Migrating from Hackintosh to Mac Pro

[Dadioh]

Well the journey to the dark side is complete

My trusty Hackintosh was my introduction to the wonderful world of OS X. Now, 2 Macbook Pro's (Mine, Wife's), 4 Macbooks (kids), iPad, iPhone, iPod later...

I am getting a Macpro1,1 2006 for Christmas So now I want to migrate all of my apps and data across to the Mac Pro. I have been using Time Machine on an external drive so I was wondering if the best way to go would be to install fresh Snow Leopard on the Mac Pro and then give it the external drive time machine to grab everything else? Would this also grab my Parallels/Windows 7 installation? Any pitfalls to avoid? Advice in general? Flames? Random thoughts....

Many Thanks in Advance and Merry Christmas everyone...

 

[Garamond]

1,1? I just got rid of my 2,1 because it was getting a bit long in the tooth

 

[Dadioh]

1,1? I just got rid of my 2,1 because it was getting a bit long in the tooth

Well I don't have $2600 burning a hole in my pocket so 1,1 will do just fine by me. Unless you really aren't try to be a snob. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

So do you have something relevant to add to the thread?

 

[stroked]

Sorry, I can't help with any of your questions. I'm curious, why did you give up on your hackintosh?

garamond did act like a snob. This forum has a lot of them, unfortunately.

BTW, I would love to get my hands on an old MacPro. Good luck with yours.

 

[Dadioh]

Sorry, I can't help with any of your questions. I'm curious, why did you give up on your hackintosh?

garamond did act like a snob. This forum has a lot of them, unfortunately.

BTW, I would love to get my hands on an old MacPro. Good luck with yours.

I am a HW designer and I get bored easily

I really admire the engineering that went into the design of the Mac Pro and I run the thing 24/7. And they really are a thing of beauty with all that aluminum.

The Hackintosh is great but I get nervous every time a new kernel update comes along wondering if I am going to break something. Although it has a fair bit of power. Quad core at 3.6GHz and 8GB memory hums along.

But I just picked up a pair of E5345 to drop into the Mac Pro so that will give me 8 cores of crunching goodness. And a 5770 video card so if I feel like gaming I can. And maybe openCL will actually start to get some traction at some point

So there you have it. This is more of an experiment than anything else. I have a Mac Mini, 2 Macbook Pros, 4 Macbooks, an iPad, and an iPhone in the house already. This completes the set

 

[freeman727]

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The hackingosh was also a springboard for me to get into macs and other Apple products. Now I have a Mac Pro, MacBook pro, ip4 and soon a iPad 2.

 

[highdefw]

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Depending on how much you need to transfer, maybe just go with fresh copy of OS X and transfer whatever by external? Unless I needed the system exactly as I had it, that's what I would do.

MP 1,1? Go for something with a little more bang! You deserve it

 

[dimme]

I would go with a fresh install of OS X and all your apps. It takes a bit of time but everything will be clean and new. As far as music, pictures and data just copy them over via Ethernet.
Good Luck with your new machine

 

[Dadioh]

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Depending on how much you need to transfer, maybe just go with fresh copy of OS X and transfer whatever by external? Unless I needed the system exactly as I had it, that's what I would do.

MP 1,1? Go for something with a little more bang! You deserve it

Thanks I am a HW tinkerer so I get a kick out of buying some cheap and then getting it up to great specs with a little elbow grease... errr... thermal grease

Just picked up a pair of E5345's cheap and will upgrade it to an 8 core machine. Also bought a 5770 to add a little graphics power. Still way cheaper than I could get an octo in the newer Mac Pro's. Just something to play with for me....

 

[Dadioh]

I would go with a fresh install of OS X and all your apps. It takes a bit of time but everything will be clean and new. As far as music, pictures and data just copy them over via Ethernet.
Good Luck with your new machine

Yeah. I think you are right. Plus it gives me more time playing with my new toy (even if it is as mundane as installing apps). Picked up a WD Caviar Black 1TB 64MB cache to use as the system drive. May go to SSD later when prices drop a bit more. Had a 120GB OCZ Vertex in my Macbook Pro and it really flew. But I need the extra space of the 1TB. I could also consider short stroking teh 1TB for extra speed I suppose.

 

[VanneDC]

Mac pro 1,1 are great Boxen, I had mine for a little over a year before selling it and that was only cos I was going to build a hackingtosh. Which I did and then got the ***** with all the crap that breaks when an update comes out.
The Mac pro 1,1 will serve you well and is still a great box.
ESP with the upgrades your talking bout.

Good luck and have fun, welcome to the Mac pro club.
oh and also merry Christmas yay!!

 

[dusanv]

You could always restore from the Hackintosh Time Machine backup to the new 1,1. The worst thing that could happen is that it doesn't work but you don't really care because you have the backup. I always restore to the newer machine. I did it last when I got the 17'' MBP, restored from my old 15'', worked like a hoot. Saved me a bunch of time.

 

[Dadioh]

You could always restore from the Hackintosh Time Machine backup to the new 1,1. The worst thing that could happen is that it doesn't work but you don't really care because you have the backup. I always restore to the newer machine. I did it last when I got the 17'' MBP, restored from my old 15'', worked like a hoot. Saved me a bunch of time.

May be worth a shot before I do the complete reinstallation.

Does anyone know if the Parallels with Windows 7 installation will also get restored as part of the Time Machine restoration?

 

[johnnymg]

May be worth a shot before I do the complete reinstallation.

Does anyone know if the Parallels with Windows 7 installation will also get restored as part of the Time Machine restoration?

