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General discussion

cloning older macbook pro hard drive to new macbook pro

Jul 24, 2012 2:21AM PDT

I'm curious about something. I want to buy a new macbook pro, my old macbook pro (snow leopard os) is about six years old. I've cloned my old macbook pros hard drive using Super Duper and want to install it onto the new macbook. Are there disadvantages to doing that? For instance, would I be losing out on some newer options or functions on the newer mac by installing the old hard drive settings and files?

Thanks for any advice,

bgstreet

Discussion is locked

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As a gut reaction, I would say yes,
Jul 24, 2012 8:26AM PDT

1. Your MBP will come with Lion, if you purchase it in the next couple of days.
2. Mountain Lion will be a free upgrade for you.
3. That puts Snow Leopard two OS versions behind the current version.
4. All the new features of Mountain Lion will be unavailable to you.

There is a much easier way to move all your files and settings over to the new machine.

At your first boot up, you will be asked if you have data that you want to move from another Mac.
Answer yes, connect the two computers together with a piece of ethernet cable, NOT CrossOver cable, and follow the instructions.
At the end of the procedure your new Mac will have all your files, music, photo's, settings, passwords, bookmarks and what have you, all neatly placed in the correct place.
The Software is called Migration Assistant and it works well.

P

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It won't work
Jul 24, 2012 12:51PM PDT

It won't work, plain and simple. You try it, you'll get a kernel panic before the GUI loads. You'd have to move up to Lion so that the hardware support would be there for the newer MBP hardware. And not just Lion, but you might just have to wait for 10.7.5 to come out or even 10.7.6, assuming there even will be a 10.7.5 or 10.7.6.

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Snow Leopard is not going to boot on a new MacBook Pro
Aug 2, 2012 11:33PM PDT

But you can use the clone with setup assistant to migrate to your new Mac.