Upgrading my hard drive: backing up and installing?

[brians.account]

hey all,
i have an ibook g4 with a 30gb hard drive that's about to become a 120gb hard drive. a few questions/concerns i have, though:

1. Whats the easiest way to back up my apps and files?
I have access to an imac as well so I was thinking maybe just send everything over wirelessly but something tells me thats not the best route

2. If I have a completely blank hard drive installed into my system, do i only need to insert the os x disc (10.3) to install it?

i tried searching in the guides section for answers but i couldn't find anything.
thanks in advance,
-brian

 

[yippy]

The easiest way to back up everything is to connect and external hard drive and transfer everything to it.

The next best is if you have a Firewire cable (or can borrow one from someone) to connect your two Macs together with the cable. Then reboot the iBook holding down the t key and after a minute or two your iBook hard drive will appear as an external on you iMac. Copy files as needed.

As for having a blank hard drive, yes, all you need to do is put in the OS install CDs and restart holding down the c key. Your iBook will boot off of the install disk and start the installation process. If the internal hard drive does not show up as a drive to install onto that means you need to format the hard drive first. You can do that by looking for Disk Utility in the top menu bar.

 

[brians.account]

thanks a lot yippy

 

[velocityg4]

If you do not have a firewire cable a direct Ethernet cable connection would be faster than wireless. Assuming you have a cable/dsl modem and router you have a cable right there but internet would be down for the transfer time, obviously.

As for the apps I would recommend reinstalling them, just to have a clean install and some may not work after transferring. Have you considered getting an external enclosure for you 30GB Hard Drive. You could format it in FAT32 and use it to carry large files to a friends or relatives house or work. I say FAT32 so it works with Mac OS X, Classic, Windows 95 and up (maybe even DOS 6 and Windows 3.1), and Linux etc...