Hard disk switching

zoran · Nov 9, 2012, 11:03 AM

How possible is it so that they work if i switch the hard disks of these two Powermacs? Should there be any conflict if i take the 1.8Ghz HD to place it on the DualCoreXeon and vice versa?

orestes1984 · Nov 9, 2012, 11:34 AM

It's impossible to switch an Intel Mac HDD into a PPC Mac or vice versa if you want it to boot.

Jethryn Freyman · Nov 9, 2012, 06:08 PM

Technically the answer is no, because the Power Mac has a drive with a partition scheme called Apple Partition Map, while the Intel Mac Pro uses GUID Partition Table.

It's easy to reformat a drive and change the partition scheme with Disk Utility, but of course you'd lose all your data.

I think there *is* an exception, is I remember correctly: apparently a Mac Pro will boot up just fine if you pop an internal hard disk from a PowerPC Mac partitioned with Apple Partition Map, so long as OS X has already been installed on the drive. Intel Macs simply would install OS X onto an Apple Partition Map formatted drive.

Not sure if that OS would then boot up or work properly if you tried to update to Snow Leopard on the Intel Mac. Actually, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work, because the SL/Lion/etc installer would refuse to install because the drive is still APM.

Hope this helps

666sheep · Nov 10, 2012, 01:24 AM

You can put G5 HDD in MP and it should work and boot OK, unless you've done some Monolingual or Xslimmer "magic".
Vice versa is possible, but not for booting purposes. G5 won't boot off of GUID partition.

Nov 9, 2012, 11:03 AM	#1
zoran macrumors 65816 Join Date: Jun 2005	Hard disk switching How possible is it so that they work if i switch the hard disks of these two Powermacs? Should there be any conflict if i take the 1.8Ghz HD to place it on the DualCoreXeon and vice versa? Attached Thumbnails
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Nov 9, 2012, 06:08 PM	#3
Jethryn Freyman macrumors 68020 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Australia	Technically the answer is no, because the Power Mac has a drive with a partition scheme called Apple Partition Map, while the Intel Mac Pro uses GUID Partition Table. It's easy to reformat a drive and change the partition scheme with Disk Utility, but of course you'd lose all your data. I think there is an exception, is I remember correctly: apparently a Mac Pro will boot up just fine if you pop an internal hard disk from a PowerPC Mac partitioned with Apple Partition Map, so long as OS X has already been installed on the drive. Intel Macs simply would install OS X onto an Apple Partition Map formatted drive. Not sure if that OS would then boot up or work properly if you tried to update to Snow Leopard on the Intel Mac. Actually, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work, because the SL/Lion/etc installer would refuse to install because the drive is still APM. Hope this helps __________________ Power Mac G5 - 2x 1.8GHz - 4GB - ATI Fire GL X3 256MB - 10.5.8 Macbook Pro 3,1 - 6GB - 240GB OWC SSD - 10.6.8 www.michaelanthonyralph.com/blog/
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Nov 9, 2012, 11:34 AM	#2
orestes1984 macrumors 6502 Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Australia	It's impossible to switch an Intel Mac HDD into a PPC Mac or vice versa if you want it to boot.
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Nov 10, 2012, 01:24 AM	#4
666sheep macrumors 68020 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Poland	You can put G5 HDD in MP and it should work and boot OK, unless you've done some Monolingual or Xslimmer "magic". Vice versa is possible, but not for booting purposes. G5 won't boot off of GUID partition.
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