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Lebodde · Mar 29, 2004, 10:42 PM

I'm sure this has been covered before but unfortunately I couldn't find it.

I am upgrading the internal HD on a slot loading first generation iMac. I have 4 different accounts on there for my wife and kids. What is the best way to tranfer it all onto the new disk? I have a 160GB external firewire drive where I was going to copy everything before swapping the internal drives. Can I simply drag everything onto the external, swap the internals and then drag everything back to the new internal? Will this preserve the accounts and settings? Or is there some system software that I need to use for this.

I imagine I should do a clean system install on the new internal first (I only want one full size partition) but how would I then restore all the individual account settings etc....

Needless to say if there is a link where this has already been covered, I would very much appreciate it.

Thank you for any help at all.

tooki · Mar 30, 2004, 01:28 AM

You cannot drag and drop an OS X installation, it will not work. (You can do it with OS 9.)

The easiest ways are either to use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC), or if you have Panther, you can even use Apple Software Restore (part of Disk Utility). CCC runs on any recent version of OS X.

tooki

Lebodde · Mar 30, 2004, 11:11 AM

Thank you Tooki. I do have Panther and I saw Restore when I was searching for options to do this. But I wrote it off because before you can restore, you first have to backup someplace, right? Maybe I did not look deep enough but can you use Restore to first copy whatever's on the internal onto an external drive?

Now, speaking of backup, could I use the Backup utility from .Mac to do this? And, how do I do a clean system install on the new internal and then copy all the accounts prefs and settings back onto this new system?

Thank you.

tooki · Mar 30, 2004, 12:38 PM

I haven't used .Mac backup myself, so I don't really know its limitations, but provided you either have a big enough iDisk, or that you are backing up to CD or hard drive, it's probably good enough for home purposes.

Use Restore to make your copy. You just drag the source disk to the "Source" field, and the destination disk to "Destination", and press Restore and it clones it. It will remain bootable.

You don't need to do a clean install of OS X if the old install is working fine. As for partitioning, just partition the new drive however you like before you do the restore.

I did just notice something: you said this is a 160GB drive? The iMac (yours is second-generation, by the way) can only see internal drives up to 128GB. If you install the 160GB drive in the iMac, the computer will see it only as 128GB (and if you install an already-formatted disk bigger than 128GB, it'd be... bad). This is a hardware limitation, there is no fix for it other than using an external drive.

That said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with using the FireWire drive as your primary drive. The iMac will happily boot from it.

tooki

Lebodde · Mar 30, 2004, 12:53 PM

Excellent, Tooki. I will use Restore as you indicated. Being able to simply "restore" the current system onto the new internal is even better as it will preserve all the current settings.

I was about to do the 10.3.3 update via the Software update panel but I think I will wait until after the transfer to the new internal. This way if anything is funky the software update will hopefully clean it up afterwards.

As for the 160G, as I indicated above, it is an external drive which I am using strictly for transfer purposes in this case. The new internal is an 80GB Seagate. So that should not be a problem.

Thanks again.

tooki · Mar 30, 2004, 08:43 PM

I wouldn't use a third drive as an intermediary -- just stick the 80GB into the FireWire case, Restore everything over, and then install the 80GB in the iMac.

tooki

P.S. You're probably going to love the Seagate drive, it will make that fanless iMac even quieter than it already is.

Lebodde · Mar 30, 2004, 08:59 PM

Hmmm, I wouldn't mind doing that but that "third drive" is in a locked enclosure. It's a new LaCie Porsche design thingy and I was reading somewhere else on the boards that they are not easy to open.

What might be the problem if I first "restore" the data to the external, then install the new Seagate internal, reboot and watch it start from the external (since that's where the system now is) and then restore back to the new internal?

Thanks

Lebodde · Mar 30, 2004, 11:48 PM

Darn, I just tried to use Restore.

I go into Restore select the internal as the source, the external as the destination, select "Restore" , I get a dialog box that says "Will copy all data to the destination" (or something to that effect), then it appears to start working and within 2 seconds, I get this message:

Restore Failure
An error (2) occurred while copying

No other explanation of what might be the problem. I have double checked both drives, I ran disk first aid, I even repartitioned the new external but nothing works. I keep getting the same error message. I can copy files manually by dragging them in the Finder without a problem, so it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the drive itself. Does anyone have any idea of what that might be?

Thank you for any help.

Tomster · Mar 31, 2004, 12:37 AM

This is a little bit technical, but the fastest way to do it.

Take apart your external drive and remove the hard drive.
Put your new hard drive (the one which will go into the iMac) into it.
Connect that to your iMac and run CCC to clone the drive to the external.
Put the new drive back into the iMac.
Put the 160 gig back into the enclosure.
Use original iMac drive as paperweight.

You will be taking iMac apart. Taking the external enclosure apart should be easy in comparison.

Lebodde · Mar 31, 2004, 05:40 PM

I have taken many computers and drives apart so that is not an problem. The issue is that this is a brand new external and the only way to open it is to pry the enclosure apart which is likley to leave marks. That may easily void the warranty if I ever need it.

So I still wonder if there is any downside to using this external as an intermediate step....

tooki · Mar 31, 2004, 09:03 PM

Originally posted by Lebodde:
Darn, I just tried to use Restore.

I go into Restore select the internal as the source, the external as the destination, select "Restore" , I get a dialog box that says "Will copy all data to the destination" (or something to that effect), then it appears to start working and within 2 seconds, I get this message:

Restore Failure
An error (2) occurred while copying

Perhaps it doesn't like copying a "live" system folder. Try booting from the Panther install CD, then when it gets to the "choose the language" window, go to the Installer menu and choose "Open Disk Utility". Then proceed with the Restore.

tooki

Lebodde · Apr 1, 2004, 01:08 PM

Good point, tooki. That sound slike a likely culprit.

Last night I downloaded CCC and did a copy onto my external. Interestingly, CCC gave me an error msg saying it could not copy .hotfiles.btree (or something close to that). I am guessing that this might be a temp file keeping track of currently active processes or something to that extent. This might be the same one that gave Restore fits but at least CCC was much more helpful in dealing with it. It gave me the opportunity to bypass that one file and continue on.

I now wonder how critical this file will be when I copy this back onto the new internal...

Lebodde · Apr 7, 2004, 08:13 PM

Last weekend I finally took the time to do it. I copied the old internal to the external with CCC, installed the new internal in the iMac, restarted it using the copied system on the external, used CCC to copy everythign back to the new internal, rebooted and everything worked out without a hitch!

Wow that Seagte is sooo much nicer and quieter than the original 13G....

Thanks very for your help tooki!