My New Dual 2 GHz is here!!

[MamaMoose]

Last week, I ordered a new dual 2 GHz G5 from The Mac Store here in the Portland area. I was twelth in line and figured, I would get it in Devcember or January. Wrong! Less than a week after my order, I got a call today and was told it is here. I will pick it up tomorrow. I was disappointed  that it has only one extra hard drive bay. This surprised me as the graphics, photo, video people need lots and lots of hard drive capacity.

In any case the store will take my old G4 dual 450 MHz in trade! And that leads to my latest problem: How do i transfer all that is on my G4 over to the G5. I have been advised not to use carbon copy Cloner.

I assume what I should do is, using Firewire Target Disk Mode, copy the data on my G$ right into the G5 hrad drive (160 GB). I have two FW 400 external hard drives which I assume can go over immediately to the G5. My main G4 120 HD contains two partitions: 1) the boot partition which has all OS 10.2.4 stuff including apps, documents, etc and 2) a separate partotion for videos and photos. In addition, I have a 120 GB ATA/IDE  internal parallel drive that has nothing of importance on it (won't work with G5 since it requires serial ATA/IDE).

My question is, how do i transfer everything I need without the G4's OS 10.2.4 overwriting the G5's OS 10.2.7 system?

Thanks for any help,

MamaMoose

[Paddy]

MamaMoose, why not upgrade the 10.2.4 hard drive in the G4 to 10.2.7 and then just put it in the G5 as a second drive? You will need an adapter for the serial IDE drive, but that's one option that also gives you a second drive.

http://www.xpcgear.com/idehardrivto.html
http://www.buyextras.com/coata66hadrt.html

Since serial ATA drives are still a bit on the pricey side, spending $19 for an adapter seems like a good option to me! (of course, you could also install an IDE controller card in one of those empty PCI slots, but that isn't quite so cheap)

The other option is to put that drive in one of your FW enclosures, assuming that the existing drives in those enclosures have a smaller capacity.

And another option is to simply network the two machines together and transfer stuff that way - but that will be slower than FW target mode from what I've read.

BTW, the only things you should really be transferring to the new drive by copying are your documents/photos/videos. Applications should be reinstalled, IMHO. When you copy things over, you should not be copying anything to do with the operating system, so there should be no danger of overwriting any of the 10.2.7 OS.

[giantmike]

You can't use ATA to SATA with the G5, there isn't enough room. I have heard a report of an ultraslim model that may have worked, but I can't recall where that was.

Supposedly, 10.2.7 can't be installed on any machine except the ones it comes preinstalled in.

Since you already have FW hard drives, the easiest thing to do is copy all of your important stuff to that, and then copy it over to the G5.

However, that would be much slower than netwroking those machines via 100 Mbit ethernet. I transfered files that way, and was able to transfer 700 MB in only 6 Minutes.

[Gary S]

I would probably opt for mike's suggestion of transfering all your stuff via Ethernet.

[krissel]

Apple stores have a courtesy program where they will copy or transfer all files etc. from Windows machines so I don't know why they wouldn't do the same for you. Just have to be sure to fully erase the drive afterward.

Which brings up the point that maybe keeping the drive might be the best idea so no one else gets any personal info off of it.

 

[kelly]

LEADER!

Sure keep the Drive and put it in an existing enclosure or get another one.

[kelly]

MamaMoose. I would not mess around  with SATA Adapters.

Seagate 80GB Serial ATA drive for $60 shipped after rebate

http://dealmac.com/articles/56767.html

What about your problems with the newer versions of 10.2 ?

The G5 can't run earlier versions of the OS?

Will you just run them on your Laptop?