Format and Reinstalling of OS X

[Michael7k]

I could not obtain a good link by doing a search so pardon another thread.

Is there a great link with instructions on formatting and reinstalling OSX?

Also I purchased a new PowerMac and thought of doing the firwire transfer of files in mind at the intro. Will the method of transfer work from Power PC to Power Mac safely?

I will then format and reinstall OSX on the old machine to utilize it as a server. As this will be my first time to do this with a Mac any helpful links or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you for your helpful suggestions, links and patience.

Happy Holidays!
Michael

 

[Queso]

You can use a 6 pin to 6 pin firewire cable to link two Macs directly, then boot one into target disk mode (hold down T at startup). It will then act as an external firewire disk which can be mounted on the other Mac. You can then use software such as Carbon Copy Cloner to clone all the files off the Mac you want to reformat. Be careful with the options though. You don't want to accidentally overwrite anything on the Mac acting as the temporary home.

Once that's done and you've verified that you have all your data, simply boot the Mac you're formatting from the OSX Tiger Install Disk (or Mac Restore disk if you have this to hand). You want to do a Custom Install on Step 3, then select Erase and Install. This will format the hard disk. Make sure you only select the languages and printer drivers you need to conserve disk space.

Note: Use the Mac Restore Disk if you want to install all the bundled software. If you're only after the basic OS, the OSX Install Disk is for you.

Once you've got the system up and running again, you can either link the two Macs via Firewire networking, or use target disk mode again to copy the data back.