suleiman Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Like many people on this forum I've thoroughly enjoyed tinkering around with OS X and getting it to run natively on my generic x86 Dell Laptop. It's been a fun venture and I certainly don't have any complaints. Within the first few days of use OS X's inuitive interface, ease of use, and stability/security over Windows had me change my course from setting it up as a secondary Toy OS, to my main workstation OS. I've got all my notes from class, all my website pages, scripts, and images, and even all my contacts and schedule neatly encased in this wonderfully tight package. The problem is now I'm getting a Macbook Pro, and this Dell doesn't have a firewire port. Migration Utility, the tool used to transfer files/apps/settings from one mac to another, unfortunately only seems to work via firewire. And so a new dillemma is born. I've thought about this a while, and I'd really like to save moving all the files over hand by hand, reinstalling all my apps, and digging through to find my personal settings, as a last resort. If there is ANY way to use Migration Assistant I want to be able to do it. I've thought about it a while and these seem to be the best tentative solutions I could come up with: 1) Upgrade to 10.4.5 -- Right now I'm running 10.4.3, which doesn't recognize my PCMCIA slot, and therefore forbids me from plugging in an external firewire pcmcia card (of which I have several). I know plugging in a firewire pcmcia card worked for other people on this forum, but their PCMCIA slot's were recognized by the OS. I'd basically be performing the upgrade in the hopes that 10.4.5 would have better kext/driver support for my PCMCIA slot. 2) Pull the hard drive -- This solution seems a bit more promising. I've got one other Compaq laptop right now that I'm thinking I could stick this hard drive into, then boot into OS X from. The good news there is on THAT laptop firewire is recognized (at least it was in 10.4.1). I would basically pull this hard drive, stick it in the Compaq, boot into OS X, run migration utility and transfer away. The only potential problems I see with doing this are ( A ) whether I'll be able to boot into OS X by simply sticking in a hard drive ( B ) whether OS X booting on a machine with entirely different hardware will even work or will screw up settings so that I won't be able to stick it back into the original machine and have it working again. Any ideas folks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suleiman Posted March 7, 2006 Author Share Posted March 7, 2006 Would anyone at least be able to tell me if swapping out the hard drive into the Compaq would fry my install/mess up my partition tables on the drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metrogirl Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 OK, I'll dive in. My preferred route would be to put the drive in the Compaq. I don't think there would be any lasting problem (but don't sue me, it's only a guess based on successfully swapping drives in the past) but I don't know if the hardware would actually be sufficiently compatible to actually boot - depends on lots of things like ACPI support, processor spec and integrated peripherals, graphics for e.g. My rationale is that the Deadmoo image, which was a full working system image, loaded as a direct disk copy on a lot of different hardware. The appropriate kexts just got loaded or not depending on what was found. I can't imagine that the BIOS is radically different between your machines so it's not likely to screw the partition table or disk unless it translates the head/cylinder/sector stuff closely enough but not quite - I've had that happen on occasion and when you've written a bit everything goes {censored}-up. I'd put the chances of that at less than 1%, but you never know. Just my opinion. I'm not an expert, I just didn't want you to think that you were being ignored Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flof Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 Why don't you just put the drive in an external FireWire enclosure and hook that up to the MacBook? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
U.C. Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 nope with the latest HDD's there is no chance of u losing ur info if u plug it into ur dell. From past experience, my old compaq, wouldnot boot from ne hdd other than its own. Maybe its HDD locked or something. Why dont u make a ghost of ur Dell HDD and load it on the compaq BTW my Dell 700m and my moms two old Dells had firewire ports, though they are called IEEE1394. Use a converter to get the functionality of a firewire. In Macspeak they are called mini firewire. The converter came with my iPod. U can get it from some local electronic store too. They are pretty common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suleiman Posted March 8, 2006 Author Share Posted March 8, 2006 unstable, the Dell D610 doesn't come with either a mini firewire port (which you described) or a regular firewire port. I've been working with firewire for digital movie editing for some time, so I know what you're talking about, but thanks anyways! flof, I don't know (though i'm not sure) if migration utility on my Macbook Pro will let me point to a firewire external drive, though it may very well be possible. Metrogirl, thanks also for your advice, with forum members like you I know chances of posts going ignored are slim to none I think sliding the drive into the compaq is going to be the route I take. Actually while i'm still home and not at uni (on spring break) then I may be slipping it into my dad's Toshiba to do the transfer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
would_pay_for_mac_on_x86 Posted March 14, 2006 Share Posted March 14, 2006 dont know if you've already solved this but if not let me offer you some advice... your best bet is to plug your old laptop HD directly into your new macbook via firewire enclosure. there are 2 versions of Migration Assistant. One, is the one you run in Utilities. The other, I have heard but have not tested, is actually functional, copying a system more fully, but only pops up after installing the OS for the first time. That one, and possibly both, offer the options of restoring from another Mac via FW or another HD on this computer. You can can this to reappear by removing the .AppleSetupDone file The point here is that firewire, at least on PPC, has been the preferred and only way of using Migration Assistant in the past. You would first have to hold down the "T" key while booting the mac you want to enter Target mode so it becomes a FW enclosure in essence. Since the Dell PC BIOS can't enter target mode, there is no point to upgrade to 10.4.5 or buy a PCMCIA card. Actually, looking at the Startup Disk Prefs Pane, I see there is now an option to force Target Mode at next bootup, but I have not tested that. So your 2 strategies might both very well work. But if you have an extra enclosure around that would really be easiest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozzie123 Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Isn't there something like a USB-firewire converter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Nonny Moose Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 I *thought* you could use Migration Assistant over Ethernet. If not, all you need to do is enable file sharing and tranfer the entire contents of your Home folder over to the new system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dynamite Posted April 9, 2006 Share Posted April 9, 2006 Just and idea: connect to the computer you're migrating from, mount it's HD through Ethernet and select to migrate "from another volume on this mac" ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dripple Posted April 9, 2006 Share Posted April 9, 2006 A "USB to Firewire" solution won't work because the system stills "sees" no Firewire-Port. Sorry, but maybe I miss something here. Just plug your current (internal) hard drive to a external USB-enclosure, connect it to your MacBook Pro and and then start the Migration Assistant. It offers you TWO ways of migration: via Firewire OR an different Volume. Just select your external drive. Sorry for the german screenshot, but you'll see the different methods of migration. dripple Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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