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Replacing and Backing up Hard drive; OSX. iMac G3

K

Kilgore Trout

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 4, 2007
12
0
Recently purchased iMac G3 700mhz. CD-rw Graphite.

Purchased 2 sticks of 512 ram, and I am thinking about replacing the Hard drive. Found great info here, and elsewhere, and it seems like a good move.
The original owner of said machine replaced original 60 gb drive with 20 gb drive (noisy), so I would like some more storage space and speed etc.. etc...

Here is a potential problem:

I have OSX 10.4 Tiger on my machine, and have NO OSX CD or DVD.

Is it possible to back it up, and re-boot/reload from the back up, or do I need to purchase OSX Tiger? Keep in mind I have nothing on the Hard drive except the OSX at this point.


If Back-up is possible for Loading OS, what should I back it up to?

Also, Do I need to back up before I replace the RAM?

I was thinking of doing both at the same time anyway, but if I opt at this point to do the Ram, I wasn't sure.

I do have a friend who owns a Mac, so I can connect my machine via. firewire and do a target boot i believe it's called if I have to purchase OSX Tiger.

Can I also use a firwire DVD-rw drive to load OSX?

I have a ton of questions, and I hope I asked them correctly and gave enough info.

I have scoured this site, and the net, and came up with some info, but mainly more qustions than answers.

Any insight and help is much appreciated.

Cheers, KT
 
You can use a Firewire drive to boot OS X. Also, a backup isn't needed for changing ram as it doesn't do anything to your hard drive where you store your stuff. I'm not exactly sure what you are doing but you can use Carbon copy cloner to transfer an entire system from one drive to another. This will require that you have some sort of bridge to connect your new internal (or old) to the computer externally so you can have both mounted at the same time.
 
So if I downloaded the cloner, I could copy all the contents on my HD (The OS) to what exactly, Like an external firewire HD?

Then I would install a new, larger HD in my iMac, and reboot from external drive (in target mode) with cloned copy?

Hope I asked that right.

Thanks.
 
Yeah, it basically clones the entire drive to another drive. If you don't have an external handy you can buy a firewire bridge (or usb, I guess) that will let you connect your new internal via firewire (externally). You can then clone your old internal (still internal) to the new one (that is connected via the bridge). You would then swap the drives and you also gain an external drive (your old internal). No booting from the external required.
 
Nice! I am breathing a sigh of relief. So other than a new hard drive, the only thing I need to buy is a bridge.
Could you point me in the right direction of this bridge/adapter?
I do have firewire port on my machine.

Thanks a million. :)
 
Thanks. Really big help.

I am sure I will be checking back in at some point with more questions, or at the very least, how everything worked out.

Happy holidays.:)
 
Replace Hard Drive imac graphite 700mhz

Can anyone direct me to a source for parts and info forreplacing my hard drive that seems to have fried? It is a 60 gig; bigger, faster would be great, but anything will do. Also, I have upgraded to 1 gig of ram; any other upgrades I can do myself to improve speed, performance, etc. for running 10.3.9? Thanks so much, Sheetflow
 
i think the iMac can support 2 internal IDE drives.
1. buy a bigger faster drive
2. Download Super Duper!
3. set the jumper pin on the new drive to slave.
4. install it and boot up your mac.
5. run Super Duper to make an exact bootable clone of your old hard drive.
6. remove old drive and replace with new copy and set the jumper pin to master and start her up.
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
i think the iMac can support 2 internal IDE drives.
1. buy a bigger faster drive
2. Download Super Duper!
3. set the jumper pin on the new drive to slave.
4. install it and boot up your mac.
5. run Super Duper to make an exact bootable clone of your old hard drive.
6. remove old drive and replace with new copy and set the jumper pin to master and start her up.
Click to expand...

For the iMac, you probably need an ATA or IDE drive, not a newer SATA drive. I think an iMac G3 would be limited to 128GB; a bigger drive should work, but everything beyond 128GB would not be usable; better check Google for this (120GB drives are hard to find nowadays).
 
g3 imac hard drive replacement.

thanks to all of you for your help. I have successfully replaced the 60 gig drive with a 160 gig ( the smallest I could find). I have also hooked up a cooling fan to the back of the clam shell. Everything is working great, the thing is faster than it ever has been. Regards, Sheetflow
 
sheetflow said:
thanks to all of you for your help. I have successfully replaced the 60 gig drive with a 160 gig ( the smallest I could find). I have also hooked up a cooling fan to the back of the clam shell. Everything is working great, the thing is faster than it ever has been. Regards, Sheetflow
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it will only recognize 128 GB and yes a new HDD does wonders for those machines.
 
Replacing and Backing up Hard drive; OSX. iMac G3

Yes, 128 it is. I also have a 250 g external so I don't really even need 128 but it is hard to find smaller new drives these days.
 
Nice; you have the top of the line old G3 iMac. Great machine. Good luck with the upgrade and don't forget to stuff it with a gig of ram.
 
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