My refurb Mini is here, but I haven't hooked it up yet. It only has a 120 gig HD. And these cheap SSDs are really tempting me. But since it's a refurb (from Powermax) I don't have any OS installation disks. So how do I move Snow Leopard from the existing HD to a new SSD?

CCC?

target mode from your old dog, or external drive.

---

!#$@@$#!

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none."

Miles Davis

A little more detail, please. I thought of using CCC to put Snow Leopard (and CCC?) on a big thumb drive . . . but what comes next? I'd have a Mini with an unformatted SSD in it and a thumb drive. How do I even get the Mini to boot up so I can run CCC again?

refurb Mini is here, but I haven't hooked it up yet

But you're currently using another Mac running SL?

If so...
Connect the SSD via FW/USB External to that Mac & use DU to properly partition and format said SSD {GUID+Mac OS Extended (Journaled) }.
Use same Mac to CCC to the new SSD.
Install SSD in the refurb mini.

---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2012 10:13AM by Panopticon.

Quote
Mr Downtown
A little more detail, please. I thought of using CCC to put Snow Leopard (and CCC?) on a big thumb drive . . . but what comes next? I'd have a Mini with an unformatted SSD in it and a thumb drive. How do I even get the Mini to boot up so I can run CCC again?

The "big thumb drive" you want to use is your NEW SSD. Put it into an external enclosure, initialize it (GUID partition map), and clone your internal drive to it. Then try booting from it to make sure it works OK, before swapping it into the Mini.

Panopticon, the only machine I have running Snow Leopard is an MBA, which has no FireWire. What kind of cable do I need to make the Mini a target disk? Or did you mean hook up the SSD somehow before installing it in the Mini?

GGD, if I had an external enclosure for a 2.5-inch drive, the answer would have been pretty obvious.

Best solution involves an external drive enclosure (or drive docking adapter) for either the old or the new drive.

What other systems/OSs do you have around that might help? Do you happen to have Lion anywhere, with it's restore partition saved to a Flash drive?

Quote
Mr Downtown
Panopticon, the only machine I have running Snow Leopard is an MBA, which has no FireWire. What kind of cable do I need to make the Mini a target disk? Or did you mean hook up the SSD somehow before installing it in the Mini?

GGD, if I had an external enclosure for a 2.5-inch drive, the answer would have been pretty obvious.

If you don't have any of that stuff, what are you using for bootable backup clones and Time Machine?

---

Mr. Curmudgeon, on Mountain Lion.

No Lion anywhere. The old G5 tower runs Tiger.

An ordinary (closed 3.5-inch) external drive hosts Time Machine backups for the MBA. No bootable backup clones.

Get a $20 external USB case or SATA-to-USB connecting cable. It'll come in handy someday for something else, maybe like using the old HD for backup. The internal SATA connection is MUCH faster than USB, by the way.

Agree you're stuck without an external USB solution (USB will work surprisingly well for this.)

I much prefer the dock style connectors:
[www.microcenter.com]
There's one for $16 although I've been happy with my BlackX's.

Where is the SSD coming from?

---

MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

Have you tried hooking the mini to a monitor? Does Powermax always send refurbed computers with blank hard drives?

Contact me if there's some way I can help. Around for most of the day today and tomorrow.

---

MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

Quote
DCrunch
Have you tried hooking the mini to a monitor? Does Powermax always send refurbed computers with blank hard drives?

I read that Snow is pre-installed, but it wasn't clear.

---

MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

Or did you mean hook up the SSD somehow before installing it in the Mini?

Yes. Every home should have a USB to SATA/IDE Adapter
Like this $15 Kingwin from MicroCenter {seen them as low as $9}
[www.microcenter.com]


OWC has a NewerTech USB 3.0 version for $22.50 in the Garage Sale!

---

Thanks for the help, all. The new Mini is supposed to have SL on it (I haven't actually checked yet), but the HD is relatively small and I was just thinking it might be good to start off with a good-size SSD rather than load the Mini up and then switch it out later on. I haven't actually ordered an SDD yet, but the prospect began me thinking about how I'd actually switch it out when it arrived.

I have a bunch of old external hard drives around, but I always assumed the 2.5-inch drives (including the new SSD) wouldn't work in a box that originally held a 3.5-inch HD. Correct? Or is SATA the same for 2.5- and 3.5-inch drives?

Edit: That Newer gizmo looked darned handy to have around, so I ordered one. Presumably between that and CCC I can do this, right? You can boot from an external drive via USB?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2012 04:31PM by Mr Downtown.

Get an SSD - I just saw a Crucial 256GB SSD for about $180 from Newegg - and an enclosure to put it in. Hook it up to the mini via a USB cable and run Carbon Copy Clonner to clone the mini's hard drive to the SSD. You will have chosen to make the SSD bootable. Part of that process is formatting (erase) the SSD. After cloning and shutting down the computer, restart the computer holding down the Option key. If the SSD is bootable it will show up on your screen. Remove the mini's hard drive and put the SSD drive from the enclosure in the mini. You can boot from an external drive, that is bootable, using a USB port. By the way, the hard drive in the mini is a 2.5" drive.