Moving El Capitan to New SSD and Installing New OS?

[n3oNLit3]

Im getting a new SSD tomorrow and I will be transferring my DD; OS X El Capitan GM over to it and then I plan on installing Windows 10 to the now 'old' SSD.

I will have a total of 3 SSD's; Yosemite, El Capitan, and Windows 10.

1. What is the best way of transferring everything over to the new SSD? CCC, SuperDuper or? I dont believe either of these copy the EFI partition. So I would, just then, install Clover onto the new SSD and then copy my EFI folder to the New SSD's EFI partition?

Installing Windows 10 to 'old' SSD?

1. What is the 'correct' way to install Windows 10 so that Clover will easily recognize it? Install in UEFI by booting the Windows 10 USB in UEFI mode and then, it will therefore install in UEFI format? Ive been reading up on this, but I really have no clue, when it comes to Windows; havent used it many, many years

Just trying to avoid any unforeseen 'mistakes'

~n3oN~

 

[ammulder]

I've used SuperDuper. I believe it creates the EFI partition, but leaves it empty. So then install Clover and copy over the contents of your EFI partition. Then OS X should be running on the new drive.

For the Windows install, I haven't tried on separate drives. I guess the question is, do you disconnect the OS X drive to do the Windows installation? That's what I would try, and then once both drives are running, use the BIOS to configure booting to the Clover drive instead of the Windows drive. As long as Clover sees Windows then, you should be good.

 

[n3oNLit3]

Great news about SuperDuper, I own it and its worked great for backups and bootable copies, just wasnt positive about the EFI partition.

When I first built my sons hack, I disconnected all drive except for the one i was planning on putting windows on and it worked fine. So I will do that again. Am I correct that if I boot the USB in UEFI that it will install windows that way? Do you know?

Your plan for getting Clover to recognize the windows drive was my original thought, but Ive seen many posts about not being able to get Clover to boot windows. And I recently got Clover installed on my sons Machine, after a upgrade to Yosemite (he'd been reluctant) and have been trying to get Clover to recognize it, as its a Legacy install and the Clover Wiki is a little unclear (to me) on how to make that happen.

 

[ammulder]

Am I correct that if I boot the USB in UEFI that it will install windows that way? Do you know?

I don't know. I installed Windows to a NUC using a USB I created with the DVD creation tool on a UEFI machine, and it installed as UEFI to the NUC. But I don't know what the rules are or how it makes the decision which way to install.

 

[n3oNLit3]

Im pretty sure I saw RehabMan post it the way Ive described, just cant find it now. I may know how to create a bootable USB but Ive only installed in Legacy before. Guess Ill find out

 

[ammulder]

The only question to me is whether you need to do anything special when creating the USB installer. The procedures I see to force UEFI install depend on you using Windows to set up the USB, and I think you said you don't have an existing Windows machine.

Another thing I think is important is to make sure the drive you're installing to uses GPT instead of MBR. I'm not sure how to do that from within the Windows installer, but since I think you said you're installing Windows to your old OS X drive, hopefully it will keep it GPT.

Surely someone with more Windows chops than me will give you better advice here eventually?

 

[n3oNLit3]

According to this http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-booting/96000-guide-dual-booting-mountain-lion-windows-8-a.html.

Installing Win8
..... When you boot Win8 install DVD on a UEFI BIOS mainboard, Win8 wants to install UEFI.....

I would assume it could/would remain the case for Win10 and a USB, which will show up twice if booting via BIOS boot options

 

[RehabMan]

The only question to me is whether you need to do anything special when creating the USB installer.

For Win8/Win81/Win10, nothing special. You can create a USB installer simply by formatting a USB FAT32 and copying the root of the ISO to the root of the USB.

For Win7, you need to move some files around... (I forget the details... google knows).

Another thing I think is important is to make sure the drive you're installing to uses GPT instead of MBR.

The Windows installer will force it/check it. When booting the Windows installer UEFI, it will only install to a GPT drive. When booting the Windows installer legacy, it will only install to MBR.

 

[n3oNLit3]

SuperDuper worked great. Copied everything over, then installed Clover and copied 'original' EFI folder over to new EFI partition and rebooted into 'new' El Capitan, without issue. Everything seems to be working fine...

 

[n3oNLit3]

Got Win10 up and running in UEFI and all is well. Still need to 'hide' some of the entries I dont want to see in Clover UI, other than that, complete transition and new OS install went very smooth