Thank you for this video. In 23 years of IT, I've rarely encountered Macs. I need to clone a Mac Book Pro's hard drive to an SSD and you made my day easier. I don't even have to install a 3rd party utility! Much appreciated.
This video still takes the cake in September 2022. Watched countless videos on how to do this, and yours is the best. I’ve been dealing with having a slow imac for years and you helped me fix all of that in just 10 minutes. Truly, thank you!
OK... real talk GUNNER TIERNO... take a bow! This has worked to perfection on my Mac. Im a DJ in Vegas and got thousands and thousands of music files and videos. EVERYTHING popped right back up on the new Samsung 860 EVO 1TB. Faster & smoother. In the past I always used "Super Duper" and at the end of the whole process it would of taken me at least 1 day in a half. After all the files (iOS, my music programs, videos, etc.) I would have to my Serato do a "relocate" which took a whole day to do. Your process to only 2 1/2 hours and I didn't even have to "relocate" my files. Everything popped right back up on my Macbook Pro 2012, 16gb ram, i5 3.1, High Sierra, and now the Samsung SSD. My laptop now is super fast and powerful! I shared this with my other DJs around the country so Thanks! A+ ~DJ LAROSE ROYCE
You are a life saver, my SSD wasn't detected as boot drive because I didn't partitioned it as same as old one (MacOs extended journal), thanks to you I figured it out😎
I thought you were extremely drunk at the beginning of the video, but by the end I've managed to clone my hard drive easily and now ready to fit haha cheers man
Hi Gunner. Thank you for taking the time to put together this video. I used it to install and clone a new SSD in a 2013 MacBook Pro. Your method made much more sense than trying to restore using the Time Machine Back-up method. Your instructions were easy to understand and you took the time to explain things in detail. Thanks again. Great work!
I recently bought an ssd drive to cloan my Mac HD to. I followed all the steps here but for some reason when I go to check the startup disk, the external drive doesn’t even show as an option to boot from. When I start up on the internal drive I can view the external and see that it copied the data successfully, we’ll except some apps that seem to be grey out or a line going across them. I’ve done this several times but have had no luck. I also show Mac HD and Mac HD Data I’m not sure what that means. Any help will be much appreciated
My wife has a 2015 21.5" iMac that has become really slow. I've learned that the HD in these is usually the problem. So, I am replacing it with a Samsung SSD. Your video gave me all I needed to clone the new drive. The process worked perfectly! For whatever reason all of the OS and data cloned in about half an hour. But, I restarted after the clone, and everything is there! Thanks so much! You're the man!
It took me about 60 minutes watching several videos and reading a bunch of google searches to figure this out. Never found anything that said that, read your comment after I figured it out, I wish I would of started off with this video and read your comment!
You're an absolute legend for this. I used this video to speed my Mac. I run the Hard Drive externally and it made an unbelievable difference. Thanks for making the video so easy to follow along with.
Great video man, helped me a lot. I cloned my macOS Catalina APFS to an SSD. I just made sure the Filevault is turned off and the disk is decrypted. After that I followed your steps and it worked perfectly! Thanks.
Great video! My wife's computer. First time she tried it she did not change the settings that allowed the computer to go to sleep. Newer version of High Sierra OIS perhaps because the process was slightly different. Did not need to restart the computer in recovery mode. Computer went to sleep in the process and caused an error in the cloning process. DON'T ALLOW YOUR COMPUTER TO SLEEP and it'll work.
@@GunnerTierno mine says while restoring while booting Not recognise /Dev/null as an image file Could not get source volume Operation failed.. What do I do
couldn't agree more. i've watched a dozen or so other videos and this one is top notch, simple, well explained and easy to follow. i'm super novice on this stuff, but i just followed the steps to a T and it worked perfectly
Did you find an answer to this? HD and HD - Data are from Catalina upgrade where HD is now read-only for start up files. I cannot proceed with this much needed move to a SSD boot disk until I know how this affects things. Cheers
*SOLUTION* for those with *13" MBP mid 2012 with MojaveOS and internal HD formatted as APFS* Do the following, since Disk Utility won't work: 1) Connect your SSD with SATA-usb connection and erase it as the same format as your HD (APFS). 2) Download and install MojaveOS in your SSD. 3) Boot/start up WITH your SSD; you won't have nothing, it's clean and empty but with MojaveOS. 4) Open Migration Assistant and move/migrate ALL your data, apps, documents etc 'from a BackUp or from the same drive to this Mac'. It will basically move all your hard drive to your SSD, since you've started up/booted from your SSD, so your SSD is 'This Mac', if that makes sense. Will take a little while but will be done 5) The cloning is done! If u want to double check everything looks as with your HD, just start up your computer again with your SSD and see that your desktop, apps, everything is the same! (Should be! it was for me doing these steps) 6) Just turn everything off, leave for 30 minutes minimum and swap the drives internally. And that's it! It should obviously start with your SSD, which is your internal drive now and everything will be how it was before with your HD. Thanks for everything, Gunner Tierno!
Remember, you can download Mojave into the new SSD when you boot the computer in recovery mode. An option it gives is to “reinstall macOS” and you choose the new SSD 👍🏼
Can you tell me now how to get my bootcamp partition on my new ssd? I've got Mojave and my apps and have cloned the bootcamp partition using disk utility so I have a bootcamp.dmg file but don't know what to do with it now. The ssd is in APFS format
Thank you so much for this comment. I followed the video 📹 and ran into the same problem. I was really frustrated. But I used migration like you said and it worked Thank you so much sir I really appreciate 👍
How long should it take my computer to reboot after final step in recovery mode? I followed instructions to the tee on a 2014 Mac Mini. Clicked Restart & selected the external for the reboot and I now have the beach ball icon spinning for the last 15 minutes or so.
