[pic9809]

I will be switching PowerBooks in the coming month (Big AlBook here I come!), but will be selling my existing PowerBook a couple of weeks before the new one arrives. Is there any way to transfer all the contents (music, movies, programs/apps) of my existing HD to the new HD? I am considering getting an external firewire drive, but what's the process, do I just drag and drop? I've read references to carbon copying, what's the best way to do that?

Many thanks in advance

[Mastrap]

You don't want to carbon copy your system to a new, different machine. Just copy the entirety of your home folder and you should be fine. Its best to install your applications from scratch.

A firewire drive will be ideal.

[dab007]

I used Carbon Copy on my 15 powerbook to transfer data to my new 17 powerbook with no problems. A perfect copy of the hard drive. I booted from a firewire drive. Just make sure that you have the latest system on your old powerbook and its the same or better then the one you are transferring it to. Its not so much about the hardware because the OSX has all the drivers built in. It must be the lastest version of the system for the 17 powerbook to work (ie. anything 10.2.4 and above.)

[pic9809]

let me make sure i understand what y'all are saying correctly:

1. anything in my home folder (documents, music, movies, photos) can be simply copied over to the firewire drive, and then transferred over to the new powerbook's home folder. will all related data transfer as well (e.g., itunes playlists)?

2. applications (office x, photoshop, konfabulator, etc) should be reinstalled from scratch? if they are downloads, will just copying over the pkg/installers work? is this any different from burning the pkg/installers to CD-R and installing from there? any way to transfer over apps for which i do not have the installer nor the original CD? is it possible just to copy my apps folder?

3. carbon copy of entire drive: do you just copy your entire HD and paste it onto the firewire drive, or is Carbon Copy a specific application/program? how do you go about booting from a firewire drive? and once it's booted from the firewire drive with the old HD carbon copied, how do you transfer everything to the new HD such that next time you do not need to boot from the firewire drive?

many thanks again for all your help!

[dab007]

I copy this from the forum that I wrote."Cloning the drive is the best and easiest way. I had to change the way I did it because I could not get the 17 powerbook to boot from the firewire drive. I booted from firewire drive on the 15 powerbook then cloned the drive. About 30 minutes later I booted from the 17 powerbook with a prefect copy of my 15 powerbook drive. Run diskwarrior and drive10 to check, its all good." I makes a perfect copy of your drive.

[macfreshman]

.Mac can be used to sync iCal and Addressbook.

.Mac email is stored on their server and will go with you (just make sure all your mailboxes are not stored on your HD)

Backup will find all types of different files and burn 'em to a CDR or DVD.

I got all my music, files and other crap onto 2 DVDs. Was the easiest switch I've ever done (going from 12" to 17")

[- - e r i k - -]

No need to get an external firewire drive. It's better to get one down the road when the need arises (and price per mb is even further down

Just run a firewire-cable between the old and the new powerbook, boot up your old PowerBook in FireWire target mode by holding in T.

I recommend starting with a fresh system install though and then adding your old software on top.

[cc_foo]

Does anyone know how to bring things like iTunes music over, while preserving the playlists, playcounts, ratings etc?

The last time I brought music over from a iBook to another iBook (using Firewire mode), the music came over, but the "metainformation" didn't.

With iPhoto it wasn't too hard, since I had backed up the pictures onto a CD. iPhoto recognised it straight away.

[- - e r i k - -]

Oh, sorry. Didn't see that you were selling the old one before getting the new one. External HD it is then

[chabig]

Does anyone know how to bring things like iTunes music over, while preserving the playlists, playcounts, ratings etc?

I just did this yesterday...transferred my "life" from an older iBook to a newer iBook. I booted the new iBook in target disk mode, plugged it into the old iBook, and used CCC to clone the drive. It couldn't have been simpler. Upon booting the new machine, all of my prefs and settings remained intact, including the iTunes metainformation--all of it.

This should be the new Mac mantra--"Don't just copy it, clone it (tm)"

Chris

[SubGeniux]

Like other people have said here, I'd do a completely fresh install on the new PB, I did that recently when I got a new hard drive for mine, kinda makes me feel a bit more secure that the system is clean and configured for the new hardware.

