Migration from G5 desktop to new MBP

[JoBoy]

Dave:

I'm currently running a desktop G5 PowerMac (PPC) with 10.4.11. Everything is wonderful. They finally got it right. I have SD! backups to a second internal HD, to an external HD, and a sparseimage to another partition on the external drive. SD! has saved my bacon on a couple of occasions by enabling a quick restore when the main drive crashed catastrophically. I'm very happy with the status quo.

Due to increased travel demands in my work, I plan to purchase a new, Intel MacBook Pro in the fairly near future. No doubt, the new MBP will have 10.5.x installed. From reading other threads here, it appears I can't do a retrograde to 10.4.11 for the new MBP, so I'll bite the bullet and make the best of it with 10.5.x. See this article from MacFixit:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20080408105217231

It leaves me wondering whether I can use SD! to migrate to a new, Intel MacBook Pro from my desktop G5 (PowerPC). Your comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your assist.

JoBoy

[dnanian]

No, but you can migrate either from the G5 or from the backup of it (as long as it's written directly to a drive).

[JoBoy]

No, but you can migrate either from the G5 or from the backup of it (as long as it's written directly to a drive).

Dave:

I'm sorry, but I'm unsure of this answer. Does it mean I can't use SD! to copy the G5 to the new Intel MBP, but I can use Leopard's migration assistant to obtain the necessary files from the G5 or its backup?

John

[dnanian]

That's right. You can't copy a drive from a Power PC to an Intel Mac, because the OS is different (at least, up until Leopard). Migration will bring over everything but the OS, basically, and will work fine.

[JoBoy]

Thanks for the assist. Not having gone through such a conversion, I had a little trouble visualizing exactly what was being done. Best regards.

[raycee]

Hi;

I have an Intel iMac and a G4 iBook. I have just installed Leopard on the iMac and will soon do so on the G4. I am using the Leopard DVD to do both.

I think I know the answer to the following. But since I don’t like that answer, I want to double-check it here, hoping to find out I'm wrong.

So: Can I do a full SD! backup of the Intel to the G4 (or vice versa) without messing up the target computer? Or, even though the same DVD Leopard installation disk was used on both, will I still thrash the target?

I suspect the answer is that I cannot do a full backup because of the differences between the Intel chip and the G4 chip. Am I correct?

If so, how can I know exactly what files I can safely backup from one computer to the other? I would like to be as thorough in my (semi-) cloning as possible, and so far the only thing I can think of would be to smart back up only the User folder on one to the User folder on other and leave all the rest alone.

Or is there some guideline I can use to know which items to clone and which to leave alone?

Many thanks;

Ray

[dnanian]

I actually think that Leopard is universal and can be copied between CPUs. But, at the very least, you can clean install Leopard onto one and *migrate* from the other when prompted to "copy from another Mac".

[raycee]

OK, thank you Dave. Clean install sounds like the way to go.

If you are correct, does this mean that after the install I could do backups from one to the other as if they were both the same CPU? If so, that's much better news than I had hoped for!

Ray

[dnanian]

You should be able to, since Leopard is supposed to be Universal. There may be caveats: it's not something I've tried, though I've heard of others' successes.

[maxakafonz]

I have several PowerBook G4's but only one of them has Leopard installed on it. If I use SD to backup one of the PowerBooks running Tiger > do a clean install of Leopard on said PowerBook > then install SD on the PowerBook > connect the OWC HD containing the SD backup > and choose copy OWC HD to the PowerBook HD (now using Leopard OS), will I have a perfect image of everything the way it was on the PowerBook before I did the erase and install of Leopard [I know if some applications come over that are not Leopard compatible they will not work properly]?

Thanks

John

[dnanian]

Um, no: if I understand what you're trying to do, you'd end up restoring Tiger back to the Mac you've "clean installed" Leopard on.

[maxakafonz]

I just installed 10.5.2 on a 15"PowerBook (using erase and install option). I have a 17" PowerBook with 10.5.2 and it is backed up to an OWC external HD using SD.

I installed SD on the 15", connected the OWC external drive and opened SD. I wanted to copy the OWC to the PowerBook HD but the 15" HD is grayed out and won't allow that.

Is there a way around this?

Thanks

John

[dnanian]

You can't copy to the drive you're running from, so -- you'd need to start up from the OWC...

[raycee]

Hi Dave;

I had asked you a while back whether I could do a backup from my Intel iMac to my G4 iBook. I notice that some others have made similar inquiries about similar operations, so I thought I would do a bit of sharing.

With Leopard 10.5.2 on both the iMac and the iBook — and after doing a complete backup from the ibook to an external drive! — I summoned up my courage and did a full-on backup from the iMac to the iBook. Everything, top to bottom. I'm happy to report it worked rather nicely, as far as I can determine after restarting the iBook and fooling with it for an hour or so.

There do seem to be a couple minor variations in (I think) a few app Preferences, and one strange but trivial anomaly in Preview, which insists on loading an icon image from an old Adobe program at each iBook startup. It's a minor nuisance, no big deal; I just close the window. But I can't quite figure out how to get rid of it. It shows up each time I restart the iBook, and even throwing away my Preview preferences file didn't fix it.

Any suggestions about this annoyance are very welcome.

Meanwhile, though your mileage may vary, I thought I'd comment that I'm rather pleased with how nicely the full-on backup from Intel iMac to G4 iBook seems to have worked.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

Ray

[dnanian]

Open your account settings in System Preferences and remove that entry from your login items. That should do it!

Glad it worked under Leopard, Ray!

[raycee]

OK, that was the problem. That icon had sneaked into my login file, though I haven't a clue about how it could have happened.

Dangdest thing!

(Hmmm. . . and just how did Dave know that???) :D

Thanks, Dave.

[dnanian]

This often happens if you delete an application that's set for startup. When copied to a new drive, the alias *might* resolve to a different file in some situations. Ah, the mysteries of the alias...