This video is great. I have a question though that I just tried to research... When upgrading to Catalina you are given two internal drives: 1. Macintosh HD 2. Macintosh HD - Data Apparently this only happens once you've installed Catalina. Some security measure Apple took in this OS. My question is when I get to the part when I'm in recovery (or earlier???) which drive to I restore? And if I restore both how do I go about doing that. I was so excited to find your video because it's so easy to understand and follow but now I'm not quite sure how I clone/recovery now? Any help would be great! Thank you!
I’ve searched all over for the answer to this! On this thread, some people have said to choose Macintosh HD-Data and it worked fine. I will probably back everything up and try it.
This video is an absolute life saver! I know next to nothing about computers and I just successfully installed a new 500GB SSD into my old late 2010 Macbook Pro. Even though I'm still waiting on my new RAM sticks to come in...the computer is running considerably faster as is. I started and stopped this video all the way though the process and it worked perfectly. THANK YOU!!
Excellent and to the point videos without crap and everything explained thoroughly without confusion. I was a bit confused to clone my friends Mac to his new SSD. Now I can do it without a hiccup. You are grrrrreat!
Si ce l'ho fatta, ho clonato la memoria principale (Macintosh HD, non Macintosh HD-data) nell'SSD nuovo e lo ho impostato come disco di avvio. Ha funzionato
I finally did it! Went to MicroCenter bought the cheapest 256GB SSD $29 and follwed your directions. i went from a 2min 30sec start up time to 21seconds! It's like a bran new computer. Thank You!
I am absolutely thrilled with this video. I followed your instructions step by step and was successful. Thank you for providing this high quality instructional video. You saved me a lot of grief and lost time and money having to take this to a Mac center which is over an hour away from me. You have an excellent way of presenting technical material.
you're an absolute lifesaver I've been through crazy amounts of videos trying to restore ,cope my old 2012 Mac hdd .. this work like a charm.. I'm a complete newbie when it comes to Mac... subscribed:-)
The most important thing here is that the guy gives easy and clear instructions for the task at hand, not that he is mispronouncig couple of words. All you laughers should get a life!
Can you do a video on how to deal with the APFS Formatting difficulties, my macbook cant restore files to my new ssd because the ssd cant be formatted to APFS for some reason, or give the option to. I've tried the unmount method, but it did not work. I sort of dont want to go the other way make the HDD back to mac os extended because i dont want to back up my files. If i did, im confused how everything would transfer back because then that backup would still be in APFS.
oh i was reading regarding issues relating to APFS (Encrypted) on the internal HD and some faced difficulties while doing recovery. How do i go about this?
Great video! I ran into a few problems that required extra steps while upgrading an early 2011 Macbook Pro. The new SSD I installed was 250GB while the HDD I cloned was 320GB. This required me to create a new partition on the HDD that was a little larger than the difference between the HDD and the SSD (i.e. 320GB-250GB=70GB Partition). I made the new partion 75GB just for a little extra room. The HDD now has a 245GB partition containing the macOS and my data plus a new 75GB empty partition. At that point I was able to clone the 245GB HDD partition to the 250GB SSD. Works great? Hope this may help someone with a similar problem.
It was all fine until I tryed the external SSD (After the migration). It starts and in the middle of the loading appear a "prohibition" sign, and it stopped. Any help?
Hi Gunner, Great help. I used to clone a hard drive to a ssd drive in Mac OS Catalina. It seems with Catalina, we need to proceed as you did, going into Recovery mode to clone it. However, I had a doubt that others may have. In Catalina, there are two partitions, with the almost the same name being the biggest called Macintosh HD - Data. I used this one to clone as a source and the disk utility created two in the ssd drive, like the source hard drive. So, if others have this doubt, copy the Macintosh HD - Data and it may work well as it did for me. Keep doing these great videos.
I’ve been sitting on all my upgrade “stuff” until I found this answer. Thank you! I was worried if I chose Mac HD-Data, that it would not allow the OS to boot.
Excellent tutorial, absolutely perfect! You made it easy work to follow something that seemed quite intimidating to carry out. Your clear, concise instructions took away any fears I had! Thank you!
The best OS X tutorial I have seen in all my years on TH-cam. I will still wait to hear back from you. I got adventurous and installed Catalina Beta. Its stopping my password program, so I want to downgrade, but how? I thought Time Machine would simply restore, but now I find its not a clone, only individual files. Would you do a safe reformat which would put it back to El Capitan (late 2015 5K) and then have to get it back up to Mojave, or is there an even better way? I subbed and clicked the notification.
@@GunnerTierno Great suggestion. I took the path of least resistance and dumped the password manager for something better. Catalina works flawlessly on the 70 or paid programs I have. How is Catalina for you?
For anyone struggling with an error when you restore in recovery mode: I was seeing an error message "restore process has failed" and when opening the details saw "could not recognize 'dev/(null)'", so I did some digging and found if you boot into internet recovery mode, you're fully disconnected from both the current HDD and the recovery drive. From there, I was able to "unlock" the Macintosh HD with your standard OS password and recovery seems to be going well
Hey man, awesome video but I had a quick question. If my mid 2012 MBP is formatted in APFS currently, should I change it to Mac OS extended Journaled? I'm replacing the current hard drive with a SSD but backing it up with just time machine and a separate external hard drive. Is it alright if i just match it with APFS when I switch to the new SSD?
If your MacBook is encrypted, you will need to unencrypt the HD before you can restore the SSD. You’ll have to turn off Firevault in privacy settings (which takes forever).
Hey my dood hows it going I’m trying to clone my hdd to a ssd and when I’m disk utilities it doesn’t give me an option to restore i have a disk image that has 1.29 gbs that has my OS X base system and the rest of the 489.79 gb hdd are the regular memory. It’s just not giving me the restore option
I have a Macbook Pro mid 2010 running Snow Leopard. I want to upgrade to an SSD and also upgrade the OS to High Sierra. All while keeping my files. Whats the best way to do it? First upgrade the OS? Or the SSD? Or how?? I really don't want to lose my files and apps.
