Hi all,

I may be selling my MacBook Pro in a few weeks and upgrading to an iMac. My current MBP is my first Mac ever, so this possible upgrade will be my 1st ever. Here is the thing, there may be a lapse of about 1-1 1/2 weeks between the time I sell my MBP and the time I get the iMac, which means I'll sell the MBP first then about 10 days later I'll be buying the iMac. My question is this, is there a way to backup an "image" of my current MBP's hard drive with data and programs and settings and everything, and upload that to the iMac once I get it? I'd love it if there is a way to do this, because I'd rather not have to spend the time loading all the programs I have one by one. Your help is greatly appreciated.

You can image a drive with Disk Utility - Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility - but I'm not sure I'd want to replace *all* the default settings on my new iMac with the ones from my MBP. There's a lot of potential for a mess there. I suggest imaging /Applications, /Library, and /User/<username(s)> (and if that doesn't get your personal files, you're doing it wrong) - then load the images onto your new iMac, double-click to mount them, and drag *only what you need* from the mounted image into your new machine.

Best of luck with the upgrade!

Jason

Ramiro,

When you get your iMac you will be prompted to transfer your information during the setup using Migration Assistant. You simply plug both computers together using a FireWire 400 cable and all of your data, programs and settings are transferred. Moving stuff from a macbook pro to an iMac will not cause any problems - just make sure and run your software updates after everything's transferred and you'll be fine. It's a very easy process that doesn't involve imaging or anything like that.

Let me know if you'd like some assistance with the transfer - it's something I do on an almost daily basis so I'm quite familiar with the process and more than willing to help.

Hi Jason,

Thanx for your inputs. I hadn't thought about the settings and maybe something clashing if I just back up the whole thing. But I had heard that if one is upgrading machines, when turning the new on for the first time, it could be connected to the hold one and it would copy everything from the old to the new one. I also found that I could use super duper and create an image of the entire drive, only problem is that I need a blank HD, and I don't have one, though I have one that has more than enough space for the image.

In any case, I may also try calling Apple or going to the Apple store and asking them what is the best way to do this. Thanx for your inputs.

Hi Trevor, thanx for the offer to help, I may take you up on that when I come to it. Actually I had read about the Migration Assistant, but my problem is that I will not have the MBP when I get the iMac, so I won't be able to connect them for the transfer. That is why I was wondering if there is a way to do that, but from another drive, not necessarily the machine. Say for example, if I clone the MBP HD onto an external, then when I get the iMac, could I plug the external and have the iMac copy everything from the external HD? If not, what other options are there?

Are you running leopard? If so, and you can get another drive, you can create a time machine backup of your laptop now.

Then when you get the iMac, when you are first setting it up you will have the chance to restore it from the time machine backup. I've never tried this moving from one computer to another, but should work i'd imagine.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html

Look at the section "Migration with style."

Probably the best and easiest way to go...and the new iMac will be exactly how you leave off you old laptop.

That is cool, I think this is exactly what I need. Thanx a bunch.

Yep, restoring one machine from another's backup will be just fine. All it does is copy your user folder so all of your programs, settings and documents will transfer right over - no compatibility issues whatsoever!

Again, make sure and run all software updates to ensure that you're all up to speed with the latest security releases, combo updates etc.

Enjoy!

That brings up another interesting question. When I sell my laptop, is there a way to remove all the stuff that I added like programs and files and such, and get it as it came from the Apple store?

Yep. Use the gray installation disc that came with it and perform an "erase and install" which will completely erase your hard drive and re-install a fresh operating system. Again, if you have any questions during the process feel free to give me a call - my phone numbers are on my website.

Interesting timing for this article...gives a step by step process for the backup

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/29/6-easy-step...g-time-machine/

That article is nice, but seems to go almost too much in depth - the process is a lot simpler and easier than they actually describe. Good to have some info to fall back on, though.