In my last post, “MacBook Pro Hard Drive: S.M.A.R.T. is Failing!”, I discussed how I backed up and replaced my MacBook Pro hard disk that is about to fail using SuperDuper over a networked PC, a Phillips and Torx screwdrivers, and a simple video tutorial.
This time, I will show you how I restored the SuperDuper’s smartimage backup file from the PC back to the MacBook Pro and then upgrade from Mac OS X Leopard to Snow Leopard from an image file.
Restore Back Your Old Files and Settings
With the new 360 Gb Seagate Momentus hard drive installed in the MBP, the next thing to do is to partition and format the disk drive using the Mac OS Extended (journaled) format and the GUID partition. To do this, you need to reinstall Mac OS X Leopard from a DVD, or from an external bootable drive and use Disk Utility.
As you can see from the screen-shot above, I have created two (2) partitions. The Backup partition should be big enough to store a copy of the sparseimage file that you will use later to restore the entire original files to the Main partition.
Continue the installation of Leopard on the Backup partition. Once done, copy the sparseimage file from the PC to your Mac.
Use Disk Utility to restore the sparseimage file (Disk Utility is compatible with SuperDuper’s sparseimage).
Once done, you can now boot to the Main partition (hold the alt/option key as soon as the machine starts) and you should get back everything you had from your old hard disk drive.
Another and faster way is to use your Mac’s Target Disk Mode. If your PC doubles as a Hackintosh, you can connect it to your Mac with a Firewire cable. Once your Hackintosh is up, start up your Mac and hold the “T” key until the firewire symbol shows on your Mac’s screen. You are now in Target Disk Mode and from your Hackintosh, you can access the drives of your Mac as if they are local drives. You can then use Disk Utility on your Hackintosh to restore the sparseimage file to a drive on your Mac.
Upgrade to Mac OS X Snow Leopard
There are several ways to upgrade to Snow Leopard:
1) From the DVD
2) From an external drive (HDD or USB)
3) From another hard drive partition
Installing from the Mac OS X Snow Leopard retail DVD is straightforward. Just insert it in your DVD-ROM drive and boot your computer.
The second method requires that you have an image file (.dmg or .iso) of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard. You can create one by inserting your retail DVD on your DVD-ROM drive and use Disk Utility to create a New Image.
You can then use Disk Utility to restore the Mac OS X Snow Leopard image file to a USB flash drive or an external hard disk drive (at least 8 Gb). Make sure to format the disk drive using the Mac OS Extended (journaled) format and the GUID partition. Once the image file is restored to the USB or external drive, reboot and hold the alt/option key to be given an option on which bootable drives to boot from. Select the appropriate drive and install Snow Leopard.
The third method is similar to the second but you need to restore the Mac OS X Snow Leopard image file on another partition of your hard drive. Once done, reboot and hold the alt/option key to get a list of bootable drives. Select the partition where you restored the Mac OS X Snow Leopard image file and upgrade your existing Leopard partition.