Thank you very much Gunner! I am cloning for a late 2008 MacBook Pro. I just wanted to add that when in disk utilities there was no restore button to choose! But, I found it at the top of the screen in the drop down menu. It unmounted and mounted both. It took my cool name and changed it to the exact name of the internal drive, so you just have to decide to choose internal or external. Thx again! You are making me look like a tech wizard to my family. Keep up the great work! And, with those glasses, can I call you,”Hollywood “ ? 😃
@@GunnerTierno Hi! When you made this video, were you using OSX El Capitan? I haven't upgraded my OS yet, the new one is Catalina.. Should I clone my HD to my SSD while I have El Capitan or do I upgrade first.
@@rebesway I thought so after I saw your post was a year old. I was thinking a better option would be to do a clean install and then do as Javi (about five comments lower) suggested, to use migration assistant to transfer your old data. I curious to know what you did and then how did it work out?
@@NormBellas I actually followed this video.. bought an external Hard Drive enclosure that allowed me to plug in the SSD and clone it with Disk Utility. Went perfectly. But now I'm thinking of upgrading to the new M1 MBP 13'
I'm upgrading a 2012 MBP and just wondering if the computer would run the same or better if you upgrade to a 1TB ssd or 2 500GB ssd? Taking out the CD ROM Bay and replace with 500GB. How would you clone the OS on a two ssd system? Thank you
Hey! Great videos! Just watched this and the second part waiting for the SSDs and RAM I ordered. Do you know if apps like PP, AE and FL Studio will work just fine after cloning the HD? Keep up the awesome content!
Can I clone my new SSD from HDD and use the SSD as default drive for booting?? Will I be able to do it after installing the SSD? I dont have SATA to USB enclosure
should the external hard drive be of the same size/capacity as the internal hard drive to be cloned? i have a 1 TB internal HDD and planning to get a 500gb SSD. thanks!
Save a step. Plug in External Hard Drive - THEN Reboot your Mac to Recovery Mode - Then Erase your New Drive and continue with the rest of your procedures. Sam difference but most don't know you can reboot into Recovery mode at any time (assuming you have it). HINT. I always create a "disk image" of my computer and save it on an external drive. If your computer is running poorly or has too much junk on it - Once you have a clone or your hard drive - You might want to boot into recovery mode and ERASE your primary drive. Then Restore your Mac OS.(need Network connection). Once you restore your OS - you will have a clean operating system again and it may run like new again!
That is exactly what I am planning to do tonight when I get home. What did you mean you need to have a network connection? If you are in recovery mode how can you be connected to the internet? May be I misunderstand what you meant.
Doing this tomorrow, wish me luck!!! Very very very helpful and detailed Thank you very much Only a little question: If I do this operation, does this copy the operating system as well? So if I copy everything like you did in the video, Can I mount the ssd right away?
Fantastic. I've just cloned my MacBook Pro 2012 to a new SSD using just this video and it was easy. Never done anything like it before. You're the Man!
Hi great simple explanatory video by the way ...well hereI go I got a macbook pro late 2009 core 2duo running Mac Os Yosemite and a Mac mini also late 2009 core 2duo also running Mac Os Yosemite ..only the ram is different ...got 8 GB only the Macmini and 4 GB on my Macbook pro ...my question is... since the two are almost identical... will the Mac mini cloned hard disk work on on the macbook pro ?...thanks in advance...you are doing a good job.
Can I do this to my 2005 black MacBook that is very sentimental, even the operating system, and then use this boot disk in my mid 2012 MacBook Pro? Thanks
If your old MacBook pro is running a very old operating system do you rec. a system update first? OR just clone the existing and use it to do the SSD upgrade (I'm going to replace battery and upgrade memory too) and THEN do a System software upgrade to most recent? I'm worried the little old computer won't handle a system upgrade first. Tha you.
Great tutorial video! 👍🏼 I got a MacBook Pro (13”, early 2011) OS X Yosemite. Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB Bought a Samsung 860 EVO 1tb SSD and 16 gb RAM. will be installing in the next few days. When doing this cloning with this method does it matter what MacOS you currently running? Pros and Cons of doing it this method or using Carbon Cloner? Thanks
Thanks for posting this. I’ll call myself a Mac newbie. I used to work on them a lot back in the 90s and am getting back into the world of Apple. One caveat with the video. Your destination clone drive must be at least equal to or greater in size of the original drive or the restore will fail. My original drive was 499GB and new SSD was 479GB. Restore complained of lack of disk space. Fortunately I had another 512GB SSD and it worked perfectly.
I don't see restore option under disk utility on my MB Air. Is this for Mac Pro only or come after a certain MacOS? NWM, it looks it's under Edit menu now. Thnak you for the great video.
Question for you: I have a Macbook. Two drives are in the laptop; an SSD with OS X and a mechanical drive with Windows. Can I clone the Windows drive, partition the SSD then dump the clone onto the second partition of the SSD. I want to do this to speed up Windows. Hope you see this, thanks.
@@GunnerTierno Yah, I was thinking, make the partition first then just dump the image...but i'm not sure if it'll be THAT simple. Oh well, thanks for your reply!
THANKS FOR THIS INFORMATION. Can I ask you something. I've got a macbook pro 2013 with CATALINA OS inside withe Apps like lightroom photoshop etc. Can I make a copy of this one and put on SSD and install on my old MacBook Pro mid 2010?? Thanks again
I have an example? I have two iMacs. I would like to clone one iMac hard drive (operating system and everything) over to the other iMac.is it possible to simply connect with thunderbolt the one iMac to the other 2nd iMac, and boot the second iMac in target disk mode. And then restart iMac 1 in recovery mode to open disk utility. Is it possible to then erase and restore iMac 2’s hard drive and clone iMac 1 hard drive to it?
Excellent video, but I keep getting an error "restore process failed. the destination does not have enough space. click to continue" what might be wrong?
I’m getting mixed choices in regards to upgrading the OS to Catalina before cloning to ssd. I am still using El Capitan. Is it easier or more difficult, what would you suggest?
