Mac Software Upgrade

[evotwo]

Hi All

Hope you all had a good Xmas

I need a little advice about the following, just acquired a very cheap mac mini which is running 10.3.9 on a 1.4 Ghz G4 with a 1 gig of mem. I did not acquire the disks with this and now want to do the following

1. Back up the systems so that if I screw up anything I can at least put it back how it was.
2. Up grade the software to Leopard (I know that I cant upgrade to snow leopard) My own Imac is running Leopard which I have the disks for, can I upgrade from these disks or do I need new os disks.

The mini is attached to the network and I have a NAS drive that it could back up to.

Any guidance on the above gratefully appreciated

Cheers

 

[Sarie]

Based on what I know you can upgrade no problem, chances are that you may loose the current data, maybe a backup would be wise prior to the upgrade.

 

[martyp]

You 'may' be able to use the disks from the other Mac but that won't be legal as those disks are only for installing on one machine.

Have a look for a 'retail' copy of Leopard on eBay, should be able to pick one up cheap enough.

 

[evotwo]

Ok see what you mean

Just done a quick search on e-bay and not a lot about for leopard but plenty for snow leopard. Interested in the family pack which looks like a good idea, lets you run on 5 household computers which given that I may opt over on other windows boxes looks as though it could be a good deal if I can get hold of a leopard family dvd that is

Any one got any pointers on back up software, preferably free

Cheers

 

[Craikeybaby]

"Superduper" is probably what you need for the backup.

 

[Paulmack]

I am sure that if you upgrade to Leopard it will just upgrade it and you wont lose any data. Once complete you can then use Time Machine to backup onto an external hard drive

 

[cowasaki]

I am sure that if you upgrade to Leopard it will just upgrade it and you wont lose any data. Once complete you can then use Time Machine to backup onto an external hard drive

It depends on what options you select when installing it.

 

[joescrivens]

Here's whatyou can do, this assumes the version of leopard you have can be installed on multiple machines by it's license agreement, if your license agreement only covers one machine you will not legally be allowed to do this so don't.

Download carbon copy cloner. Boot your mac mini holding down T so it is in target disk mode. Connect it to your iMac using FireWire cable. Boot your iMac using the install disc by holding down C while it boots.

When the installer runs go to utilities and choose disk utility. Repartition your mac mini hard drive which you should now see in the hard drive pane. Make sure ig is set as mac os joirnaled. Also if it is a PowerPC mini then in the options you have to pick apple partition map I think. It tells you in the options for PowerPC macs. Then close disk utility and go to install leopard but choose your mac mini drive instead of your iMac drive

 

[cowasaki]

Just a note about cross installing, you cannot do it if the processors are not the same so intel iMac to PowerPC mini will not work. If the mini had a faulty drive I would start the iMac in target mode with the install disc in it's drive and FireWire that to the mini. There is also a network install (think I did a tip on that). I am getting one of those macmini servers in the new year (because it is the same price as just the os!) so will be using that myself.

 

[joescrivens]

Just a note about cross installing, you cannot do it if the processors are not the same so intel iMac to PowerPC mini will not work. If the mini had a faulty drive I would start the iMac in target mode with the install disc in it's drive and FireWire that to the mini. There is also a network install (think I did a tip on that). I am getting one of those macmini servers in the new year (because it is the same price as just the os!) so will be using that myself.

Thats certainly true the other way round, i.e. an intel mac can't be used in target disk mode on a powerPC mac, but a powerPc mac will load fine on an intel mac.

With this in mind you can do the following:

Use carbon copy cloner to clone your intel drive to your mac mini drive once it is recognised by your iMac

OR

Create a disk image on your imac, install leopard to it then CCC it to your mac mini if your don't want the entire intel hard drive the same as on your mini.

Again both these methods assume you have the legal right to install leopard on more than one machine (just keeping things cosha for the mods )