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AssassyN · Jun 3, 2003, 02:35 PM

Here's a situation. Say I have a Mac notebook with all these programs, games, icons, etc. all customized EXACTLY how I want them, but then I get a new Mac notebook. Is it possible to completely copy over the OS X on the new notebook and copy it exactly from the old notebook without causing any problems? I just want my icons, settings, programs, etc. to all stay the same and just instantly be transferred to the new computer.

BTW, I have a standard FireWire 400 cable, and both machines would have a FireWire port & Mac OS X 10.2.6 installed...I've heard something about Target Disk Mode, but will this allow me to copy one ENTIRE operating system w/ all my customizations onto another Mac w/o any issues? Any help would be great!

SMacTech · Jun 3, 2003, 03:01 PM

Yes you can target disk mode your old Mac to the new one. You only need to copy over the Users folder, as most all specific app installations, serial #s, etc. are contained within each users/library/preferences folders.
I have used Carbon Copy Cloner to make a backup to an external FW drive and then transfer that drive to another Mac, boot from it and reverse the procedure. This will give you an exact clone of the original system on your new Mac.
I cannot say this will work with all recent Macs, but I have done this with tiBooks, Cubes, iMacs and G4 towers up to dual 1.25s. My dual867 will boot from the disk just as my cube or tiBook does.
I myself would just copy the users and apps in target mode to the new system and apply any system hacks separately.

mrmister · Jun 3, 2003, 03:12 PM

Carbon Copy Cloner first, and if that does not work, Target Disk it piece by piece.

AssassyN · Jun 3, 2003, 03:36 PM

What would Carbon Cloner do that Target Disk Mode wouldn't?

Unfortunately, the only FireWire HD's I have are a 10gig iPod & and 15gig iPod, while I have 31gigs of stuff on the PB.

Alex Duffield · Jun 3, 2003, 06:59 PM

OK, here is a sollution.

1. Take your new PB, and boot it into target disk mode.

2. mount it on the desktop of your old PB.

3. Formate the drive of your new PB using disk utility

4. Use CCC to miror your old PB drive to the now empty New PB Drive.

5. When it is finished reboot your new PB as normal, and thats it.

AssassyN · Jun 3, 2003, 07:42 PM

Sweet deal!

So you're saying, I'd just reformat the old PBs hard drive THROUGH the new PB because I'll have the old HD mounted, and just use Disk Utility to reformat it, right so far?

Then, once it's formatted, I use Carbon Copy Cloner (is this the right one?) to copy the old HD's info. onto the new PB's hard drive.

Once that's done, I can unplug the new PB, restart it, and it'll have everything from the old PB's hard drive?

Corrections?

JB72 · Jun 3, 2003, 08:04 PM

CCC has let me do alll kinds of stuff like this. It's great.

edit: You might consider a donation if it works well for you.

Best of luck.

Chris Grande · Jun 3, 2003, 09:32 PM

Originally posted by AssassyN:

So you're saying, I'd just reformat the old PBs hard drive THROUGH the new PB because I'll have the old HD mounted, and just use Disk Utility to reformat it, right so far?

No, No. Your going to reformat the new HD through the OLD computer.

the_glassman · Jun 3, 2003, 10:29 PM

Is there anyway you can do this via ethernet???
I've got an old ibook and its only got usb and a ethernet port.

AssassyN · Jun 3, 2003, 10:46 PM

Originally posted by Chris Grande:
No, No. Your going to reformat the new HD through the OLD computer.

Ahh, that's exactly what I meant. Fingers go faster than the brain sometimes.

Originally posted by the_glassman:
Is there anyway you can do this via ethernet???
I've got an old ibook and its only got usb and a ethernet port.

To my knowledge, no. You can, however, use a single Crossover cable between the two machine to mount the HD's between computers, but as far as cloning the entire drive by this method, I'm not sure. You can easily pull files back and forth over a crossover cable connected to each Ethernet port though.

mrtew · Jun 3, 2003, 10:52 PM

When I got a new TiBook I was going to CCC everything over to it, but I was too worried that I would be missing some drivers that the new one needed not to mention some apps such as iDVD etc that my old computer didn't have so I didn't do it after all. I'd recommend setting up a new account with the same name as on your old computer and then dragging everything in your old 'home' folder into the new one using the target disk mode. That will take care of almost everything as you will be dragging over all your old mail, preferences etc. Obviously drag over any apps etc that aren't in your home folder also if you want to keep them. Any other customization that's needed should only take about a half hour such as installing a theme etc. CCC is by far my favorite program for backups but for a new computer I think you might miss something.

Alex Duffield · Jun 4, 2003, 02:11 PM

Originally posted by the_glassman:
Is there anyway you can do this via ethernet???
I've got an old ibook and its only got usb and a ethernet port.

Ya, but you will need to boot the old iBook of an OS9 CD.

Then format the drive.

Then on the new iBook, use "Conect to server" to mount the drive of the old iBook.

Once the empty drive is mounted, you can Clone the drive onto it.

Its a lot slower over ethernet, but it works.

SMacTech · Jun 4, 2003, 02:17 PM

Originally posted by Alex Duffield:
Ya, but you will need to boot the old iBook of an OS9 CD.

Then format the drive.

Then on the new iBook, use "Conect to server" to mount the drive of the old iBook.

Once the empty drive is mounted, you can Clone the drive onto it.

Its a lot slower over ethernet, but it works.

That won't work in my experience. You are saying you can use CCC over ethernet?

What would Carbon Cloner do that Target Disk Mode wouldn't?

Copy necessary OS files that either are invisible in TDM and properly set permissions and more.