Everything went smooth and transfered and gave me the ✅ then starting up through the external SSD, it started but at the end it showed a blank screen with an error sign 🚫 as this, what did I do wrong??
Thanks, thanks, thanks. Used this today to replace 5400 HDD in my 2014 Mac Mini 2.6ghz 8gb. It was getting lethargic and now is practically instant! For reference the new SSD would not boot from Startup after data transferred to test. The choice was there but it just hung up. After waiting 20 minutes I restarted, went to disk utility and compared drives. The volumes were identical (within half gig) and I made the swap. So grateful! Almost as fast as my iOS devices.
Thank you, thank you. I have viewed several other people doing this but only yours gave me the confidence to do it to my 2015 iMac. I have just finished fitting a 2TB Crucial MX500 and it works!!! It's about 10 times faster to startup and my office suite, which used to take about 15 seconds, started in 1 yes one(1) second. I'm very impressed. Thank you again
I think I’m most amazed you got this to work without even knowing how to say SATA correctly or getting the explanations for why you’re doing what you’re doing wrong. ‘Booting from a partition on your drive’.
Thanks! This was helpful. However, if I want a clean reinstall without all existing apps and data, would I get that by selecting the "base system"? I believe I've got a virus or malware or corrupted file within my current OSx and need to have a clean point to start from. I've backed up my important files so that's not a concern.
Hey easy to follow vid. A question though. I formatted new M.2 SSD same as my current hard drive. I did the Restore function. And got an error message - Operation Failed - Cant restore a locked, encryped volume, Try running 'diskutil apfs UnlockVolume" first. What is that and how do I do that?
Great simple cut and dry how to clone MacOS video, I have a question: could I be able to clone out of Macbook Air and install the SSD(the clone) on a Macbook Pro?
Great video! I have an iMac 27 Late 2009 and in the last 6 months, I replaced original 1tb hard drive with 2tb hard drive. Removed optical drive and in its place installed a Samsung 850 EVO 1tb SSD. I Installed the OS and software/Apps on SSD and moved the home folder to along with data-movies/pictures on 2tb platter drive. I just recently experienced a big problem.... I updated to a newer OS from High Sierra to Mojave and now cannot boot up my iMac. Any suggestions? Does it make a difference if the HD is first-connected where the original drive was connected and my SSD is connected where the old optical drive was connected in the iMac? Thank you in advance!
This might be a stupid question, but can you just use a regular SSD drive, one which you don't need to plug into that housing/casing like the one in the video? i.e just a regular USB 3 ssd drive with it's own cable.
Thank you for this video. In 23 years of IT, I've rarely encountered Macs. I need to clone a Mac Book Pro's hard drive to an SSD and you made my day easier. I don't even have to install a 3rd party utility! Much appreciated.
This video still takes the cake in September 2022. Watched countless videos on how to do this, and yours is the best. I’ve been dealing with having a slow imac for years and you helped me fix all of that in just 10 minutes. Truly, thank you!
OK... real talk GUNNER TIERNO... take a bow! This has worked to perfection on my Mac. Im a DJ in Vegas and got thousands and thousands of music files and videos. EVERYTHING popped right back up on the new Samsung 860 EVO 1TB. Faster & smoother. In the past I always used "Super Duper" and at the end of the whole process it would of taken me at least 1 day in a half. After all the files (iOS, my music programs, videos, etc.) I would have to my Serato do a "relocate" which took a whole day to do. Your process to only 2 1/2 hours and I didn't even have to "relocate" my files. Everything popped right back up on my Macbook Pro 2012, 16gb ram, i5 3.1, High Sierra, and now the Samsung SSD. My laptop now is super fast and powerful! I shared this with my other DJs around the country so Thanks! A+ ~DJ LAROSE ROYCE
Question, Did it work also with your software previously installed? for instance the software you use to work
@@JeimsBe Yes... everything worked! Only difference is the hard drive! Take the old one out and put the new one in!
I have this different error failed, operation time out and couldn’t be complete error Osstatus error60
Would you perhaps know if it also copy’s my windows partition I have installed on my Mac? Or would it exclude that … or do I like need to select it?
You are a life saver, my SSD wasn't detected as boot drive because I didn't partitioned it as same as old one (MacOs extended journal), thanks to you I figured it out😎
2022 and i am still coming back to this video. Excellent explanation!
i appreciate that!
Here in Holland from an old grandma. Thank you so much! Explained very cleary.
Yes, a good explanation. I am from Indonesia also understood it very well
I thought you were extremely drunk at the beginning of the video, but by the end I've managed to clone my hard drive easily and now ready to fit haha cheers man
Hi Gunner. Thank you for taking the time to put together this video. I used it to install and clone a new SSD in a 2013 MacBook Pro. Your method made much more sense than trying to restore using the Time Machine Back-up method. Your instructions were easy to understand and you took the time to explain things in detail. Thanks again. Great work!
I recently bought an ssd drive to cloan my Mac HD to. I followed all the steps here but for some reason when I go to check the startup disk, the external drive doesn’t even show as an option to boot from. When I start up on the internal drive I can view the external and see that it copied the data successfully, we’ll except some apps that seem to be grey out or a line going across them. I’ve done this several times but have had no luck. I also show Mac HD and Mac HD Data I’m not sure what that means. Any help will be much appreciated
you need to replace your internal sata cable inside the macbook. i've heard this fixes that issue
@@GunnerTierno internal sata cable for external drive?
In Mojave you don't have to un-mount your drives, just restore and go.
My wife has a 2015 21.5" iMac that has become really slow. I've learned that the HD in these is usually the problem. So, I am replacing it with a Samsung SSD. Your video gave me all I needed to clone the new drive. The process worked perfectly! For whatever reason all of the OS and data cloned in about half an hour. But, I restarted after the clone, and everything is there! Thanks so much! You're the man!
