G5, 2.7 using OSX10.4.11: I want to clone the hard drive. Instead of housing the new hard drive in an external case could I put it into an idle G5 that currently has no hard drive (an elaborate external case, so to speak)? If so, how then to connect the 2

Question

G5, 2.7 using OSX10.4.11: I want to clone the hard drive. Instead of housing the new hard drive (during the cloning process) in an external case, could I simply install the new hard drive into an idle G5 that has no hard drive in it thus using the idle G5 as an elaborate external case? What cables would I use to connect the 2 computers? Ethernet?  USB?  Could I use the firewire cable that is normally used by my Apple camera (the camera that is an aluminum tube, I forget the name of that thing). The idle G5 is a 1.6 model,would that matter?  Thanks

Answer 1

I personally can think of two options.
1. Mount the drive in which the copy of the first hard drive will go to inside of the 2.7gHZ G5's case. There is room for two hard drives in there. See Link for Help
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/PMG5_HD_DIY.pdf
Once it is installed, simply boot off of your Mac OS Install media (CD, DVD, USB) it can be any version that supports the PowerPC platform. You need to boot holding the "C" key. Then choose Disk Utility and hit the restore tab. Drag the old partition to the "Source" field and the new hard drive to the "destination" field.
2. Put the second hard drive into the second (idle) G5. You will need a copy of the Mac OS install DVD as again you cannot clone a drive when it is in use (running the operating system). Hold down the "T" key at boot up and then a firewire logo will bounce on the monitor. then plug the cable into the 2.7 g5 and start it up
I hope that this is helpful.
Long Live the PowerPC G5