Transfer whole operating system from iMac to SSD.

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by GraemeL, Aug 17, 2014.

  1. GraemeL

    GraemeL Bit poster

    Messages:
    1
    I have an iMac (2012) with Lion and Parallels 8 running Windows 7 pro. I would like to transfer all operating systems ie. Lion Windows and Ofiice etc to a SSD 256gb.

    If it was just the mac operating system being transferred I wouldn't have a problem. But since there is a partition created by Parallels for the VM I am not sure if this will affect the cloning of the current HDD onto the new SSD.

    I am sure I am not the only person thinking of doing this. Everyone I speak to is considering cloning onto a ssd.

    Will this be a problem? What is the best way to get the job done?

    Thanks
     
  2. Specimen

    Specimen Product Expert

    Messages:
    3,242
    Well...
    Depends if Windows is installed via Bootcamp or not (boot natively into Windows).
    You mention a Windows partition, but it's not clear if it's actually a bootcamp partition or a virtual disk.

    If it's not installed via Bootcamp, meaning that there isn't a real Windows partition on the HD. In this case the partition is actually a file or a set of files inside the .pvm package of you VM (hdd and hds files) then you have nothing to worry about with the cloning, just transfer the whole system as you would normally, Windows is just like any other file on OS X.

    If you are not sure, open Terminal.app and type the following command:
    Code:
    diskutil list
    If there is no Bootcamp partition, you should see an output similar to this:
    Code:
    /dev/disk0   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *160.0 GB   disk0
       1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
       2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         159.2 GB   disk0s2
       3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
    /dev/disk1
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:                  Apple_HFS Mac HD                 *158.8 GB   disk1
    If there is a Bootcamp partition you will see another entry in the list named something that contains the word "BOOTCAMP".
    (Note that it's likely that your output is much different than what you see here, basically the question is if the output contains a line that says Bootcamp or not.)

    If it is installed via Bootcamp than it's much more complex, and you should evaluate if you actually need to boot natively into Windows, if you don't, you can simply Import the Bootcamp Windows to a VM (last part of the following article): http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v9/ga/docs/en_US/Parallels Desktop User's Guide/32733.htm
    And then you can discard the bootcamp partition and proceed with the cloning as you would normally.

    However, if you want to keep the Bootcamp installation on the SSD, then you should clone OSX and Windows separately, restore OSX to SDD, boot from it, create a Bootcamp partition launching Bootcamp Assistant.app, but do not install Windows on it, or install just the bare minimum depending how you backed up Windows (more on that later), restore Windows backup/clone to the partition created.

    As for how to clone Windows, there are many options, I would suggest Winclone ( http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/ ), which is not free but also not expensive, it's specifically designed for cloning Bootcamp Windows partitions on Macs and to restore them (even to a different sized partition). For this you don't need to install Windows on Bootcamp after running bootcamp assistant.

    Another solution for cloning windows is using Windows own backup and restore utility, but this requires a bare installation of Windows (with Bootcamp drivers) into Bootcamp after running Bootcamp Assistant (no need to activate it), and then use the restore facility to restore the backup and overwriting the current Windows installation.

    In any case, please do not erase the original disk until you are sure everything is working ok.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2014

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