For those using older operating system, their wont be an icon for “restore”. Instead, go to the menu bar, edit, then restore for there :D
THANK YOU
Thank you
I panicked for about 30 seconds before finding your comment. Thanks! 🙏
It took me about 60 minutes watching several videos and reading a bunch of google searches to figure this out. Never found anything that said that, read your comment after I figured it out, I wish I would of started off with this video and read your comment!
Your comment saved me as well. Thanks man
You're an absolute legend for this. I used this video to speed my Mac. I run the Hard Drive externally and it made an unbelievable difference. Thanks for making the video so easy to follow along with.
Great video man, helped me a lot. I cloned my macOS Catalina APFS to an SSD. I just made sure the Filevault is turned off and the disk is decrypted. After that I followed your steps and it worked perfectly! Thanks.
Did you clone using Mac HD or Mac HD-Data? Thanks!
Great video! My wife's computer. First time she tried it she did not change the settings that allowed the computer to go to sleep. Newer version of High Sierra OIS perhaps because the process was slightly different. Did not need to restart the computer in recovery mode. Computer went to sleep in the process and caused an error in the cloning process. DON'T ALLOW YOUR COMPUTER TO SLEEP and it'll work.
Ridiculously well done instructional video.. so much crap out there that is poorly explained. Keep up the good work and thank you!
Thank you for the informative video. Extremely clear and easy to follow.
whats your os at the time of your video? @@GunnerTierno
@@GunnerTierno mine says while restoring while booting
Not recognise /Dev/null as an image file
Could not get source volume
Operation failed..
What do I do
couldn't agree more. i've watched a dozen or so other videos and this one is top notch, simple, well explained and easy to follow. i'm super novice on this stuff, but i just followed the steps to a T and it worked perfectly
elefterios78 ‘’k
I have Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data. Not sure what to do. Any suggestions will be most grateful. Thanks
Did you find an answer to this? HD and HD - Data are from Catalina upgrade where HD is now read-only for start up files. I cannot proceed with this much needed move to a SSD boot disk until I know how this affects things. Cheers
*SOLUTION* for those with *13" MBP mid 2012 with MojaveOS and internal HD formatted as APFS*
Do the following, since Disk Utility won't work:
1) Connect your SSD with SATA-usb connection and erase it as the same format as your HD (APFS).
2) Download and install MojaveOS in your SSD.
3) Boot/start up WITH your SSD; you won't have nothing, it's clean and empty but with MojaveOS.
4) Open Migration Assistant and move/migrate ALL your data, apps, documents etc 'from a BackUp or from the same drive to this Mac'. It will basically move all your hard drive to your SSD, since you've started up/booted from your SSD, so your SSD is 'This Mac', if that makes sense. Will take a little while but will be done
5) The cloning is done! If u want to double check everything looks as with your HD, just start up your computer again with your SSD and see that your desktop, apps, everything is the same! (Should be! it was for me doing these steps)
6) Just turn everything off, leave for 30 minutes minimum and swap the drives internally.
And that's it! It should obviously start with your SSD, which is your internal drive now and everything will be how it was before with your HD.
Thanks for everything, Gunner Tierno!
Javi Carles thank youuuuu
Remember, you can download Mojave into the new SSD when you boot the computer in recovery mode. An option it gives is to “reinstall macOS” and you choose the new SSD 👍🏼
I really wish I read this comment before wasting half a day and re watching this video to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. Thank you so much
Can you tell me now how to get my bootcamp partition on my new ssd? I've got Mojave and my apps and have cloned the bootcamp partition using disk utility so I have a bootcamp.dmg file but don't know what to do with it now. The ssd is in APFS format
Thank you so much for this comment. I followed the video 📹 and ran into the same problem. I was really frustrated. But I used migration like you said and it worked
Thank you so much sir I really appreciate 👍
How long should it take my computer to reboot after final step in recovery mode? I followed instructions to the tee on a 2014 Mac Mini. Clicked Restart & selected the external for the reboot and I now have the beach ball icon spinning for the last 15 minutes or so.
Why in the internal it’s showing two partitions? How to merge both of the partitions ?
Clone the drive with the most data. Most likely the first one has the operating system, and the other image has all of your data on it
15” MacBook Pro mid-2012
This video is great. I have a question though that I just tried to research... When upgrading to Catalina you are given two internal drives:
1. Macintosh HD
2. Macintosh HD - Data
Apparently this only happens once you've installed Catalina. Some security measure Apple took in this OS. My question is when I get to the part when I'm in recovery (or earlier???) which drive to I restore? And if I restore both how do I go about doing that. I was so excited to find your video because it's so easy to understand and follow but now I'm not quite sure how I clone/recovery now? Any help would be great! Thank you!
I’ve searched all over for the answer to this! On this thread, some people have said to choose Macintosh HD-Data and it worked fine. I will probably back everything up and try it.
After so many videos, yours takes the cake; clearly explained and straight to the point. Thank you!
This video is an absolute life saver! I know next to nothing about computers and I just successfully installed a new 500GB SSD into my old late 2010 Macbook Pro. Even though I'm still waiting on my new RAM sticks to come in...the computer is running considerably faster as is. I started and stopped this video all the way though the process and it worked perfectly. THANK YOU!!
Excellent and to the point videos without crap and everything explained thoroughly without confusion. I was a bit confused to clone my friends Mac to his new SSD. Now I can do it without a hiccup. You are grrrrreat!
Will USB 3.0 connection be fast enough to boot from? Or should I invest more in a Thunderbolt 2 enclosure? Mac Mini 2014.
Hi Gunner, I have two internal storages named Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - data in APFS Volume, which one I have to copy?
I have the same thing I cloned Macintosh HD and it cloned both mac HD and mac HD data but I'm having trouble booting it from the usb
@@kibukirichards5873 did you make it? before try i want to be sure what to do.. thanks
ce l 'hai fatta poi?
Si ce l'ho fatta, ho clonato la memoria principale (Macintosh HD, non Macintosh HD-data) nell'SSD nuovo e lo ho impostato come disco di avvio. Ha funzionato
I finally did it! Went to MicroCenter bought the cheapest 256GB SSD $29 and follwed your directions. i went from a 2min 30sec start up time to 21seconds! It's like a bran new computer. Thank You!
