Migration from G5 desktop to new MBP

[JoBoy]

Dave:

I'm currently running a desktop G5 PowerMac (PPC) with 10.4.11. Everything is wonderful. They finally got it right. I have SD! backups to a second internal HD, to an external HD, and a sparseimage to another partition on the external drive. SD! has saved my bacon on a couple of occasions by enabling a quick restore when the main drive crashed catastrophically. I'm very happy with the status quo.

Due to increased travel demands in my work, I plan to purchase a new, Intel MacBook Pro in the fairly near future. No doubt, the new MBP will have 10.5.x installed. From reading other threads here, it appears I can't do a retrograde to 10.4.11 for the new MBP, so I'll bite the bullet and make the best of it with 10.5.x. See this article from MacFixit:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?...80408105217231

It leaves me wondering whether I can use SD! to migrate to a new, Intel MacBook Pro from my desktop G5 (PowerPC). Your comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your assist.

JoBoy

[dnanian]

No, but you can migrate either from the G5 or from the backup of it (as long as it's written directly to a drive).

[JoBoy]

Originally Posted by dnanian

No, but you can migrate either from the G5 or from the backup of it (as long as it's written directly to a drive).

Dave:

I'm sorry, but I'm unsure of this answer. Does it mean I can't use SD! to copy the G5 to the new Intel MBP, but I can use Leopard's migration assistant to obtain the necessary files from the G5 or its backup?

John

[dnanian]

That's right. You can't copy a drive from a Power PC to an Intel Mac, because the OS is different (at least, up until Leopard). Migration will bring over everything but the OS, basically, and will work fine.

[JoBoy]

Thanks for the assist. Not having gone through such a conversion, I had a little trouble visualizing exactly what was being done. Best regards.

[raycee]

Hi;

I have an Intel iMac and a G4 iBook. I have just installed Leopard on the iMac and will soon do so on the G4. I am using the Leopard DVD to do both.

I think I know the answer to the following. But since I don’t like that answer, I want to double-check it here, hoping to find out I'm wrong.

So: Can I do a full SD! backup of the Intel to the G4 (or vice versa) without messing up the target computer? Or, even though the same DVD Leopard installation disk was used on both, will I still thrash the target?

I suspect the answer is that I cannot do a full backup because of the differences between the Intel chip and the G4 chip. Am I correct?

If so, how can I know exactly what files I can safely backup from one computer to the other? I would like to be as thorough in my (semi-) cloning as possible, and so far the only thing I can think of would be to smart back up only the User folder on one to the User folder on other and leave all the rest alone.

Or is there some guideline I can use to know which items to clone and which to leave alone?

Many thanks;

Ray

[dnanian]

I actually think that Leopard is universal and can be copied between CPUs. But, at the very least, you can clean install Leopard onto one and *migrate* from the other when prompted to "copy from another Mac".

[raycee]

OK, thank you Dave. Clean install sounds like the way to go.

If you are correct, does this mean that after the install I could do backups from one to the other as if they were both the same CPU? If so, that's much better news than I had hoped for!

Ray

[dnanian]

You should be able to, since Leopard is supposed to be Universal. There may be caveats: it's not something I've tried, though I've heard of others' successes.

[maxakafonz]

I have several PowerBook G4's but only one of them has Leopard installed on it. If I use SD to backup one of the PowerBooks running Tiger > do a clean install of Leopard on said PowerBook > then install SD on the PowerBook > connect the OWC HD containing the SD backup > and choose copy OWC HD to the PowerBook HD (now using Leopard OS), will I have a perfect image of everything the way it was on the PowerBook before I did the erase and install of Leopard [I know if some applications come over that are not Leopard compatible they will not work properly]?

Thanks

John