RTA Posted June 10, 2008 Share Posted June 10, 2008 This is probably a pretty stupid question, so I apologize. I've got a 75GB SATA HD, and a 500GB SATA HD. Currently, I use the 75GB for the operating system, games and programs, and the 500GB for music, pictures, video and recorded TV. My problem is, I recently upgraded my system, and with all the games I've been installing my 75GB is quickly running out of space. I'd like to just copy the entire setup over to the 500GB and boot from that, so I can free up the 75GB to use with Leopard. Can I just copy and paste all the system and data folders from the 75GB to the 500GB root directory and have it boot, or is there some special process I need to go through? While re-installing is an option, it's not a very good one since it'd take me several days to get all my games re-installed, and generally be a huge hassle. If I can't just copy and paste, could anyone give me instructions on what exactly I do need to do? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/109785-changing-harddrives/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dermatea Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Just to be clear, you have: Drive 0: 75GB HDD with OS + lots of games etc installed, and... Drive 1: 500GB HDD with lots of data... You want to migrate your system and program files on Drive 0 to Drive 1 while, I'm assuming, leaving the data on both drives intact, correct? You definitely cannot simply "copy n' paste" the system files over. That is a very bad idea. Generally speaking, you should start off by installing the operating system you're using on Drive 1, but be careful NOT to format the drive. Then comes the tricky part; migrating your programs and settings to the new installation. In the past, I've done something like this, but between two different computers using a program called PCmover: http://laplink.com/pcmover/ (it's not free) I don't know if it'll work with two HDDs on one computer, but it could, and so far, it's your best bet if you want to migrate programs instead of reinstalling them. If for whatever reason you don't want to try this, or you did but it didn't work, the sad fact of the matter is, you'll just have to reinstall everything on Drive 1 again. But game saves are generally much, much smaller than the actual games and are easily transferrable. (All my saves are kept in "My Documents") It'll probably be a great hassle as you've said, but at least you'll only have to do it once. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/109785-changing-harddrives/#findComment-780335 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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