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So My wife’s Mid-2012 MBP 15" just took a dump: (Previous thread)
So after figuring out that the cost to repair this myself with the help of the people on this site was going to cost 50%or more of the cost of a new one, I’ve decided to buy another Mac. I just bought a brand new MBA 13". She is a photographer and had a lot of editing programs along with pictures on her MBP. I’m not sure she ever backed up her HD with Time Machine or anything like that (we are not very techy people). What is the procedure for getting those programs and files off the MBP HD and putting them on the new MBA? I have already taken the MBP HD out. I still do not know if the HD survived whatever caused the Logic board to malfunction. The suggestions have been that the HD is probably fine. When buying the new MBA I also picked up a Western Digital My Cloud. I currently have a USB External that my wife has used to transfer files and photos from the MBP HD over the years as it filled up. What are my options? I do plan on buying a SATA to USB or an External case for the MBP HD whichever one is needed so that way My wife doesn’t loose her valuables. I’m just looking for a guide on how to accomplish this from start to finish. I should mention that the Adobe Photoshop programs and Microsoft programs that were on the MBP were bought and downloaded online from their websites and not disks. Thanks you
You shouldn’t have any issues here! The only small issue your likely to have is the new MacBook Air’s storage is somewhat limited as it has a smaller SSD drive than what your MacBook Pro had. So you’ll be limited on how much ‘stuff’ you can copy over. Keep in mind you what to have 1/4 to 1/3 of the drive unused so your photo/video editing programs have some wiggle room (the larger amount for 128/256 GB drives). OK before you start you’ll want to off load what you won’t need from your old HDD. Using your MacBook Air connected with your old HD via the adapter or case (see below for more on which to get) off load to your other external drive or your WD iCloud drive. We do have a small wrinkle here! Your MacBook Air does not have an Ethernet port onboard! You’ll need to get either an Apple USB Ethernet Adapter or Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter. As we want to have access to the old HD you should go with the Thunderbolt dongle as we need to use the USB port of your old drive. You can then connect directly to your iCloud drive then. After we moved the files around you can then connect your iCloud drive to a hub off of your WiFi AP (cable modem) so you can then go wireless. For now the direct connection is faster and easier for the massive amount of stuff we are moving about. I also recommend you create a new user account on the MacBook Air (a new name and not passworded!) Use this account on your iCloud drive as in the next phase we’ll be switching to your wife’s old user name and password! So on your drive make a folder for your wife stuff and copy it all over as we don’t want it on the old drive for the next step. Make sure its all copied over! As you’ll need to delete it off your old HD (delete the files in the trashcan). Once you’ve done that the next step is quite easy! Using the unpassworded user account launch ‘Migration Assistant’ It will allow you to copy off your user accounts, apps and data from the old drive onto your new system. Here’s a set of good write-up’s on using it: How to move your content to a new MacYour Guide to the OS X Yosemite Migration Assistant (same for all MacOS’s)How to move data to your new Mac using Mountain Lion and earlier (still offers some useful details on what is going on) When you restart your MacBook Air under your wife’s user name everything should be as it was on her old MacBook Pro! Of course minus her work. You’ll need to re-enable the apps with their license keys and/or log into the Apple Store to enable the apps. As for having more storage I would recommend getting a portable USB drive like the Samsung T5 SSD I have a few now and I have to say their fast and very portable! They connect with either a USB-A or USB-C connection to your Mac which gives you some future proofing. OK last issue which way to go with your old HD use the SATA to USB adapter or an external case? If your wife needs to cut expenses and wants a portable drive (instead of getting the SSD above) then getting a case here does make sense! But keep in mind this is an old drive so its days are numbered and bouncing the drive could cause it to fail (unlike the SSD). Here’s the two methods: Startech 2.5" SATA to USB adapter2.5" USB 3.0 SSD SATA Hard Drive Enclosure
My concern would be how well the data is locked down by Apple’s proprietary HD formatting methods. Maybe the easiest trick would just to put the old hard drive in the new computer tho there is risk of the hard drive being damaged by the past computer, and that this hard drive could damage the new computer. Your Sata to Usb idea is perfectly fine for windows computer, not sure if Apple would have driver support for that, but no reason to think they shouldn’t, so you may want to buy one to try it out. I suggest searching for any guides about expanding your Mac’s storage abiliety. If the tricks used for such guides (such as a simple exsternal hard drive using the SATA to USB thing) work, then there is no reason to think such tricks won’t work for your situation as well. If you actually want to transfer the data to the new hard drive, and the SATA to USB doesn’t work, you are going to need another computer that supports multiple HD and allows you to swap data around. Mac computers are expensive, and the most expensive actually allow for this kind of support, so it is unlikely that you may have one near by. windows computers can do this because their builds aren’t as refined as macs, but then it becomes an issue if the windows computer can handle the movement and handling of apple formated data.
