MP 1,1-5,1 Replacing HD on Mac Pro 3.1

[Gothboy1]

MP has 2 HDs with El Capitain on one and Mountain Lion on the other. I cannot boot into the Mountain Lion HD only EC drive "OS X can't repair the disk "1TB Mountain Lion you can still open or copy files on the disk but toucan't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can." I don't have a Time Machine backup for this drive and don't have an external SATA enclosure...only an older PATA drive.
I have 2 new HDs one is in a bay already formatted and selected as a time machine drive....but now I'm looking at online instructions and I'm stuck. How can I make a backup from the errant drive to the new one both internal? I have Mountain Lion as a download in the App store. Can I use Migration assistant to move everything to new disc or install ML on there first?

 

[MarkC426]

Can you access the ‘bad’ drive data from another drive?
If so download Superduper (free) and do a clone to the new drive.

 

[Gothboy1]

I can see everything on the bad drive from El cap and move them yes. Why would cloning be a better solution?

 

[MarkC426]

It would just duplicate the volume, but hopefully be working, if the problem is a bad drive.
Alternatively if it didn’t work, reinstall the os and migrate.

 

[Gothboy1]

Tried Superduper...failed after copying around 3 GB of Data>going to alternative option. I downloaded Mountain Lion but how do I install on the new drive? Can't install from download.

 

[Gothboy1]

Put my old 10.7 Lion HD in and installed ML from external drive (or so I thought....the only thing on the new HD is an OS X Install Data folder...theres no ML on it....so I don't know what is going on never thought it would be this hard. Anyone with some Pro advice?

 

[MarkC426]

You can run the installer from your working MacOS drive.
Select the new drive to install it to.

 

[Gothboy1]

Somehow the errant drive came back and started being bootable....if only temporarily. So I was able to boot into it and back it up with time machine so far so good Thanks!

 

[MarkC426]

Now it is running do a clone to your new drive.
There is obviously an issue with the hdd.

 

[Gothboy1]

So here's where it gets confusing to me: So even though I made a TM backup I should clone the problem drive onto a different HD? I've been reading this article:https://www.imore.com/how-restore-your-mac-backup where it explains restoring from a local backup(an external drive). I don't have an external drive I'm going from internal to internal will that work?

 

[MarkC426]

TM backups are useful.
But additionally have a clone of your main system.
In your case, sounds like your hdd is failing also, so use superduper to duplicate onto your new drive.
You can clone to internal or external.

 

[Gothboy1]

Will this create a bootable drive or do I then have to restore to another HD? I know I can clone to an internal drive but if I have to restore can I do that internal to internal?

 

[MarkC426]

Using Superduper you will create an exact duplicate bootable drive (which is why it’s called a clone... )

 

[Gothboy1]

Superduper once again failing to copy from that drive to a new HD even though the errant drive is mounted and bootable I don't know why this is....so what I'm going to do is do a fresh install of Snow leopard from disk then install ML. Can I then restore from my TM backup?

 

[MarkC426]

Either that or migration assistant, but it may fail if the disk is bad.
Did you get the correct version of SD for your os.

 

[Gothboy1]

Did you get the correct version of SD for your os.

SD what is that??

Installed Snow leopard then ML so new disk has fresh Install. So now to get data on there from problem disk….can I do this while booted into new ML drive or from EL Cap? If migration assistant doesn't work what is the other method of restore?

 

[MarkC426]

Sorry SD (Superduper).
Booted from new installed disk, either try migration assistant or failing that time machine restore.

Restore your Mac from a backup – Apple Support (UK)

Restore files from your backup.

support.apple.com

 

[Gothboy1]

Did the Migration assistant transfer all seems good to go with that new drive. Some apps preferences didn't port over but I will deal with that later. Thanks for your help I appreciate it!