Replacing Root Drive

aubreyapple · 10-04-2012, 12:05 PM

I replaced my root drive on my MacPro. I thought the most reliable way would be to use Disk Utility to block copy from the old drive to the new drive. That DID work, however, I am disturbed by what I see: (this is 10.6.8 and the new drive name is identical to the old drive name. (Machintosh HD)).

1) many prefs are messed up.
the name of the machine was changed in network prefs to <oldname>-2
Photoshop could not find color prefs
LittleSnitch had to completely start over in accumulating the rules
I am afraid there may be more.

2) when doing a SuperDuper copy of the new drive to a backup done just before the clone, more than half (>250G) of the files were changed!

So, a) what did I do wrong (or what questions SHOULD I be asking?) and b) what is the recommended way to clone a replacement drive.

Ideally, even Time Machine should recognize the new drive as the old drive, if possible. I am thinking now that I should have used SuperDuper, but I had thought that a block copy would more accurately reflect the state of the old drive. (BTW, the old drive is in good working order, all tests pass.... The replacement is for speed, and the new drive IS FAST (velociraptor).

benwiggy · 10-04-2012, 12:12 PM

How exactly did you use Disk Utility to copy everything? I did this recently to copy one drive to another, using the "Restore" tab, and it worked perfectly, without the problems you mention.
The only thing that I've noticed is that Chronosync saw the new hard drive as a different source, so I needed to reset that.

From what you say, it sounds as though the user pref files either weren't copied or have some corruption.

aubreyapple · 10-04-2012, 01:45 PM

Thanks for the reply. Your experience is what I expected too.

Yes, I used the 'Restore' tab. Dragged the main drive into the source and the new drive into the destination. Took about 4 hours for 500G.

I am thinking two possibilities: 1) I did it while the root drive was the root drive (that is I did not boot to another drive to do the clone) or 2) I used 'Startup Disk' to select the new drive (after verifying with disk utility) and booted to that without removing the old drive first. Naturally, it could be none of the above.

One of these two could have corrupted things.

Did you use the same drive 'name' for the new drive as the old or did you change it? Sounds like you used the same name or you would have expected Chronosync to need changing.

10-04-2012, 12:05 PM	#1
aubreyapple All Star Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 561	Replacing Root Drive I replaced my root drive on my MacPro. I thought the most reliable way would be to use Disk Utility to block copy from the old drive to the new drive. That DID work, however, I am disturbed by what I see: (this is 10.6.8 and the new drive name is identical to the old drive name. (Machintosh HD)). 1) many prefs are messed up. the name of the machine was changed in network prefs to <oldname>-2 Photoshop could not find color prefs LittleSnitch had to completely start over in accumulating the rules I am afraid there may be more. 2) when doing a SuperDuper copy of the new drive to a backup done just before the clone, more than half (>250G) of the files were changed! So, a) what did I do wrong (or what questions SHOULD I be asking?) and b) what is the recommended way to clone a replacement drive. Ideally, even Time Machine should recognize the new drive as the old drive, if possible. I am thinking now that I should have used SuperDuper, but I had thought that a block copy would more accurately reflect the state of the old drive. (BTW, the old drive is in good working order, all tests pass.... The replacement is for speed, and the new drive IS FAST (velociraptor).

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10-04-2012, 12:12 PM	#2
benwiggy League Commissioner Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 5,040	How exactly did you use Disk Utility to copy everything? I did this recently to copy one drive to another, using the "Restore" tab, and it worked perfectly, without the problems you mention. The only thing that I've noticed is that Chronosync saw the new hard drive as a different source, so I needed to reset that. From what you say, it sounds as though the user pref files either weren't copied or have some corruption.

10-04-2012, 01:45 PM	#3
aubreyapple All Star Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 561	Thanks for the reply. Your experience is what I expected too. Yes, I used the 'Restore' tab. Dragged the main drive into the source and the new drive into the destination. Took about 4 hours for 500G. I am thinking two possibilities: 1) I did it while the root drive was the root drive (that is I did not boot to another drive to do the clone) or 2) I used 'Startup Disk' to select the new drive (after verifying with disk utility) and booted to that without removing the old drive first. Naturally, it could be none of the above. One of these two could have corrupted things. Did you use the same drive 'name' for the new drive as the old or did you change it? Sounds like you used the same name or you would have expected Chronosync to need changing.