Advice Needed on Rebuilding OSX SL on iMac and MBP

[OngL]

I am rebuilding my iMac and MacBook Pro from the scratch with Snow Leopard. At the moment, I have almost completed installing the operating system, system updates and 3rd party apps on my iMac.

The question is: Can I just clone the iMac drive with all the ready-to-use system to MBP and made some adjustment in MBP (e.g. hostname, etc)?

The iMac is 2008 Alu while the MBP is 2008 unibody.

The goal is not to repeat installing the whole thing again and I would like to have as-close-as-possible mac between the two.

Thanks....

 

[super_kev]

As far as I know, the installation process does not differentiate between Mac models, which is why you can install OS X on a external HD and boot any compatible Mac off of it.

You should be able to boot from the system DVD on your MBP, plug the iMac into the MBP via Target Disk Mode, open Disk Utility on the MBP, and restore the MBP's hard drive ("Destination") with the iMac hard drive as the source.

 

[OngL]

As far as I know, the installation process does not differentiate between Mac models, which is why you can install OS X on a external HD and boot any compatible Mac off of it.

You should be able to boot from the system DVD on your MBP, plug the iMac into the MBP via Target Disk Mode, open Disk Utility on the MBP, and restore the MBP's hard drive ("Destination") with the iMac hard drive as the source.

I read and read but still don't completely get the idea of target disk. I can boot off external HDD to my MBP but I guess the only way to boot up from my iMac HDD in MBP is through target disk.

Do I need a firewire cable between iMac and MBP? How do I start this in iMac e.g. does it need to be on and boot-up to system or ...?

 

[super_kev]

Target Disk Mode - look it up if you'd like. Hold down "T" when restarting your iMac, and a Firewire icon will appear on the screen. Connect a Firewire cable to it and it becomes an external HD.