[vois2]

Hello --

Thanks for taking the time to read. I have a lot of experience with computing, but am a new learner in the Mac OS world. I've studied up before coming here for help. I could really use assistance in drawing upon some collective experience.

The task: Image a 30 GB Mac OS drive onto an external hard drive.
Then replace the 30Gb drive with a larger 40GB hard drive. And finally,
image back onto on this new larger 40GB drive so that I end up with
the copied 30GB Mac OS on a bootable partition and another roughly 10GB of
free space.

I've done this successfully on Windows machines several times. There probably aren't too many curve balls in the Mac OS world for this sort of thing, but I think it's in my interest to check a few things below.

(1) The external drive for the backup will be a 320GB Seagate USB model. What program or application might you suggest that I use with OSX 10.3.9 for this imaging? I'm OK with bootable CDs if the best application for copying the drive in a manner outside of the Mac OS is recommended.

(2) I note by examining the partition structure via Debian Linux on the 30GB drive, that the Mac OS volume has hidden utility partitions before the hfs+ partition. I am told these are stuff like Mac partition table, os9 and/or osx drivers, a partition labeled 'Patch Partition', and so on. Keeping in mind that this is OS X 10.3.9, do I want the 30GB image copy to occupy the "first left part" of the new 40GB hard drive? (with my 10GB free space at the "end right" section)

(3) Is there any condition that the existing 30GB drive needs to be in before attempting to copy it bit-by-bit? By "condition" I mean the journaling state or non-journaling state, or anything else which I should consider.

(4) And finally, since the task I seek is surely fairly routine for anyone who is upgrading their hard drive, and in addition due to the nature of the "hard partitions" on the Mac system drive wherein you need to initialize for many changes, is there a "just buy this program, dude" you can say has worked for you?

THANKS A LOT !!!

[0157988944]

Mac OS X Built in Disk Utility can do this. I'll let someone more in the know come along and tell you how, though.

[Simon]

Use /Applications/DiskUtility > Restore to make a clone of your 30 GB drive onto your external drive. Chose a partition on the external drive as the destination and select 'Erase Destination'.

Replace the 30 GB drive with the new 40 GB drive. Boot from the install DVD or form your external drive (holding opt/alt when booting will let you chose a boot partition) and use Disk Utility (if you boot form the install disk you'll find it in an installer menu) to format the new drive to HFS+. Then use it's Restore section to clone back from the external drive onto the new 40 GB internal drive. Reboot from the internal drive. Done.

[peeb]

super duper or carbon copy cloner will do this too - both are free.

[rehoot]

The directions below look good, except that

1) you might have to boot from your OS X install CD for the first image: hold the C key while booting, choose the install disk as the boot drive, and then look in the menus for the "Run Disk Utility" menu option. Doing this will avoid the error that you might get by your boot disk being in use.

2) I think the first step in Disk Utility is to create a New Image, not Restore. You will have an option to save the image to your USB drive.

Originally Posted by Simon 

Use /Applications/DiskUtility > Restore to make a clone of your 30 GB drive onto your external drive. Chose a partition on the external drive as the destination and select 'Erase Destination'.

Replace the 30 GB drive with the new 40 GB drive. Boot from the install DVD or form your external drive (holding opt/alt when booting will let you chose a boot partition) and use Disk Utility (if you boot form the install disk you'll find it in an installer menu) to format the new drive to HFS+. Then use it's Restore section to clone back from the external drive onto the new 40 GB internal drive. Reboot from the internal drive. Done.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by rehoot 

1) you might have to boot from your OS X install CD for the first image: hold the C key while booting, choose the install disk as the boot drive, and then look in the menus for the "Run Disk Utility" menu option. Doing this will avoid the error that you might get by your boot disk being in use.

Which error? I clone regularly from the boot partition. Haven't had a problem yet.

I think the first step in Disk Utility is to create a New Image, not Restore.

That's incorrect. You can clone directly onto another disk w/o creating an image. I do it about three times a week.

[rehoot]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Which error? I clone regularly from the boot partition. Haven't had a problem yet.

That's incorrect. You can clone directly onto another disk w/o creating an image. I do it about three times a week.

I guess I have a habit of not cloning from the boot drive because I didn't want to risk making an image of my database in an inconsistent state. If you know that no important files are being touched, then clone from the boot drive.

As for the cloning direct to another disk, the original post mentioned that the backup drive was a USB drive, if the computer has direct access to the old and new drive, that's fine with me.