What I normally do is keep backups of my Home directory, make a list of all the apps I use including shareware and system addons, like preference panes. Also, I keep notes of all my settings like mail and system settings too.

[Mastrap]

While CCC is without doubt a fantastic tool that has saved many a man's bacon I would still not use it in this situation. A clean install is a clean install and especially on a brand new machine I'd relish the chance of getting rid of accumulated system junk, temp files, obscure prefs for shareware used once and dumped etc etc.

YMMV

[jasong]

Summarizing what has been said:

1. Cloning is the easiest way and will work
2. Use the clean install on the new PowerBook and copy over your Home directory and other applications results in a slightly faster/cleaner system.

I did the clean install when I switched PB's a few months ago. First thing is to copy your Home directory. I also found that many applications can simply be copied over (most people are in line with OS X bundles and keep all of their files together). You then want to go through the /Library folder and get whatever was installed from there. I just did a manual comparrison, but I am sure you can find apps that will merge a folder.

That did it for me. One thing I did notice was that even though this copied all of my Address Book and iCal data over correctly, iSync got very confused when I went to sync with my Palm next time. If you use a Palm, I recommend syncing everything before you transfer and then resetting the data on the Palm for the first sync with the new laptop.

Good luck and enjoy.

-- Jason

[clf8]

Originally posted by cc_foo:
Does anyone know how to bring things like iTunes music over, while preserving the playlists, playcounts, ratings etc?

Yeah, you need to copy over the contents of the Music folder in your home directory. This contains your iTunes Library file that contains your database and all other info.

[SubGeniux]

Maybe it'd ne nest to do it this way, back up the whole hard drive, using CC or something else, but do a completely freshh install on the new Pb, then you can just pull out the stuff you need from the backed up system.

[chabig]

Maybe it'd be best to do it this way, back up the whole hard drive, using CC or something else, but do a completely freshh install on the new Pb, then you can just pull out the stuff you need from the backed up system.

This is how I handled my upgrades from 10.1 to 10.2, but if is really not necessary if you are just moving from one machine to the other.

Chris

[SubGeniux]

cheers for correcting my typos, i had a hard time re-reading my post.

[CatOne]

Originally posted by Mastrap:
While CCC is without doubt a fantastic tool that has saved many a man's bacon I would still not use it in this situation. A clean install is a clean install and especially on a brand new machine I'd relish the chance of getting rid of accumulated system junk, temp files, obscure prefs for shareware used once and dumped etc etc.

YMMV

I heartily agree.

Your home folder contains pretty much EVERYTHING you need. Take any installers you have saved and copy them to a file in your home folder (I'd suggest the name "installers" ;-)

Log into the new machine the first time and let it setup, and create a user account with the same username as the old machine. Then just delete everything in the home folder and copy the old stuff over. Your data (including iTunes playlists, playcounts, EVERYTHING) will come over perfectly.

If you use CCC you'll bring old crap that was lurking, and if you don't have a sufficiently up to date OS version it may actually render the 17" inoperable (unlikely, but certainly possible -- you can't install OS X on a 17" if it's the CD rev from August, y'know).

[bonk]

Don't forget to get a copy of your bookmarks, I always forget those ...

[CatOne]

Originally posted by bonk:
Don't forget to get a copy of your bookmarks, I always forget those ...

The new iSync can really help with that, if you're using Safari. You can auto-synch them to Mac.com if you have it. I use it to keep my home and work bookmarks up to date -- it's really neat.

[a-poria]

you might also try ditto in terminal with the machines set up in firewire target disk mode. has worked for me everytime. create a user on your new machine with the same name and pass as your old machine, shutdown new machine, boot up old, connect with firewire, and load new machine in target disk mode. go to terminal and do the following:

sudo ditto -v -rsrcFork /Users/yourname /Volumes/nameofnewcomputer/Users/yourname/

this will copy all files, including hidden ones. good idea might be to copy just one dummy file to see how it works.

good luck!