I am absolutely thrilled with this video. I followed your instructions step by step and was successful. Thank you for providing this high quality instructional video. You saved me a lot of grief and lost time and money having to take this to a Mac center which is over an hour away from me. You have an excellent way of presenting technical material.
you're an absolute lifesaver I've been through crazy amounts of videos trying to restore ,cope my old 2012 Mac hdd .. this work like a charm.. I'm a complete newbie when it comes to Mac... subscribed:-)
This dude saying STATA kills me haha XD
@@mynditran3123 me too...where'd that extra t come from??😂
@@robertmuckle2985 Tourette's syndrome?
I think he lost his man card when he called a button a "buddon".
Stopped watching the instant I heard that and found another video.
The most important thing here is that the guy gives easy and clear instructions for the task at hand, not that he is mispronouncig couple of words. All you laughers should get a life!
Can you do a video on how to deal with the APFS Formatting difficulties, my macbook cant restore files to my new ssd because the ssd cant be formatted to APFS for some reason, or give the option to. I've tried the unmount method, but it did not work. I sort of dont want to go the other way make the HDD back to mac os extended because i dont want to back up my files. If i did, im confused how everything would transfer back because then that backup would still be in APFS.
oh i was reading regarding issues relating to APFS (Encrypted) on the internal HD and some faced difficulties while doing recovery. How do i go about this?
I m trying to figure it out . Even my system hdd is apfs encrypted which doesn’t match with my new ssd format Mac OS extended( journaled)
What if i have boot camp and windows in the computer ? Everything will restoring ?
Great video! I ran into a few problems that required extra steps while upgrading an early 2011 Macbook Pro. The new SSD I installed was 250GB while the HDD I cloned was 320GB. This required me to create a new partition on the HDD that was a little larger than the difference between the HDD and the SSD (i.e. 320GB-250GB=70GB Partition). I made the new partion 75GB just for a little extra room. The HDD now has a 245GB partition containing the macOS and my data plus a new 75GB empty partition. At that point I was able to clone the 245GB HDD partition to the 250GB SSD. Works great? Hope this may help someone with a similar problem.
Does the replacement SSD have to be the same capacity as the HD being replaced? What if I’m upgrading from 500GB to 2TB?
It was all fine until I tryed the external SSD (After the migration). It starts and in the middle of the loading appear a "prohibition" sign, and it stopped. Any help?
Any fixes?
Could you do this with a protable hdd? I have a new sdd but I don't have the sata connection cable
Hi Gunner,
Great help. I used to clone a hard drive to a ssd drive in Mac OS Catalina. It seems with Catalina, we need to proceed as you did, going into Recovery mode to clone it. However, I had a doubt that others may have. In Catalina, there are two partitions, with the almost the same name being the biggest called Macintosh HD - Data. I used this one to clone as a source and the disk utility created two in the ssd drive, like the source hard drive. So, if others have this doubt, copy the Macintosh HD - Data and it may work well as it did for me.
Keep doing these great videos.
HI, helpful comment! Did you format the new ssd to APFS (just like the source HD)?
Stimulatedsoulrec Yes, APFS with journaling.
Thanks! Worked exactly as you said: restore the HD-data and the other partition was created as well.
I’ve been sitting on all my upgrade “stuff” until I found this answer. Thank you! I was worried if I chose Mac HD-Data, that it would not allow the OS to boot.
At last!!!! Just scrolled through 5 months of comments on this video before found this answer!!!! thank you
This really is a secret. Developing companies take advantage of unaware people to sell unnecessary software to clone. Great job and thanks!
Excellent tutorial, absolutely perfect! You made it easy work to follow something that seemed quite intimidating to carry out. Your clear, concise instructions took away any fears I had! Thank you!
..
I followed you step by step and brought my old 2012 Mac back to life !!! It was so easy ! You are the man !!!
The best OS X tutorial I have seen in all my years on TH-cam. I will still wait to hear back from you. I got adventurous and installed Catalina Beta. Its stopping my password program, so I want to downgrade, but how? I thought Time Machine would simply restore, but now I find its not a clone, only individual files.
Would you do a safe reformat which would put it back to El Capitan (late 2015 5K) and then have to get it back up to Mojave, or is there an even better way? I subbed and clicked the notification.
@@GunnerTierno Great suggestion. I took the path of least resistance and dumped the password manager for something better. Catalina works flawlessly on the 70 or paid programs I have. How is Catalina for you?
In disk utility click the view all top left to make sure you see the partition type as well when comparing drive types and formats
For anyone struggling with an error when you restore in recovery mode:
I was seeing an error message "restore process has failed" and when opening the details saw "could not recognize 'dev/(null)'", so I did some digging and found if you boot into internet recovery mode, you're fully disconnected from both the current HDD and the recovery drive. From there, I was able to "unlock" the Macintosh HD with your standard OS password and recovery seems to be going well
How do you do this? I keep getting the error message even when I manually unmount both the Mac HD and the new SSD
@@Duojett71 where you able to fix it ?
@@alvaritowdiesel1 yes I eventually got it....but it was 10 months ago....so I don't remember what I did.
Hey man, awesome video but I had a quick question. If my mid 2012 MBP is formatted in APFS currently, should I change it to Mac OS extended Journaled? I'm replacing the current hard drive with a SSD but backing it up with just time machine and a separate external hard drive. Is it alright if i just match it with APFS when I switch to the new SSD?
If your MacBook is encrypted, you will need to unencrypt the HD before you can restore the SSD. You’ll have to turn off Firevault in privacy settings (which takes forever).
Gunner Tierno I might having this problem now. Do you have a video already?
