Upgrade G4 or Put HD with vital programs into a better G4/G5??

[Pook-G4-Newbie]

I have a PowerMac G4 AGP 400Mhz CPU with 10G and 20G HD and 768 MB ram.

The computer has Final Cut Pro on it and I love this program and I don't want to loss it! I also can't afford to buy a new mac and then get the new Final Cut. That is simply not in the budget. But I do need to do something because my G4 is well Internet obsolete as it is running OS 9.2.2. It just needs help. I was given this computer and I would like to salvage Final Cut off of it.

The Dilemma is this: I can upgrade it or I was wondering if it might be cheaper to buy a better G4/G5 and put the HD's from my old one into the new one.

If I upgrade I think I would end up spending more money. I would want to max out the Ram at 2G, Get a way better VC than the Rage Pro that's in it, get a third HD that is way bigger, possibly a new CPU, and of course upgrade the OS!

On the other hand I could buy a G4/G5 with all of that already in it and for probably about the same price that just a new CPU would cost me.

So what should I do? And is it possible to put the HD from the G4 into another computer without complication and How would that work/How would I do that? Would the OS 9.2.2 on the old HD just boot under the new computers OS once I put the HD in? It seems like option two could be complicated.

 

[mkrishnan]

I don't think there are any G5s that can run OS 9... the first G5 ran on 10.2, and only computers that shipped with OS9 or lower can run OS9 natively (so any computer that did not ship with dual booting for OS 9 and X is out).

http://apple-history.com can help you figure out which PMG4s might be possibilities, though.

EDIT: I think the Mirrored Drive Door (MDD) version is the last dual-booting PMG4...

http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gallery&model=g4_mirror&performa=off&sort=date&order=ASC&range=

It is available with as fast as 2x1.25 GHz G4's, so for what it's worth, it should be a massive upgrade from 1x 400MHz.... And it shipped with much larger drives -- at least 60GB and up to 120GB. So you could easily clone all your information from your two drives and still have space to spare.

OTOH you should probably eventually think about moving into current century hardware... Macs are lovely, but for instance, a $300 desktop Windows PC ... wouldn't that be quite dramatically faster than anything of this era? Also from a software standpoint, the era of software you're using now is essentially only in use by collectors... I understand you're saying money is tight, but you might seriously want to think about whatever you spend now in the context of an ultimate upgrade to some kind of Intel or AMD-based Mac/Win hardware.

 

[Pook-G4-Newbie]

So you could easily clone all your information from your two drives and still have space to spare.

I was wondering if you could give me a quick run down of how I would "clone" or point me in the right dirrection. Any websites ect. would be helpful.

I understand you're saying money is tight, but you might seriously want to think about whatever you spend now in the context of an ultimate upgrade to some kind of Intel or AMD-based Mac/Win hardware.

This is great advice. To be honest I am not sure what I want to do. If I don't stick with this computer I might go for a PC. But I do hope that one day I will be able to afford a New'ish' mac with Final Cut Pro

 

[mkrishnan]

Hmmm, truth be told, I've only ever done cloning in OS X. Maybe this can help?

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=267829

Good luck.

 

[goMac]

A video card upgrade probably wouldn't make much difference in since the FC Pro of that era didn't use the GPU.

You probably shouldn't be putting any upgrades into that machine. Finding a copy of FCP for OS X would be a good start.