Moving Software Programs to New Hard Drive

[aaamericana]

I am in the process of upgrading my Mac G4. One of the upgrades is installing a 500 gig Internal Hard Drive. I will be partitioning the drive, alloting 25 gigs to OS X Panther (I need the Classic mode to run some of my older progams), and 25 gigs to OS 9.2.2. One of the other partitions will house my software programs. The question is: Can I just drag my software programs from my current hard drive to the new one, or do I have to do a full install from my program discs?

[misterredman]

You should think about cloning the hard drive you are currently using to a partition of the new one. That way you will retain the whole applications and OS X. You may need to buy an external enclosure to do the job if you don't have another free slot inside you mac (i.e. in a Powerbook or iBook).

Copying the applications in OS X will only work for some: those that needed an installer when you installed them the first time will probably not work. Don't remember if it's possible with OS 9.

[aaamericana]

Originally Posted by misterredman

You should think about cloning the hard drive you are currently using to a partition of the new one. That way you will retain the whole applications and OS X. You may need to buy an external enclosure to do the job if you don't have another free slot inside you mac (i.e. in a Powerbook or iBook).

Copying the applications in OS X will only work for some: those that needed an installer when you installed them the first time will probably not work. Don't remember if it's possible with OS 9.

Won't this also clone everything that I trashed over the last five years? I would like to get rid of the trash. What program do I use to clone?

[JNB]

Originally Posted by aaamericana

Won't this also clone everything that I trashed over the last five years? I would like to get rid of the trash. What program do I use to clone?

Not if you emptied the trash.

Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! are the two cloning tools usually recommended. CCC is free, SD! is commercial, I prefer SD! for my own purposes.

[peapody]

I did not know you can clone drives programs and all with mac (recently converted windows user). This is great, and sounds ideal for my situation as well.

After some light research, I think I will be doing this and using CCC. I haven't been able to verify if this will work with an external harddrive partitioned twice (120gb - which is the size of my internal drive for my MBP, and the remaining for data). Or do I have to use a solitary dedicated drive for the backup?

[misterredman]

Originally Posted by peapody

I did not know you can clone drives programs and all with mac (recently converted windows user). This is great, and sounds ideal for my situation as well.

After some light research, I think I will be doing this and using CCC. I haven't been able to verify if this will work with an external harddrive partitioned twice (120gb - which is the size of my internal drive for my MBP, and the remaining for data). Or do I have to use a solitary dedicated drive for the backup?

An external partitioned drive will work fine, if the size is enough as you stated. I did it with CCC a couple days ago and it's working fine. Just be sure to check the cloned drive by booting from it at least once.

[aaamericana]

Originally Posted by JohnNotBeatle

Not if you emptied the trash.

Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! are the two cloning tools usually recommended. CCC is free, SD! is commercial, I prefer SD! for my own purposes.

Thanks for the info. Still confused on the trash. It has been emptied, however, a program such as Norton Utilities allows me to retrieve some files from the hard drive. If I clone this hard drive and move the info to a new hard drive won't this "trash" also make the trip?

[misterredman]

Originally Posted by aaamericana

Thanks for the info. Still confused on the trash. It has been emptied, however, a program such as Norton Utilities allows me to retrieve some files from the hard drive. If I clone this hard drive and move the info to a new hard drive won't this "trash" also make the trip?

You should not worry about those deleted files anyway. Also if they were moved with the cloning they will not cause any problem at all. If you still prefer to remove them for security reasons you can use Disk Utility and select Erase Free Space and then one of the pass option. This will overwrite the deleted files with zeroes (one or more times), making the recovery with programs like Norton utilities impossible.

[CanadaRAM]

Originally Posted by aaamericana

Thanks for the info. Still confused on the trash. It has been emptied, however, a program such as Norton Utilities allows me to retrieve some files from the hard drive. If I clone this hard drive and move the info to a new hard drive won't this "trash" also make the trip?

No, the clone is not a bit for bit clone, it will only take over valid files.

Which Mac G4 do you have? The PowerMac models before the 2002 Quicksilver did not support internal hard drives of larger than 120 GB, so if you intend to install the 500 GB into the machine, then you should check first.

(note, it's best when posting on MR, to specify the model of your machine and the OS version)

[peapody]

Originally Posted by misterredman

An external partitioned drive will work fine, if the size is enough as you stated. I did it with CCC a couple days ago and it's working fine. Just be sure to check the cloned drive by booting from it at least once.

Thanks, I just tried this out using a single usb portable drive and it seemed to work like a charm. Can't believe you can even do this.

I read somewhere that you can't boot from USB with CCC, yet somehow I was able to. Or was I just delusional and did something wrong? I remember reading that FW drive is required. Is this true? The last thing I want to do is mess up my cloned copy.

[misterredman]

Originally Posted by peapody

Thanks, I just tried this out using a single usb portable drive and it seemed to work like a charm. Can't believe you can even do this.

I read somewhere that you can't boot from USB with CCC, yet somehow I was able to. Or was I just delusional and did something wrong? I remember reading that FW drive is required. Is this true? The last thing I want to do is mess up my cloned copy.

It actually doesn't matter if you cloned the drive with CCC or another utility. It's more a matter of Intel vs PowerPC macs and may depends from the enclosure of the external drive. So if you can boot from the cloned drive and everything is working fine don't worry about it.

[aaamericana]

Originally Posted by CanadaRAM

No, the clone is not a bit for bit clone, it will only take over valid files.

Which Mac G4 do you have? The PowerMac models before the 2002 Quicksilver did not support internal hard drives of larger than 120 GB, so if you intend to install the 500 GB into the machine, then you should check first.

(note, it's best when posting on MR, to specify the model of your machine and the OS version)

I have the Quicksilver model.

[Consultant]

Originally Posted by CanadaRAM

No, the clone is not a bit for bit clone, it will only take over valid files.

Which Mac G4 do you have? The PowerMac models before the 2002 Quicksilver did not support internal hard drives of larger than 120 GB, so if you intend to install the 500 GB into the machine, then you should check first.

(note, it's best when posting on MR, to specify the model of your machine and the OS version)

Actually, there is a piece of software that allows >120gb drives on all Macs 10.2 to 10.5.

http://www.speedtools2.com/ATA6.html
Intech SpeedTools ATA Hi-Capacity Driver