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BLKessler · May 8, 2002, 10:53 PM

Hey, all. I've just purchased an IBM TravelStar 60GB hard drive to replace the 12GB drive in my PowerBook (Firewire). I've done HD replacements in Powerbooks before, so I'm not concerned about the hardware end of things so much as I am concerned about the data on the drive.

The drive I've got now currently has one HFS+ partition on it, which dual-boots both Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS X 10.1.4. What I'm trying to figure out is a safe way to back up the whole shebang to an external Firewire drive, swap the hard drives, and restore everything exactly as it was before. The last piece of this puzzle is that there's data on the external drive that I don't want to lose.

I was thinking of booting off of my Mac OS 9 CD, and using Disk Copy to create an image of the drive. Then, once the drives are swapped, I would use the reverse procedure to put everything back.

I'm concerned about a number of things: the long filenames in Mac OS X, the hidden files (etc.) of Mac OS X, making sure that my new HD will be bootable, and making sure that I'm not going to end up with a 12GB partition and a 48GB partition when I'm done.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? Or other suggestions on how to do this? (On the Windows side, there's a program like Symantec Ghost, but I've been unable to find anything similar for my Mac.)

Thanks!

Macola · May 10, 2002, 11:33 AM

Originally posted by BLKessler:
<STRONG>
The drive I've got now currently has one HFS+ partition on it, which dual-boots both Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS X 10.1.4. What I'm trying to figure out is a safe way to back up the whole shebang to an external Firewire drive, swap the hard drives, and restore everything exactly as it was before. The last piece of this puzzle is that there's data on the external drive that I don't want to lose.
</STRONG>

You can use Apple Software Restore and Disk Copy. I've successfully moved a separate OS X partition using this method, and the same should apply for a single partition with both 9 and X. I can't find the URL for detailed instructions in my bookmarks, but do a search of the OS X forums here and you should find it.