Clone an old hard drive with multiple partitions to a new Mac

Question

Here's my situation : my old Macbook from 2011 died on me, and the guy at the store said it was beyond repair. He could however extract the hard drive with all the data. I found an E-Sata-to-USB mount and will get a new Macbook shortly.

About the drive : it was partitioned in maybe 2 or 3 partitions - one with the standard MacOS, and one with Windows (and possibly a small Linux somewhere, I don't remember at this stage). I used to switch between the partitions using rEFIt.

How do I best go about using that old hard drive, all its partitions and the rEFIt capability (or equivalent) ?

Ideally I would upgrade the Mac OS partition to whatever Mac OS version I will get with the new Macbook - and of course keep any non-OS data on this partition - but keep on using whatever Windows I had on the other partition (I will consider buying a new Windows later).

Any tips on my hopes of achieving this, on any possible fall-back options ?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you just need to read the data from it, MacOS will be able to read all those partition types without issue.

What it won't be able to do is write to NTFS (Windows) or ExtFS (linux).
There are some free options using FUSE to enable write, but I've heard so many stories over the years as to how flaky that is, I couldn't recommend it. I'd go for the paid options from Paragon, NTFS for Mac & ExtFS for Mac.

Getting Windows to boot from the external might be a bit hit & miss. Windows itself doesn't like to boot from an external drive. I'd have a look at either rEFInd, freeware, or Boot Runner from Two Canoes, paid. If you need to move the Windows partitioning, then WinClone is the go-to app, again from Two Canoes. Other apps can do the cloning, but not always ensure the result will boot.

Paragon's Hard Disk Manager is another app to look at if you need to do any re-partitioning or moving of data - again paid, again solid in use. (It can move & clone most partition types too, though WinClone is still the go-to for BootCamp partitions, imo.)

I have no affiliation with either of these companies, I just use their products time & again over the years, without ever losing a byte.

Note your new Mac will not be able to boot from the external Mac boot partition unless you first update it. No Mac can boot from an OS older than itself & your 2011 won't be capable of anything newer than High Sierra. I'd recommend, for safety's sake, to not attempt that without a very solid backup of the entire disk (though, of course, you should always have backups at all times.) You will probably need to be booted from a USB installer to specifically update an external disk.