Upgrading hard drive in Macbook Pro

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throbb

675 posts

Ultimate Geek

#143475 16-Apr-2014 11:13

Hi,

I want to upgrade the hard drive in my partners Mac.

She has both Windows and MAC OS installed on it. Is there any software out there that will clone the drive keeping both the MAc and Windows partitions?

Thanks

gehenna

8521 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1026063 16-Apr-2014 11:15

No you need to recreate the Boot Camp partition when you install the new drive.

You can clone the Mac partition though, but I recommend setting both up from scratch as if you try to use Boot Camp on a restored partition it may not let you create the new partition and you'll have to format anyway.

EDIT: the other option is to not use Boot Camp at all and just use VMware Fusion or Parallels. Sure it's an additional cost, but it's a better option unless you need direct access to the GPU in Boot Camp's Windows partition (for gaming etc). If you don't need that then virtualisation is great and performs really well with the latest software and the specs of most Mac's since about mid-2010.

gzt

17160 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1026094 16-Apr-2014 11:42

Is there any software out there that will clone the drive keeping both the MAc and Windows partitions?

Yes, but I'm not sure how that relates to your planned upgrade scenario?

throbb

675 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1026123 16-Apr-2014 12:07

gzt:
Is there any software out there that will clone the drive keeping both the MAc and Windows partitions?

Yes, but I'm not sure how that relates to your planned upgrade scenario?

I would prefer not reinstalling everything, I would want to clone the current to the new one, plug in the new one and be finsihed.

gzt

17160 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1026189 16-Apr-2014 13:02

I assume there are many sector by sector utilities that would do the job blind, but it looks like winclone is available also. Google for recent reviews. Used to be freeware perhaps.