G4 to Mac Pro migration

N

nealt

Registered
I took the plunge and am getting a new Mac pro. I have a G4 tower with 10.5.5 on it. I am considering various migration procedures. Time is not a big consideration. I am a knowledgeable user.

1- I could use the migration assistant.
2- I could reinstall applications and manually move over documents.
3- I was really thinking of cloning the G4 HD or an external firewire drive which has a clone of the G4 HD to the Mac Pro HD. However is there any danger in this? Maybe the Mac Pro has pre-installed files that are specific to the Mac Pro. And are there formatting issues? Almost all my applications are universal but perhaps they are set up on the G4 for PPC.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Migration Assistant should work just fine.

Regarding "clone"--the only problem with that is if, like me, you failed to enable journaling on the MacBook Pro HD . . . programs do not like that after you transfer them!

I would try the Migration Assistant. If that does not work to your satisfaction, you can always use the other methods. All you lose is time--rent some good DVDs to amuse yourself! :)

--J.D.
 
Personally I would just reinstall everything, then just copy over your documents, and this way, it makes sure that you do not have any bugs at all. It also clears any unused extra stuff.
 
The only issue I have with reinstalling is that I changed all the default 10.5 folders to 10.4 folders. That was quite a job and I hate to lose them.
 
Just remember that you are going from PPC to Intel. So you will need Universal of for Intel only programs. Running pure PPC coded programs will be slower. So upgrade your software on the Intel Mac.
 
As far as I can tell from "Get Info" all my applications are Universal. The one exception is Office 2004. I have Office 2008 but with all the reported problems I thought I would try 2004 and see if its speed is acceptable.

How about Mac Os 10.5 itself. Is my installed operating system universal? Are there parts that get installed differently depending on whether you install it on a PPC or an Intel machine?
 
To my knowledge, if your OS 10.5 is not universal or Intel specific it simply will not load on your MacBook Pro. I have upgraded to a MacBook and my old Pismo 10.3 and 10.4 disk will not recognize it.

My Office 2004 worked fine on my Intel. I would have to check to see if it was "universal" or "PC"--I got an upgrade to 2008 which, incidentally, seems to work well for me.

--J.D.
 
How can you tell if your 10.5 is Universal?
By the way I purchased a Mac Pro tower not a Macbook.
 
Stick the disk in.

Try to use it.

If it replies "Sod-off You Fat Pig!" then it is not universal or an Intel disk.

:)

--J.D.
 
Yes, that is what I was thinking. I can just connect my external firewire drive, with the 10.5 clone on it, to the Mac Pro. Then I will try booting off of it. I can play around and see if everything seems to work well. Then if everything is ok I can clone the firewire drive to the Mac Pro drive.
 
You are essentially doing what I did--and detailed in a worthless thread--and it works fine. The only thing that was a problem was I forgot to make sure the Ex-HD was "journaled." It ran 10.4.11 happily but it had some "issues" accepting 10.5--obviously, if you already have 10.5+ on your Ex-HD this is not an issue!

Should be good to go. If, for some reason, the disk does not work, there are ways of getting universal disks. With "Snow Leopard" coming around the corner, the prices are dropping.

--J.D.
 
When transitioning from PowerPC to Intel machines, it is important NOT to clone your OS from one to the other, as the old OS will NOT run. While you will need to reinstall your apps, the best solution is to have a clean Leopard install on your new Intel machine, add your apps, then use Migration Assistant purely to transfer your Accounts, Data and Network configs.
 
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