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System drive from old Mac Pro in new Mac Pro

WonderSausage

WonderSausage

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 3, 2008
74
3
Since the OS is still 10.5.x, is there any reason I can't use the system drive from my Jan08 Mac Pro in my new Nehalem box?

I assume Apple Update will fetch new display drivers?

I already have iLife 09.
 
So you're advocating a (rather tedious & complicated in my case since I have multiple apps that use installers) app-by-app reinstallation of the entire system? Estimated 8+ hours...
 
WonderSausage said:
So you're advocating a (rather tedious & complicated in my case since I have multiple apps that use installers) app-by-app reinstallation of the entire system? Estimated 8+ hours...
Click to expand...

Kinda. Being a forward-thinking sort of person, I keep a read-only master disk with a fresh install of my system with all my applications installed and configured, but with no documents or any of that crap (which is stored on a different drive anyway.)

When I get a new system or install a new hard drive, I wipe the boot drive, install the OS my way (no printer drivers, only three languages), and then do a migration from the master disk.

That's if I'm feeling lazy. When I want to do it right, I do a proper fresh install of EVERYTHING, then image it when I'm done so I have a way to go back to that point.
 
Migration Assistant doesn't accommodate apps with limited product key-based online activation.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Uh, no? Use Migration Assistant to port all of your applications and documents on the first startup.
Click to expand...

Keeping in mind this brings over all the crap you've accumulated over time, and every onward migration brings it as well. Fresh starts are not a bad thing.
 
grue said:
Keeping in mind this brings over all the crap you've accumulated over time, and every onward migration brings it as well. Fresh starts are not a bad thing.
Click to expand...

That's all well and good but I have the feeling that people who advocate this are not running Adobe CS4 and Office 2008... CS4 Production Premium (downloadable purchase) is like 25 different items just to reinstall, followed by various updates.
 
WonderSausage said:
That's all well and good but I have the feeling that people who advocate this are not running Adobe CS4 and Office 2008... CS4 Production Premium (downloadable purchase) is like 25 different items just to reinstall, followed by various updates.
Click to expand...

You're wrong. I run Final Cut Studio 2 and CS4 Production Premium. Both of them are horrendously annoying installs, I'll be the first to admit.

Final Cut Studio is part of my master image and doesn't need to be activated. Adobe's stupidly annoying activation crap migrates correctly about 50% of the time, so I've given up and I reinstall it every time, albeit from a hard disk based image instead of the slow-ass optical media.

But no, I don't run Office. You were right about that much.

For what it's worth, it takes me around the same amount of time to do one of my installs as it takes to do a migration, and I don't have the detritus associated with a factory install of the OS, nor the crap from my previous systems. Food for thought.
 
All of that aside, if you do want to use your current drive in your new machine, I'm guessing you'd just need to wait for 10.5.7 and you'd be fine. Though of course, I wait a minimum of fourteen days after any software update is released by Apple before I'm willing to apply it. I don't get paid to test their crap, I let the eager beavers do that and see what it breaks on their machines first.
 
You can just pop in your old drive into the new machine BUT you'll still need to do and update in place with the install DVD. The new MPs come with 10.5.6 on them, but it's a different build than available from system update. You can do that on another system w/ an external enclosure or FW Target Mode or put the DVD in your MPs DVD and boot from DVD.
 
I assume once 10.5.7 is out it will have resident all the new drivers needed and may work as a simple switch over and update. That would certainly make things easier.
 
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