Migration problem - do you have a solution?

[jsfitz22]

Problem:
I need to migrate a 120GB hard drive OS 10.3.9 system to a 75GB partition on a new hard drive. I have an iTunes music folder which is about 70 GB. I also just purchased SuperDuper! to help with the system cloning. I also have two SATA 300GB drives - oneof which I want to house the iTunes music folder on.

Question:
So, how do I do this and retain all of my preferences (iTunes playlists, playcounts, etc.)? I did a full copy/backup of the 120GB system using SuperDuper! to the second SATA drive for safe keeping.

A couple of other questions; 1) how would I do this for iPhoto and iMovie (how do I copy the data to the SATA drive and then have all of the preferences stay on the new 75GB PATA drive partition?

Thank you in advance for your help!
-Jason

Dual 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 2 GB DDR SDRAM

[dnanian]

Moving the system is easy, of course -- you just name the two drives the same, make the copy ("Backup - all files") with SuperDuper!, and then copy and boot from the new drive.

Moving your iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie data, though, isn't so easy if you want to retain what you have.

What I'd try to do is tell iTunes that its new library location is on the new "data" drive, wherever you want it to be. Then, you can choose the "Consolidate Library" command, which should move the data and retain the counts.

iPhoto, though, doesn't allow this. No doubt there are programs available that allow its data to be relocated. iMovie projects are single items, and should be able to be copied with Finder.

Hope that helps, Jason!

[jsfitz22]

Thank you - I think I'll give that a whirl - the wist, of course, is that I will have to exclude the iTunes music folder when migrating otherwise I will not have enough space on the new system drive - then I will move the iTunes music folder to the SATA drive and then "consolidate library" - this should work, and it fit doesn't I can still go back to my original system (won't erase until I know the new system works) - thanks again.

[dnanian]

I'd first move the library, actually. Consolidate up at the new location, then move the boot drive. At that point, you shouldn't have to exclude, because the data (music, not the XML file) was moved.

[jsfitz22]

Good thought - I will try that - thank you.

[jsfitz22]

Good morning.

Well, I've had some success, but in the process created other problems.

I was able to transfer the iTunes music folder to the SATA drive and consolidate library, though in the process I lost SATA drive number 2 - it is not being recognized at all anymore. I have some suspicions as to why and can explain what I've done so it will be easier to troubleshoot.

I performed the consolidate library task and in the process my display went to sleep and wouldn't wake up, so I left the machine running overnight (because I knew copying the music folder could take up to three hours and I wanted to give it a chance to wake up after) - so, I reset the machine this morning and it wouldn't boot to the normal startup disk, it read "checking local disks" and hung. I then reset and option-booted into the orignal startup disk - this worked fine although both SATA drives were not recognized. I threw out the standard two cache files and two extension files and re-booted - the SATA1 drive was recognized (this is the one with the new iTunes music folder), but the SATA2 drive was not recognized. This SATA2 drive was the one I used SuperDuper! to backup the original full system to. I think the problem may be that when I did this the option was selected "after copy make SATA2 bootable" and I know I am not able to boot off of the Sonnet SATA card. When I copied the original system using SD! I noticed it said "after copy make SATA2 bootable" so I stopped the process and selected "do nothing" for after copy, though it still read for after copy "make SATA2 bootable," so I just went with it.

How do I recognize SATA2 now? I can erase it if I want as all of the data is still on the original PATA drive, though I can't even see the drive to erase it!

Thank you for your help.

[dnanian]

Making a drive bootable is simply a matter of "blessing" it with the bless command. It's different than actually trying to boot from it. Even a non-bootable drive can be "blessed", and it retains that bootability even if it won't boot when attached to the controller.

It sounds to me like you actually had a series of hardware failures under load. Given that the drive isn't even showing up -- I assume, even the drive itself doesn't show up in Disk Utility (meaning the drive, not the volume) -- I'd be quite concerned that you have significant problems here, and they're not software related...

[jsfitz22]

I've been working on this a lot today and it does seem the SATA2 drive is failing - everything else seems O.K. - I ran diskwarrior and it wouldn't recognize the SATA2 drive, also.

I tried the Seagate tools, but they only really work in windows and didn't work in virtual PC, either.

One other data point - my Sonnet SATA card shows the SATA2 drive as connected (solid green LED) and active (the amber LED is solid, as well) - this is strange because the amber LED should illuminate only when there is activity (it blinks for the SATA1 drive when there is activity).

Any other thoughts? I am about to journey to the store I bought the drive for a replacement.

Thanks again.

[dnanian]

I thought that I read, somewhere, that the recent Seagate SATA drives weren't compatible with the G5s. Perhaps up on xlr8yourmac or macintouch, but I don't remember exactly, unfortunately.

Googling around might provide you with some answers.

[jsfitz22]

I have a G4 - Dual 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 2 GB DDR SDRAM. All info I've read states it should be compatible.

[dnanian]

Ah, fair enough. Thought it was a G5, for some reason. Had I glanced up a little higher in the thread, I would have known better.

[jsfitz22]

No problem, thanks - so, does it sound like the drive is corrupted?

[jsfitz22]

I exchanged the drive and the new drive is recognized and functioning well so far. Thanks again.

Now I am working on cloning the system to the new PATA drive.

[dnanian]

Strange -- I swear I responded to your previous message. In any case, glad you're set.

[jsfitz22]

No problem - what were you going to did you write?

A couple of other questions (and if I should start a new thread, please let me know):
1) I cloned my system to a partition on the new PATA drive and about 50 files were not copied (50 out of about 20,000) - is that O.K.? I know it read that some files would not be copied (as recommended by Apple) - I just want to confirm this and know that I am O.K. going with the new system and erasing the old one.
2) I seem to have a small problem with SuperDuper! Twice now, I have set it to do certain things and once it starts copying the settings change. Here are my examples:
a) I set it to back up all files and "do nothing" after and it backed up all files and "made the new drive bootable" - also,
b) This last time, I set it to back up "newer files" and boot to new disk and it backed up "all" files and booted to the new disk.
Why won't it take my settings/commands? Thanks.