@jusToofresh thanks that was a very helpful tip! 👍👊
Hey my dood hows it going I’m trying to clone my hdd to a ssd and when I’m disk utilities it doesn’t give me an option to restore i have a disk image that has 1.29 gbs that has my OS X base system and the rest of the 489.79 gb hdd are the regular memory. It’s just not giving me the restore option
Got this message:
Restoring “Backup MacBook” from “Macintosh HD”
Validating target...
Validating source...
Validating sizes...
Restoring
Verifying
Inverting target volume...
APFS inverter failed to invert the volume - Invalid argument
The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error 22.)
Operation failed…
Me tooooo 22222 2 two :(
Same here
Same here
Hey I am having this issue to. Have you found a solution?
Yep, same here. Anyone managed to sort it out?
I have a Macbook Pro mid 2010 running Snow Leopard. I want to upgrade to an SSD and also upgrade the OS to High Sierra. All while keeping my files. Whats the best way to do it? First upgrade the OS? Or the SSD? Or how?? I really don't want to lose my files and apps.
Yes! A guy who knows how to do a tutorial. Thank you.
Question: what do you choose if you're cloning a Catalina OS? It has 2 partitions(?) Catalina and Catalina data??
is one very small? like 10GB?
Dude, amazing. So easy! I’m fired up and ready to clone to my new SSD!
Is restoring the same as creating a new disk image of the hd? Will it boot from the external hd with the disk image copy on it?
Thank you for your video, your advice helped out setting up a external ssd that I could run my computer from it.
Thank you very much Gunner! I am cloning for a late 2008 MacBook Pro. I just wanted to add that when in disk utilities there was no restore button to choose! But, I found it at the top of the screen in the drop down menu. It unmounted and mounted both. It took my cool name and changed it to the exact name of the internal drive, so you just have to decide to choose internal or external. Thx again! You are making me look like a tech wizard to my family. Keep up the great work! And, with those glasses, can I call you,”Hollywood “ ? 😃
I tried this and “apfs inverter failed”
anything I can do to fix this?
Same. Halp
@@msfootballplayer i used carbon copy cloner. Solved the issue
@@msfootballplayer i asked some commenters and told me to use carbon copy cloner
thanks man. question tho, can i also do this between 2 external hdd? or only from the internal to external?
Doing this on OS Mojave, dont need to restart in Recovery Mode. Didn't get that warning
@@GunnerTierno Hi! When you made this video, were you using OSX El Capitan? I haven't upgraded my OS yet, the new one is Catalina.. Should I clone my HD to my SSD while I have El Capitan or do I upgrade first.
@@rebesway Clone, install drive, then upgrade
@@NormBellas Thanks :) I did this last year..
@@rebesway I thought so after I saw your post was a year old. I was thinking a better option would be to do a clean install and then do as Javi (about five comments lower) suggested, to use migration assistant to transfer your old data. I curious to know what you did and then how did it work out?
@@NormBellas I actually followed this video.. bought an external Hard Drive enclosure that allowed me to plug in the SSD and clone it with Disk Utility. Went perfectly. But now I'm thinking of upgrading to the new M1 MBP 13'
Hi Gunner, do you know if it is possible to copy the cloned image on the SSD back to a different macbook (same model)? 🙏🤔
I'm assuming the process would work in reverse if I wanted to restore from the hard drive backup?
That’s what I wanna know!
Great video thanks. will it be just the same if i have a bootcamp partition too?
Hard to keep watching after "STATA"... lol. But still, good vid with clear instructions.
Thanks! Got a good one! ;)
I'm upgrading a 2012 MBP and just wondering if the computer would run the same or better if you upgrade to a 1TB ssd or 2 500GB ssd? Taking out the CD ROM Bay and replace with 500GB. How would you clone the OS on a two ssd system? Thank you
Hey! Great videos! Just watched this and the second part waiting for the SSDs and RAM I ordered. Do you know if apps like PP, AE and FL Studio will work just fine after cloning the HD? Keep up the awesome content!
Should work fine. It’s an exact copy of all your files
Can I clone my new SSD from HDD and use the SSD as default drive for booting?? Will I be able to do it after installing the SSD? I dont have SATA to USB enclosure
Brilliant! Saved me a whole heap of time and expense, thank you - you're the man!
should the external hard drive be of the same size/capacity as the internal hard drive to be cloned? i have a 1 TB internal HDD and planning to get a 500gb SSD. thanks!
Save a step. Plug in External Hard Drive - THEN Reboot your Mac to Recovery Mode - Then Erase your New Drive and continue with the rest of your procedures. Sam difference but most don't know you can reboot into Recovery mode at any time (assuming you have it). HINT. I always create a "disk image" of my computer and save it on an external drive. If your computer is running poorly or has too much junk on it - Once you have a clone or your hard drive - You might want to boot into recovery mode and ERASE your primary drive. Then Restore your Mac OS.(need Network connection). Once you restore your OS - you will have a clean operating system again and it may run like new again!
That is exactly what I am planning to do tonight when I get home. What did you mean you need to have a network connection? If you are in recovery mode how can you be connected to the internet? May be I misunderstand what you meant.
Doing this tomorrow, wish me luck!!!
Very very very helpful and detailed
Thank you very much
Only a little question:
If I do this operation, does this copy the operating system as well?
So if I copy everything like you did in the video, Can I mount the ssd right away?
"Stata" lmao
Is there a way to upgrade the SSD without command R? I get the firmware lock 😢
*sata :P
also, good job, i'm your new subscriber now ;) hy5 from spain
at 2:13 are we missing a step?
My old HD says AFSP (ENCRYPTED),
The new external drive says UNINITIALIZED.
Should I go back and initialize it...?
Hi, does this procedure works also on Mac mini? Mine is from 2014 and planning to upgrade its Hdd and ram memory
Fantastic. I've just cloned my MacBook Pro 2012 to a new SSD using just this video and it was easy. Never done anything like it before. You're the Man!
Great to hear! thanks!
