[blasto]

I'm about to replace the hard drive in a slot loading iMac DV 400.

I'm faced with the usual problem of transfering all the 12GB of data onto the new drive - the old one is definately on its way out and has been playing up ever since the warranty expired (such is life).

The new drive is an IBM Deskstar 80GB 7200 - I've no concerns there...

I've four main options on transferring the data:

1. burn it all onto CD - my CD writer is an old Que! USB - only reliable at x2, so it would be a real drag.

2. Buy an enclosure and put the old driive in as a firewire drive. This would add quite a cost to the upgrade, and the old drive isn't worth investing money in...

3. Wait until my iPod arrives (I'm too impatient) (Side query... can the iPod be used as a start-up disk?)

4. Put the new drive in the Que! enclosure and try and format it and copy data over via USB. While it might be slow, it could be a simple process. This is would also be the most fun (I spent my childhood taking my toys to pieces rather than playing with them...)

So (finally) has anyone tried to use a USB CDRW enclosure (esp. the ugly big Que! enclosure) to mount, fomat and transfer data onto a hard drive? Does it work. Any issues?

[bradoesch]

I've put other hard drives in my Maxtor FireWire case and they've worked fine (only in OS 9 for some reason.)

The iPod works as a startup disk, although it's not officially supported by Apple.

If you did manage to get your new hard drive operating in your USB case, I've calculated that it will take approximately 2.8 hours to copy the data. This number assumes that you have 10 GB of data on your old drive and that you can get 1 MB/s out of the USB connection.

I'd suggest trying the USB case first, and then trying with your new iPod.


Good luck!


Brad

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

I think maybe you’re making this harder than it needs to be.

Just install the new HD bare.

Start the iMac from your system CD. Format the new HD.

Install your OS on it.

Put the old HD into the external USB case and copy your old files over as needed at your leisure.

Save yourself some effort and only copy over what can’t be re-installed. (IE: your files and documents and such). There’s really not much need to copy every application you have if you can re-install it from disk. Given the slow USB option of copying, I think it would be debatable if there were any gain speed wise in copying all your apps from the HD rather than from CD installs.

Finally… once all is said and done and you are certain you have everything transferred from the old HD to the new that you need… reformat the old HD. Maybe, if you haven’t done much maintenance on it for a long time, it’s not actually ‘on it’s way out’ but really just in need of starting a new lease on life (ie: reformatting). If you’re certain, I’d certainly give it a shot. If it works fairly well after that it may be worth slapping it permanantly into it’s own FW or USB external case.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
Given the slow USB option of copying, I think it would be debatable if there were any gain speed wise in copying all your apps from the HD rather than from CD installs.

CRASH HARDDRIVE's assumption was correct. Your CD-ROM drive has a maximum transfer rate of about 3 MB/s, and in order to operating as slow as a USB connection, it would have to read at 6X.


Brad

[blasto]

Thanks for the comments. Its ounds like both Brad and Crash' think the USB drive swap will work.

But here's why i don't want to follow Crash's suggestion nof Cd re-install:

1. The drive is very flakey. Its almost certainly a hardware problem and has not even been diagnosed by Techtool, Norton or First Aid (for those interested, the symptoms are the system hanging up while the drive grates and whines for any thing to 5 minutes, then all is well again. This happens every so often, every hour or so on average, and is random).
The drive has been reformatted and there's been a complete system re-install. That time I was able to copy contents over to a friends Mac via ethernet - no such luxury this time.

2. Whilst slow and a bit unreliable, the Que! is my sole CDRW at the moment, so it needs to be reassembled fairly soon.

3. CD reinstall is a nightmare! Almost all of my software and system has had innumerable patches, mods and updates. To start from scratch at get back to their current state would takes days, given the balancing act that is OS9.

4. While USB is S - L - O - W, It can be left on its own to copy over files. CD install is a clock watching process that would drive me nuts.

So, all in all, I can't imagine a 3 hour file transfer from USB drive to make being any slower than a complete re-install and all the updating and messing around that goes with it. At least with the transfer, I can go and do something else and just check on it every so often (I have more faith in USB than it has ever deserved)

So... I'll go with the USB swap option as both Brad and Crash' have implied that it should work. I'll let you know how it goes, and how long the whole process takes.

What is a concern is USB drivers, as almost all of my USB woes have been down to flakey drivers. Hopefully, it will all just fire up with whats on OS9.2

I'd still like to hear from anyone who's tried this.

Many thanks for the advice and comments so far.