Replacing MBP hard drive with a larger SSHD drive

[Neil davidson]

I want to replace the original 500gb HDD with a 1TB SSHD drive on my 2010 MBP. I used SuperDuper to make a bootable bu of the HDD. I Tested it and it worked. I then replaced the HHD with the new blank unformatted SSHD. I'm not able to get the Mac to see or boot from the backup drive which is a FireWire 800. My desire was to boot from the external FireWire drive and then use The disk utility to format and partition the SSHD. Then restore the system and data files from the bu onto the new SSHD drive.

Obviously this isn't working and maybe I've missed a step or two. Help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

-You can't see the external HD after Option-booting?
-How did you test that it worked before you swapped the drives?

C

 

[honestone]

First of all, does Option-Booting work when the internal drive is completely empty, and has no OS on it?

Secondly, from your description, there are only two devices involved, the original 500 gig HDD (which I assume is in an external case), and the new 1 TB Samsung SDD, which is inside your MBP. Is that valid?

Assuming what I stated above, and if Option-Boot does not work, what you'll need to do is swap the drives. That is, put the 500 gig HDD back inside your MBP, and put the 1 TB SSD inside the external case. Hopefully, the external case can accommodate the 1 TB drive. Then, you would boot your MBP like normal, use Disk Utility there to Erase, Format, and Partition the 1 TB SSD, and then use SuperDuper! to either restore from the backup to the 1 TB drive, or just use SuperDuper! to make another (bootable) backup to the 1 TB drive. Once that's done, test the 1 TB to make sure it will boot up your MBP. If all goes well, swap the drives again.

 

[Neil davidson]

Thanks Cooper and honestone,
As a matter of fact I"d just come to the same conclusion and put the original HDD back into the macbook and it booted up. I'll now get a 2.5" enclosure to put the new drive into and then do the formatting and install the Bu onto it. I'm not a techie but I guess that my assumption was flawed that having a bootable external drive would allow me the option to run the computer from it and then be able to format etc. the new drive already installed. Seems logical to me but obviously there are technical issues that seem prevent that.
And to Cooper I did do the boot test while the original drive was still in the mac so I guess that is why it all worked fine.
NO harm done it seems so hopefully I'm on the road to completing this once the enclosure arrives. Amazon Prime says here tomorrow Sunday! Ciao.

 

[honestone]

Thanks Cooper and honestone,
As a matter of fact I"d just come to the same conclusion and put the original HDD back into the macbook and it booted up. I'll now get a 2.5" enclosure to put the new drive into and then do the formatting and install the Bu onto it. I'm not a techie but I guess that my assumption was flawed that having a bootable external drive would allow me the option to run the computer from it and then be able to format etc. the new drive already installed. Seems logical to me but obviously there are technical issues that seem prevent that.
And to Cooper I did do the boot test while the original drive was still in the mac so I guess that is why it all worked fine.
NO harm done it seems so hopefully I'm on the road to completing this once the enclosure arrives. Amazon Prime says here tomorrow Sunday! Ciao.

Sounds good, Neil. I went through a very similar procedure when I wanted to replace the slow, 5400 rpm 1 TB drive inside my late 2013 Mac Mini with a faster, 256 gig Samsung SSD. I purchased a nice, slim, external case, installed the Samsung SSD inside it, connected it to my Mac Mini, and then 1) use Disk Utility to Erase, Format, and Partition the Samsung SSD, and 2) use SuperDuper! to just do a backup from my internal 1 TB drive to the Samsung device. Once that was done, I insured that I could boot the Mac Mini from that SuperDuper! backup (I am certain you already know that SuperDuper! makes a bootable backup). It worked, and I subsequently swapped the drives. The Samsung SSD has been "humming" along ever since inside my Mac Mini. And, every week, after performing disk cleanup/maintenance/repair tasks, I make a SuperDuper! backup for both of my machines to two external drives.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Maybe the external enclosure and/or cable were bad that you were trying to boot from, and the new case will work for you.

Keep us updated.

C

 

[honestone]

If the old enclosure was not designed for an SSD, that could be a problem, if it is defective in some way.

 

[honestone]

Neil,

There is one minor "problem" with SuperDuper!. It does not backup the Recovery HD partition, and thus when one does a restore, there is no Recovery HD partition on the drive. (Carbon Copy Cloner does back it up, and can restore it). Myself, that is not an issue, as I have an excellent freeware program that can create the Recovery HD partition.

I recently had a "Bit Coin" virus issue with my Mac Mini, and even after doing a restore from the most recent SuperDuper! backup I had (and re-creating the Recovery HD partition), the virus reeled its' ugly head again (to this day, I have no idea how I contacted that virus, as I have never used anything connected with Bit Coin. I also was having memory issues). So, what I finally did was to Erase, Format, and Partition my internal drive (a 256 gig SSD), then did fresh installation of Yosemite (OS 10.10), applied the OS 10.10.4 Combo Updater (Cory recently pointed out an easier way of doing those two steps at once), and then used Migration Assistant to migrate all my non-system stuff from my most recent SuperDuper! backup to the SSD. The virus and memory issues went away, and I also had the Recovery HD partition created with the OS 10.10 installation.

I am considering following that same approach when OS 10.11, El Capitan, arrives. That is, boot from the latest SuperDuper! backup, use Disk Utility there to Erase, Format, and Partition my SSD (actually the same process on both of my machines), install OS 10.11 (thus getting the Recovery HD partition), and then using Migration Assistant. No matter how I get to OS 10.11, I of course need to insure that all of my third party software works with El Capitan.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Neil,

I believe this post of your belongs in this thread?

https://www.mac-help.com/threads/tr...shd-after-security-update.53394/#post-1535276



C