On Web wrote:
> Hi Guys, be gentle with me - I know nothing about Macs.
>
> I bought a second-hand G4 and it has a 20GB hard drive and it runs nicely
> (though there's a lot of bearing noise from something - probably a fan).
>
> I do have the OSX install discs.
>
> I'd like to copy the 20GB drive to a larger drive and just take out the
> existing 20GB and replace it with the larger disc.
Can you please clarify what you mean by "G4"? Is it a PowerMac G4 (large
rectangular box with handles on the corners), an iMac G4 (white
hemisphere with attached LCD display on a metal neck), or a laptop
(iBook or PowerBook)?
This doesn't make any difference as far as the cloning process goes, but
it will for the question of how to attach two drives to it.
The PowerMac G4 has a drive carrier tray which supports two drives, and
it is easy to do this if you are familiar with installing hard drives in
Windows PCs.
If the current drive is 20 GB, the computer is almost certainly limited
to supporting 128 GB per drive, and you will probably have to use the
master/slave jumper settings rather than cable select.
The iMac or laptop models don't support two internal drives, so in order
to clone anything you would need to temporarily attach a drive
externally, clone the data over to it, then physically swap the drives
(which is not easy in any of these models).
> I know nothing about Macs, what's the easiest way to do this?
Once you have sorted out the question of physically connecting two
drives at once, you will need to do two things:
1. Erase the new drive using the correct file system. You might want to
partition it: if so, this is done at the same time.
This is typically done using Disk Utility (see below).
2. Clone the existing drive to the new one using appropriate software.
The most popular tools for this are Carbon Copy Cloner, and SuperDuper!
Both are donationware/shareware but will operate sufficiently to do a
basic clone without having to pay for them.
I've tried both and I prefer SuperDuper! because it has a nicer user
interface which explains the process more clearly and takes care of more
of the technical details for you. I liked SuperDuper! enough to justify
paying for it, even though I haven't needed the "paid only" features
yet.
Details for using Disk Utilty to erase and/or partition the drive:
Disk Utility is located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications
folder at the top level of your hard drive.
In Disk Utility, each connected drive is displayed in a list down the
left side. There is an icon representing the drive itself, and one or
more indented icons representing the volumes/partitions on the drive
(there might be no indented icons if the drive doesn't have a valid file
system).
Make sure you can tell which drive is which: the drive itself (leftmost
icon) will mention its capacity and brand, and you want the new higher
capacity drive.
Click on the drive icon (leftmost) to highlight it.
If you want to partition the drive, click on the Partition tab and
choose the arrangement you want to use. You might need to click on the
Options button and make sure the partition scheme is set to "Apple
Partition Map". When you have everything set the way you want, click the
Partition button.
If you don't need multiple partitions, you can click on the Erase tab
and enter the details, then click the Erase button when you are ready.
The file system you should choose is any case is "Mac OS Extended
(Journaled)".
You should leave the "Install Mac OS 9 driver" option enabled, in case
you ever want to boot the computer into Mac OS 9. It doesn't occupy much
disk space.
The question of whether to partition the drive is a personal choice. If
you would like a bootable second system installation on the drive, you
might want to have a 10 to 20 GB partition for that, and leave the bulk
of your drive as your main system plus applications plus data.
Changing the partition scheme later will require erasing everything on
the drive (unless you buy some extra software), so it is best to pick
the partitioning scheme when you install the drive.
I generally don't bother with extra partitions on internal/primary
drives for separating data from the main system and application volume,
as it just adds complexity and can get in the way if you discover you
made a bad choice as to the partition sizes.
I tend to use partitions on external or seconary drives for holding a
complete cloned backup of my main drive, or for utility system
installations. Being in a partition means it is bootable. If you don't
need to boot from your backup you can use a disk image instead, which is
easier to manage if you want to change your usage of the external drive
without wiping everything.
--
David Empson
dempson.RemoveThis@actrix.gen.nz
>> Stay informed about: G4 Cloning drive to expand capacity 
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