Now you're really pushing the whole envelope.

JMO, but I'd also highly recommend a fresh install of OSX and your apps. Also, try to get any HW upgrades (RAM and video card) done before the install. As an old time PC builder myself I marvel at how simple/fast OSX installs. In the long run I think you'll be better off just 'doing it right' the first time.

cheers and big congrats on the new HW.
JohnG

 

[bt22]

Dadioh,

Curious where you got your Mac Pro. I would also like to get a used MP but I don't trust Craigslist or Ebay. Just curious in case I should adjust my thinking.

Thanks,

 

[Dadioh]

Dadioh,

Curious where you got your Mac Pro. I would also like to get a used MP but I don't trust Craigslist or Ebay. Just curious in case I should adjust my thinking.

Thanks,

I started with Kijiji and local businesses that deal with new and used Apple gear but there wasn't really anything available locally at a decent price. I am in Canada so I restricted my search to eBay stores in Canada to avoid cross border high shipping costs. If you are in the US then you might want to check eBay and see if there is a store near you. I would suggest looking for a place that has multiple units for sale (indicating they know their Mac Pros) and with an excellent feedback score. Read the feedback and see what customers are saying about them. Ask a few questions and see how they respond. Are they quick to respond? Helpful? Courteous? Do they sound like they know their stuff? I can usually get a pretty good read on them with a few emails.

In my case the store was in Toronto (about a 5 hour drive from me) and his shipping was $90. Most of the US locations wanted close to $300 to ship to Canada. The business I bought from deals in off-lease items and does a fair volume based on what I saw on eBay. Very professional and they specialize in Apple product.

I ended up paying $900 for mine with 2 X 2.66, 4GB RAM, and a 250GB hard drive. He added an additional 4GB for $120 extra. According to the Mac Pros I was tracking on eBay that was a pretty good price. Maybe in the US you can get a better price. Not sure. Spend a bit of time tracking a bunch of them to get a good sense of the price they are going for. That way you will know when a good deal comes along.

In my case I am immediately upgrading the processors to a pair of quad core E5345's and the video card to a 5770 to get the most out of the machine. Will still be spending quite a bit less than a newer unit and getting similar performance for what I do. There may be a few snobs around that feel you have to blow $4000 or you are not worthy of the forum but you can ignore them

Good luck with the hunt.

 

[Dadioh]

Now you're really pushing the whole envelope.

JMO, but I'd also highly recommend a fresh install of OSX and your apps. Also, try to get any HW upgrades (RAM and video card) done before the install. As an old time PC builder myself I marvel at how simple/fast OSX installs. In the long run I think you'll be better off just 'doing it right' the first time.

cheers and big congrats on the new HW.
JohnG

Thanks. Really looking forward to upgrading and playing with this. OS X really does install quickly compared to Windows so you have a point. I fix Macbooks as a hobby and keep images of full installations that I copy over with target mode and SuperDuper. Then just tweak the settings for the new owner. Saves me a lot of time. But since this is going to be my server the safest bet is a clean installation. I will have my old Hackintosh beside it so I can make sure I don't forget anything in the applications folder. And most of the important stuff (video, music, photos, etc..) are already on a separate drive which will be transferred into the MP. Parallels and Windows will be the slowest part of the new install but at least I know there will be no HW mismatches. I don't think Windows will be too happy to wake up to new hardware... WTF!?!?!?

 

[johnnymg]

Thanks. Really looking forward to upgrading and playing with this. OS X really does install quickly compared to Windows so you have a point. I fix Macbooks as a hobby and keep images of full installations that I copy over with target mode and SuperDuper. Then just tweak the settings for the new owner. Saves me a lot of time. But since this is going to be my server the safest bet is a clean installation. I will have my old Hackintosh beside it so I can make sure I don't forget anything in the applications folder. And most of the important stuff (video, music, photos, etc..) are already on a separate drive which will be transferred into the MP. Parallels and Windows will be the slowest part of the new install but at least I know there will be no HW mismatches. I don't think Windows will be too happy to wake up to new hardware... WTF!?!?!?

Ah, sounds like you could be giving advice already.

You might have already seen this, but if not, you might find this thread regarding a similar processor upgrade interesting:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/745426/

Keep us updated on your project. Take some pics and post em if possible.

cheers
JohnG

 

[Dadioh]

Ah, sounds like you could be giving advice already.

You might have already seen this, but if not, you might find this thread regarding a similar processor upgrade interesting:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/745426/

Keep us updated on your project. Take some pics and post em if possible.

cheers
JohnG

Yeah. Saw that post during my research into the processor upgrade. Still trying to figure out how to get a 10" 3mm hex screwdriver. May hack up a long Philips that I have.

I usually get so caught up in upgrades I forget pics. Will try to remember

 

[Dadioh]

Writing this from my new "old" Mac Pro. Installed OS X on a fresh Caviar Black 1TB and then took the plunge and let it transfer everything from my Time Machine disk. Worked perfectly as far as I can tell. It did grab the same IP address (I dedicate one to the machine name from my router) but that was easily remedied. Also, when I booted Win7 under Parallels it initially did not see my DVD drive but quickly installed its own drivers and after a restart looks like even Windows is happy

So now time for some benches before my 2 quad cores arrive so I have something to compare it to.

 

[hugodrax]

1,1? I just got rid of my 2,1 because it was getting a bit long in the tooth

Well my 1,1 is still banging away perfectly. No incentive to replace it yet. 25d 17h uptime since last reboot (Due to apple patches)