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ryarber · Sep 1, 2003, 12:49 AM

Should I use the "backup" software apple puts out or should I maybe go with something like Carbon Copy? What is the difference?

Thinine · Sep 1, 2003, 02:29 AM

What are you moving, how much are you moving, and what interfaces do you have available to move stuff?

ryarber · Sep 1, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by Thinine:
What are you moving, how much are you moving, and what interfaces do you have available to move stuff?

I'm moving about 8GB including AAC's, pics, and documents. I was wondering more about keeping prefs, old email, my spam filter data in mail.app, application serial numbers, web passwords, etc.

I have a DVD burner, a LaCie 200GB external 1394b drive (which is almost full) and a 60GB pocket 1394a drive from Wiebe Tech (BTW, a great little drive, indispensible).

Arkham_c · Sep 1, 2003, 09:53 AM

If it were me, I'd boot one of the machines in Firewire disk mode and mount it on the other machine as a hard drive.

Jerommeke · Sep 1, 2003, 01:41 PM

Or buy a cross-Ethernetcable and network the two.

ZackS · Sep 1, 2003, 01:58 PM

Use CCC and Firewire disk mode and then do an archive install of Panther. That's your best bet.

carmine · Sep 1, 2003, 05:04 PM

You can also hook a regular cat-5 ethernet cable between the 2, and the macs will auto-switch the wires so it works like a crossover. I have my Tibook and Quicksilver networked like this and i get 1 gig ethernet speed, pretty sweet. faster than firewire 2.

Uncle Skeleton · Sep 1, 2003, 07:23 PM

for gigabit speed wouldn't you need a cat6 cable?

ryarber · Sep 2, 2003, 12:51 AM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
If it were me, I'd boot one of the machines in Firewire disk mode and mount it on the other machine as a hard drive.

I'm not worried about the files that I know how to find, eg. my iTunes library or my iPhoto pics. I'm more concerned about all the crap that I don't know where it is any more. Since OS X, I don't know where the heck to find all this stuff like app prefs to move that contain the serial numbers I've already put in and since have lost. I don't know where to find the data that my spam filter keeps and I don't want to have to go through the process of teaching mail.app how to filter spam again. I don't want to have to go through registering all those apps again with serial numbers that I'll have to dig out the old CD's or in some cases email the developer to get. My passwords from the internet websites that I've told my computer to memorize and I don't know what the heck they are any more.

It is not the big stuff that I want moved so bad. That stuff is easy. It is the annoying little $#!+ that bugs me.

I have two portable large external drives, so I don't see how this would do me any good. It is not a storage issue. My WiebeTech pocket drive is 60GB and I have at least 40 left on it. Also, I plan on divorcing my external 200GB external drive from the iMac that I have it hooked to now and wedding it to the G5 once I have it. I'm looking for a solution that will do all the above crap with the least hassle.

Originally posted by Jerommeke:
Or buy a cross-Ethernetcable and network the two.

I already have a crossover cable.

ryarber · Sep 2, 2003, 12:55 AM

Originally posted by ZackS:
Use CCC and Firewire disk mode and then do an archive install of Panther. That's your best bet.

Thanks guys for all the advice.

I guess CCC would be carbon copy cloner or something like that? It does archive installs? Does it allow me to transfer all the stuff I've referred to above? Seems that backup.app does manage to keep some of this stuff as I have used it before to wipe my drive and do a full reinstall. That is when I realized that I don't know where the heck all the serials, etc are located. I don't want to go through that again.

Person Man · Sep 2, 2003, 11:42 AM

Originally posted by ryarber:
Thanks guys for all the advice.

I guess CCC would be carbon copy cloner or something like that? It does archive installs? Does it allow me to transfer all the stuff I've referred to above? Seems that backup.app does manage to keep some of this stuff as I have used it before to wipe my drive and do a full reinstall. That is when I realized that I don't know where the heck all the serials, etc are located. I don't want to go through that again.

Make sure you copy over your entire user directory... that includes your user-level "Library" folder which contains your preferences, etc.

Some serial numbers may need to be reentered as the programs will recognize the fact that they're on a different machine (i.e. Ambrosia Applications come to mind).

jimcpherson · Sep 2, 2003, 12:00 PM

Carbon Copy Cloner all the way. Worked great transferring 20GB of data between my old PowerBook and my new one. Look at this thread:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...on+copy+cloner

Hoosier_1701 · Sep 2, 2003, 01:26 PM

I don't think using Carbon Copy Cloner would work with a G5. The G5s require a special build OS X 10.2.7 which is not installed on your old machine. Cloning the drive in your old machine to the G5 would probably result in an un-bootable G5.

ae77 · Sep 2, 2003, 01:47 PM

one option is using Apple Store Pro Card:

http://www.apple.com/retail/procard/

good luck.

macrob1n · Sep 2, 2003, 03:26 PM

How about cloning your current HD, boot the G5 in target mode and put the cloned data on, then boot from the osx cd and upgrading the software???
Will the G5 sofware cd only have a full install, or will it update .6 to .7?
Bit of a guess so may be well off.

Thinine · Sep 2, 2003, 05:33 PM

Target disk mode is probably the fastest way (if you have a FireWire cable) but there is no need to use CCC. Not only does it copy EVERY file in a directory, but takes forever doing it. I would manually drag and drop the files you want to the G5. SUre, you may have to reset prefs but there's less of a chance of something going wrong.

Gee4orce · Sep 3, 2003, 02:24 AM

Why not just restore your last backup onto the new G5 ?

...you do take backups, dont you ?

I backup my Users folder weekly to an external HD. If I ever change machines, I just plug in the drive, and do a restore. Bingo.

ZackS · Sep 3, 2003, 10:45 AM

Originally posted by ryarber:
Thanks guys for all the advice.

I guess CCC would be carbon copy cloner or something like that? It does archive installs? Does it allow me to transfer all the stuff I've referred to above? Seems that backup.app does manage to keep some of this stuff as I have used it before to wipe my drive and do a full reinstall. That is when I realized that I don't know where the heck all the serials, etc are located. I don't want to go through that again.

Thus my suggestion! Boot the G5 in FireWire disk mode, use CCC for G4 -> G5, copying EVERYTHING and then instead of booting up the G5 off its own HD, boot it from the Mac OS X Installer CD that comes with it and do an Archive Install. It will refresh the system while keeping all your settings and documents. Tis really the only way to go.