Hard drive, Disk Utility, Expansion G4 PM

[XNine]

Okay, so if my sale goes through on this MAc mini, I'll be upgrading my Powermac G4.

I have a couple of questions for some guru's.

1. IF booting from OS X, will disk utility allow me to completely clone an old HD (the boot drive) to a new HD by taking one disk image (the old HD) and restoring it on the new HD?

2. I have two HD's now, and I want to buy a 250 Gig drive to be the main drive (see question 1), but I want to keep the other two HD's. What kind of cables do I need to buy in order to expand this so this can happen?

3. I'm thinking about going through Other world computing for the HD and a brand new Superdrive (dual layer baby!), is there any other places you recommend that are cheaper or have a better functioning Super Drive?

Thanks for the help!
Zuka

 

[Artful Dodger]

Hi, as far as SD goes I like the NEC brand as that's what is in my LaCie. I say this because they handle the DL at 6x (I heard 8x but only rumor). Some like the Pioneer but again I went with a LaCie "RECON" as I got it for a deal with full software...$109 shipped and no need for Patchburn (which works great with the Pioneer model).
You could make your own and the cost would be about the same, say $50 for the dvd drive and $50 for a nice case. It's really up to you on that.
are you going with OWC on the HDD part? They are nice and 2 yr. warranty

 

[AliensAreFuzzy]

For number 1, I suggest Carbon Copy Cloner
It allows you to make a bootable copy from one drive to another

 

[mklos]

1. I've done this successfully on my iBook G3 and everything worked perfect, except Mac OS 9 for some reason. So as long as Mac OS 9 isn't in the image, you should be ok. If you don't already have the image made, I would recommend you use Carbon Copy Cloner instead as its quicker and much more reliable.

2. A PowerMac G4 has support for up to 4 HDs. I'm not sure how many IDE Channels are on PowerMac G4 logicboards. I'm assuming 2. Also, it might depend on what PowerMac you have. Also keep in mind that PowerMac G4's from 2002 or earlier can only see 128GB at a time. If your PowerMac is older than the models made in 2002 then you can either buy an IDE Controller PCI Card, or get a combo IDE/SATA Controller PCI Card and use SATA HDs and IDE. Either way will let you use the entire 250GB HD if you have an older PowerMac G4. Pretty much if your PowerMac is pre-QuickSilver (slower than 733MHz) then you'll need a controller card. Getting a controller card may be your best bet anyways and you'll have more channels in case the ones on the logicboard are used.

3. OWC has pretty good deals on them and they guarantee that it will work with iLife and OS X burning software. If you want to look on eBay, you might get lucky and find a new/like new Apple DL-SuperDrive.

 

[XNine]

1. I've done this successfully on my iBook G3 and everything worked perfect, except Mac OS 9 for some reason. So as long as Mac OS 9 isn't in the image, you should be ok. If you don't already have the image made, I would recommend you use Carbon Copy Cloner instead as its quicker and much more reliable.

2. A PowerMac G4 has support for up to 4 HDs. I'm not sure how many IDE Channels are on PowerMac G4 logicboards. I'm assuming 2. Also, it might depend on what PowerMac you have. Also keep in mind that PowerMac G4's from 2002 or earlier can only see 128GB at a time. If your PowerMac is older than the models made in 2002 then you can either buy an IDE Controller PCI Card, or get a combo IDE/SATA Controller PCI Card and use SATA HDs and IDE. Either way will let you use the entire 250GB HD if you have an older PowerMac G4. Pretty much if your PowerMac is pre-QuickSilver (slower than 733MHz) then you'll need a controller card. Getting a controller card may be your best bet anyways and you'll have more channels in case the ones on the logicboard are used.

3. OWC has pretty good deals on them and they guarantee that it will work with iLife and OS X burning software. If you want to look on eBay, you might get lucky and find a new/like new Apple DL-SuperDrive.

Sweet. All good advice my friends! Very kind of you!

I actually priced out the same Pioneer DVD Dual Layer burner from www.newegg.com and a western digital 250 GB 16mb cache 7200RPM HD and it comes to $150.00 for both as opposed to 165.98! And newegg ships hella fast too.

YEah, I have a Powermac G4 2002 Quicksilver 933MHz. There's only one drive bay in it (for two HD's at a time). May have to buy another bay then...argh!

 

[Alte22a]

Has anyone fitted these 250GB 16MB cache Drives to a 2002 QuickSilver Tower? I am having alot of grief right now. Told a friend they should fit in fine. What happens is its VERY SLOW, but at least still boots. Just very odd, Surely 16Mb Cache shouldnt be any problems. Fitting a Sonnet Trio card today when it arrives so that we can actually fill the tower with 4 drives working.