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I've been using an iMac for a while at work (1.5 years), and it is getting flaky, so we are replacing it with a new one. Is there a way I can copy all my Mac stuff AND my complete Windows bootcamp partition to the new mac with a minimum of fuss?

Matt Dawdy
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3 Answers3

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Carbon Copy Cloner has worked every time for me in the past.

Marko Carter
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The difficult part about this is that they are both iMac's, and as such I am going to assume you will not want to crack the case open to remove either of the hard drives.

What I would do, is get the new iMac and a Firewire cable, and connect the new Mac to the old one using Firewire and Target Disk Mode.

Once you have them connected in this manner, you should have several options in terms of how to move the data you want between them, including the boot camp data. Just keep in mind that the two Mac's are still fundamentally different, and this could result in Kernel Panics.

What I would do, is connect them as prescribed above, except rather than cloning them, I would simply migrate your data. On the new Mac I would do a fresh boot camp install of windows, and then also migrate that data.

WerkkreW
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  • +1 for this - Great point about the differences as the Mac architecture changed from Power PC to Intel not so long ago. – Marko Carter Jun 30 '09 at 14:37
  • +1 - the Migration Assistant will be a huge help for getting the Mac OS user account moved to the new system. As for the Boot Camp partition, I would recommend backing up the existing data and creating a new one on the new Mac and reinstalling everything. – Clint Miller Jun 30 '09 at 16:21
  • I could do that, but I'm trying to find a way where I do not have to reinstall everything on the windows side. That would take me close to 6 hours to get it all setup again. The data is the least of my problems. I really think I'm just plain screwed. Thanks for the answer, though. – Matt Dawdy Jun 30 '09 at 18:22
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Like WerkkreW's answer I would highly recommend using Migration Assistant for the Mac partition and then use WinClone (Mirror) to clone your BootCamp partition if you don't want to re-install Windows again. Just be aware you may need to re-install some drivers.

If you want to clone the Mac partition (which is the least amount of fuss) you can avoid the "Kernel Panic" issue that WerkkreW brought up that can occur between two models by ensuring you're running the latest OS available. (If a machine is released after a point release they often have a machine specific build that will include necessary drivers - the iMac at this time is not one of those.)

Chealion
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