On Jan 23, 2010, at 6:47 PM, A.McCullough wrote:
Okay, this brings up another question... let's say I did that: would the HD from my current Sawtooth (with all the apps that came with it, many of which do not have any physical media for reinstalling) work as-is in a faster QS? In a Windows world, this doesn't normally work - a pulled hard drive from an older machine would (usually!) require a wiped drive and a full reinstall of the OS and any applications because the OS generally doesn't natively recognize a major hardware change without tossing its cookies, and once you've got this fresh OS now all the apps need put back in. I'd hate to lose half the stuff in this pleasantly reliable old Sawtooth in the changeover (I know the DRIVE would function - it's the software I'm concerned with). Does this work differently in Macs?
Yes, this does work differently in a Mac. Windows installs a custom system for each computer, and generally it can't be moved from one computer to another unless the two computers are physically identical. Macs install a unitary system that normally is bootable on all Macs. There are some exceptions, but these normally only involve specific hardware extensions, and your Sawtooth is NOT a model that would have a restricted set of extensions. You should be able to move your Sawtooth HD into a QS or any other Mac that can take it without issues.
You can easily clone (a special type of copy) an old HD onto a new HD. Or, if you have installer discs you can install a clean system on a new HD and then use the application "Migration Assistant" to migrate over all the extra programs from the old HD.
If your Mac only has one HD, you could probably add a 2nd without removing the original.
There are many options on a Mac, many more than on a Windows PC. The two are very different, with the Mac being more user friendly. If you don't have any install discs, cloning your old HD onto a new one would be your best option, and you'd do this with a program such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!.
If you don't have installer discs, I'd strongly recommend keeping two bootable HDs so that if you need to run a disk repair program you can boot the alternate HD and repair the other one using Disk Utility.
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