Hi great simple explanatory video by the way ...well hereI go I got a macbook pro late 2009 core 2duo running Mac Os Yosemite and a Mac mini also late 2009 core 2duo also running Mac Os Yosemite ..only the ram is different ...got 8 GB only the Macmini and 4 GB on my Macbook pro ...my question is... since the two are almost identical... will the Mac mini cloned hard disk work on on the macbook pro ?...thanks in advance...you are doing a good job.
Can I do this to my 2005 black MacBook that is very sentimental, even the operating system, and then use this boot disk in my mid 2012 MacBook Pro? Thanks
Just added an internal PCIe SDD to my 2014 MacMini and WOW what a difference! Thanks so much for your step by step no fail instructions!
If your old MacBook pro is running a very old operating system do you rec. a system update first? OR just clone the existing and use it to do the SSD upgrade (I'm going to replace battery and upgrade memory too) and THEN do a System software upgrade to most recent? I'm worried the little old computer won't handle a system upgrade first. Tha you.
Great tutorial video! 👍🏼
I got a MacBook Pro (13”, early 2011)
OS X Yosemite.
Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB
Bought a Samsung 860 EVO 1tb SSD and 16 gb RAM. will be installing in the next few days.
When doing this cloning with this method does it matter what MacOS you currently running?
Pros and Cons of doing it this method or using Carbon Cloner?
Thanks
Hi -- not sure what the enclosure buys you. Can't you just connect the SATA to the drive and the USB to the Mac? Is the pin readers required?
Thanks for posting this. I’ll call myself a Mac newbie. I used to work on them a lot back in the 90s and am getting back into the world of Apple. One caveat with the video. Your destination clone drive must be at least equal to or greater in size of the original drive or the restore will fail. My original drive was 499GB and new SSD was 479GB. Restore complained of lack of disk space. Fortunately I had another 512GB SSD and it worked perfectly.
Sorry, I am so late to seeing this, but it is the most succinct explanation of I have heard of this process.
Excellent video !!
I don't see restore option under disk utility on my MB Air. Is this for Mac Pro only or come after a certain MacOS?
NWM, it looks it's under Edit menu now. Thnak you for the great video.
Question for you: I have a Macbook. Two drives are in the laptop; an SSD with OS X and a mechanical drive with Windows. Can I clone the Windows drive, partition the SSD then dump the clone onto the second partition of the SSD. I want to do this to speed up Windows. Hope you see this, thanks.
@@GunnerTierno Yah, I was thinking, make the partition first then just dump the image...but i'm not sure if it'll be THAT simple. Oh well, thanks for your reply!
THANKS FOR THIS INFORMATION.
Can I ask you something.
I've got a macbook pro 2013 with CATALINA OS inside withe Apps like lightroom photoshop etc. Can I make a copy of this one and put on SSD and install on my old MacBook Pro mid 2010??
Thanks again
I have an example? I have two iMacs. I would like to clone one iMac hard drive (operating system and everything) over to the other iMac.is it possible to simply connect with thunderbolt the one iMac to the other 2nd iMac, and boot the second iMac in target disk mode. And then restart iMac 1 in recovery mode to open disk utility. Is it possible to then erase and restore iMac 2’s hard drive and clone iMac 1 hard drive to it?
Excellent video, but I keep getting an error "restore process failed. the destination does not have enough space. click to continue" what might be wrong?
Formatted the external drive but there is no restore feature available when in recovery mode. On a late 2008 macbook. Any help?
I’m getting mixed choices in regards to upgrading the OS to Catalina before cloning to ssd. I am still using El Capitan. Is it easier or more difficult, what would you suggest?
Everything went smooth and transfered and gave me the ✅ then starting up through the external SSD, it started but at the end it showed a blank screen with an error sign 🚫 as this, what did I do wrong??
Thanks, thanks, thanks. Used this today to replace 5400 HDD in my 2014 Mac Mini 2.6ghz 8gb. It was getting lethargic and now is practically instant!
For reference the new SSD would not boot from Startup after data transferred to test. The choice was there but it just hung up. After waiting 20 minutes I restarted, went to disk utility and compared drives. The volumes were identical (within half gig) and I made the swap. So grateful! Almost as fast as my iOS devices.
Thank you, thank you. I have viewed several other people doing this but only yours gave me the confidence to do it to my 2015 iMac. I have just finished fitting a 2TB Crucial MX500 and it works!!! It's about 10 times faster to startup and my office suite, which used to take about 15 seconds, started in 1 yes one(1) second. I'm very impressed. Thank you again
I think I’m most amazed you got this to work without even knowing how to say SATA correctly or getting the explanations for why you’re doing what you’re doing wrong. ‘Booting from a partition on your drive’.
Thanks! This was helpful. However, if I want a clean reinstall without all existing apps and data, would I get that by selecting the "base system"? I believe I've got a virus or malware or corrupted file within my current OSx and need to have a clean point to start from. I've backed up my important files so that's not a concern.
Hey easy to follow vid. A question though. I formatted new M.2 SSD same as my current hard drive. I did the Restore function. And got an error message - Operation Failed - Cant restore a locked, encryped volume, Try running 'diskutil apfs UnlockVolume" first. What is that and how do I do that?
Great simple cut and dry how to clone MacOS video, I have a question: could I be able to clone out of Macbook Air and install the SSD(the clone) on a Macbook Pro?
Great video! I have an iMac 27 Late 2009 and in the last 6 months, I replaced original 1tb hard drive with 2tb hard drive. Removed optical drive and in its place installed a Samsung 850 EVO 1tb SSD. I Installed the OS and software/Apps on SSD and moved the home folder to along with data-movies/pictures on 2tb platter drive. I just recently experienced a big problem.... I updated to a newer OS from High Sierra to Mojave and now cannot boot up my iMac. Any suggestions? Does it make a difference if the HD is first-connected where the original drive was connected and my SSD is connected where the old optical drive was connected in the iMac? Thank you in advance!
This might be a stupid question, but can you just use a regular SSD drive, one which you don't need to plug into that housing/casing like the one in the video? i.e just a regular USB 3 ssd drive with it's own cable.