How to Migrate from a Dead iMac G5?

B

bughunter

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My pre-iSight iMac G5 finally croaked, just months after its AppleCare expired.

Even with Apple's Power Supply extended coverage for this model, I'm not gonna hassle with a lemon anymore. I just ordered a replacement Core2Duo iMac. It will arrive on Monday or Tuesday.

My question is, How do I Migrate from the dead iMac?

Also, once migration is complete, I plan to put the 80GB drive from the old iMac into a portable USB enclosure to use with my MacBook Pro. Is it possible to just migrate from the external drive enclosure?

Any advice on selecting a USB-powered portable drive enclosure for this drive from a dead iMac G5?

On the old HD, my wife has hundreds of dollars of iTunes Store purchases, as well as all of our family photo collections, personal documents, etc. I would also like to transfer as many of the application preferences as possible to minimize the work necessary to get the thing online and reinstall Office/SeaMonkey/EyeTV/whatnot...

Any and all advice assisting me with this process is appreciated. The more computers we have in the house (5 now), the more IT work I gotta do... I'm tired of mucking around with finicky computers and just want it to work.
 
bughunter said:
My pre-iSight iMac G5 finally croaked,
My question is, How do I migrate from the dead iMac?
Click to expand...

If you're convinced that the iMac is a gone goat, then pull it apart and salvage as much working hardware from it as possible. There's a market for parts. Be sure to check the connection to your 80 Gb salvaged drive to see if it's ATA (IDE) or SATA. More modern Macs use SATA but I think yours will be ATA.

bughunter said:
I plan to put the 80GB drive from the old iMac into a portable USB enclosure to use with my MacBook Pro. Is it possible to just migrate from the external drive enclosure? Any advice on selecting a USB-powered portable drive enclosure
Click to expand...

Firstly I would recommend that you go for a bigger (eg. 250 Gb) external hard drive (you can never have too much storage), with USB/Firewire (combo) connectivity. Keep the 80 Gb aside for casual use. It doesn't need an enclosure btw, but you can if you wish make one from polystyrene, and then connect it as required to your other machines via a powered USB/IDE (or USB/SATA) adaptor (inexpensive) as appropriate. I do this regularly with a Hitachi 160 Gb *bare* drive.

As for drive brand, there are diverse opinions about that, but I personally favour Hitachi or Seagate. I know a lot of Mac owners go to OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/ for genuine, quality Mac hardware.

Using the adaptor mentioned earlier, you can transfer the iTunes and other material to an external drive or other computer without difficulty. Firewire is quicker than USB.

Good luck.
 
Well, since I first posted, I did a little research on the iMac G5's drive. It's an 80GB SATA drive, so I went ahead and ordered one of these bus-powered USB/FW400 enclosures:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

Hopefully it will fit. Nowhere could I find any details on the physical dimensions of the iMac G5 Rev A's 80GB SATA drive.

Regarding drive size, I have an assortment of external drives already, totalling more than 2TB. But none of them are bus-powered, and I need this drive to be available for Migration to the new iMac. Maybe later, I'll buy a bigger bare drive to put in here but in the meantime, the 80GB SATA will serve my purposes. Thanks for your other advice; it endorses my enclosure selection. :)

The central question still remains however: Will the migration assistant on the new iMac use the external drive if it's not inside another Macintosh? Are there any special considerations if I am going to put the dead iMac's drive in a USB/FW enclosure prior to migration. It's possible I may be able to revive the old iMac long enough to boot it into target disk mode, but I don't want the thing to die during migration.
 
A firewire hard drive is bootable, so you could actually boot into the old system. Migration assistant should work as well, but I can't find MA's detailed specs.

Leopards MA claims it can use "another startup disk attached to this mac" (second of three source options)
 
Incidentally, after having my iMac G5 rev. B sent in for the caps issue with the logic board and PSU in January, the thing will not boot up anymore again. And yet again, it's because of the caps issue. Only one cap is bulged, but it was enough to keep my iMac G5 from booting up. It now goes into this cycle where the PSU tries to power the system, cuts off immediately, and repeats the process. I'm taking it in tomorrow to have it fixed under the same program. :(

I'm very tempted to find myself a used Power Mac G4 and deal with that. I've seen a nice dual 867 for $299 at Mac of All Trades.
 
bughunter said:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

Hopefully it will fit. Nowhere could I find any details on the physical dimensions of the iMac G5 Rev A's 80GB SATA drive.

Regarding drive size, I have an assortment of external drives already, totalling more than 2TB. But none of them are bus-powered, and I need this drive to be available for Migration to the new iMac. Maybe later, I'll buy a bigger bare drive to put in here but in the meantime, the 80GB SATA will serve my purposes. Thanks for your other advice; it endorses my enclosure selection. :)

Will the migration assistant on the new iMac use the external drive if it's not inside another Macintosh? Are there any special considerations if I am going to put the dead iMac's drive in a USB/FW enclosure prior to migration. It's possible I may be able to revive the old iMac long enough to boot it into target disk mode, but I don't want the thing to die during migration.
Click to expand...

That case you ordered is for 2.5" (laptop) drives. Your HD is a 3.5" SATA drive, so that case won't work for your drive. OWC sells cases that are much like that for 3.5" drives, but won't be bus powered.
A Firewire case with your hard drive installed, will work for migration. A USB connection will not work, AFAIK.
 
eric2006 said:
A firewire hard drive is bootable, so you could actually boot into the old system. Migration assistant should work as well, but I can't find MA's detailed specs.

Leopards MA claims it can use "another startup disk attached to this mac" (second of three source options)
Click to expand...

I do not think he'd have a lot of luck booting the old system (PPC) on his new (Intel) Mac.

jb.
 
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