get some more details on how to do this second method properly? Is there a step by step procedure on the home backup and restore?

[Waragainstsleep]

Actually my favourite way is to put the old drive in an enclosure (USB2 or firewire), put a clean OS the new drive (switch off languages you don't use and printer drivers you don't need from the custom install options though for languages you can run monolingual later).
Then use the migration assistant to import all your data and settings from the old drive. It will usually mistake the external drive for your 'old mac'.