Hard Driving Question

royboyroyboy
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I have a G4 (466 Digital Audio) running OS X 10.2.8. All my software and added peripherals work just fine. I have OS 10.4 (Tiger), but I've never installed it because I really don't want to spend all the time, effort, and money upgrading programs, searching for new drives, and etc.



I'm thinking about buying an external firewire 400 hard drive and installing Tiger on it and leaving my internal hard drive intack. Going to the System Preferences and opening up "Start Disk", then I can select to run either my 10.2.8 from my internal hard drive or 10.4.8 from my external hard drive.



Does anyone see anything wrong with my thinking?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    It will work just fine. Boot from the TIger CD, then direct the install to the external when the screen comes up.



    After the install finishes, it will also give you a chance to copy all of the data from the current 10.2.8 over to the new Tiger volume. That is really a timesaver.



    You can either do the "Startup Disk" pre-setting as you describe above, or just hold down the Option (Alt) key during boot and it will give you a screen to choose which drive to continue booting from.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    royboyroyboy Posts: 458member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lundy View Post


    It will work just fine. Boot from the TIger CD, then direct the install to the external when the screen comes up.



    After the install finishes, it will also give you a chance to copy all of the data from the current 10.2.8 over to the new Tiger volume. That is really a timesaver.



    You can either do the "Startup Disk" pre-setting as you describe above, or just hold down the Option (Alt) key during boot and it will give you a screen to choose which drive to continue booting from.



    Thanks for the info. When you say "copy all of the data", does that means also programs and etc or just files created by apps. and mpeg, mp3 etc?
  • Reply 3 of 7
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    I can't remember about the apps - certainly not the Apple apps, but even if it doesn't, you just have that one folder to go through and select your added apps and drag them over to the other drive's Apps folder.



    Definitely let it copy over the Users - that way your Users are good to go when the install completes and you don't have to go through all the questions about email address and user name and password and all that.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    royboyroyboy Posts: 458member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lundy View Post


    I can't remember about the apps - certainly not the Apple apps, but even if it doesn't, you just have that one folder to go through and select your added apps and drag them over to the other drive's Apps folder.



    Definitely let it copy over the Users - that way your Users are good to go when the install completes and you don't have to go through all the questions about email address and user name and password and all that.





    Thanks for the reassuring information.



    Now to search for a decent external firewire drive. My understanding is that my computer will only recognize up to a 120 Gig hard drive, which is all that I need for now, but I'm thinking about getting a bigger one so that I can use it as a backup drive for a Mac Pro. I'm going to wait until Leopard comes out. I'm one those who buys a new Mac and the next month Apple comes with a new OS or new generation Mac.\
  • Reply 5 of 7
    royboyroyboy Posts: 458member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lundy View Post


    I can't remember about the apps - certainly not the Apple apps, but even if it doesn't, you just have that one folder to go through and select your added apps and drag them over to the other drive's Apps folder.



    Definitely let it copy over the Users - that way your Users are good to go when the install completes and you don't have to go through all the questions about email address and user name and password and all that.





    Lundy,



    I bought a WD My Book 250G external hard drive. I had read, and the Apple Genius Bar at the Apple Store told me also, that my computer would only recognize up to a 120G, but I bought the 250 G version because it was on sale and cheaper than a smaller one not on sale.



    I hooked up the WD My Book 250G to one of my Firewire 400 outlets, formatted the drive Mac OS Extended, and proceeded to install OS 10.4. Everything installed perfectly and when I got to end I selected the option to copy my data from the old drive to the new WD external drive. It worked beautifully. Almost everything worked except for a few minor programs that I don't even use anymore. 6 years works of program additions, passwords, all kind of stuff works great under 10.4.8.



    Back to the my computer being able to see only 120G. "Get Info" shows:



    \tMount Point t/\tCapacity t232.9 GB (250,058,412,032 Bytes)

    \tFormat tMac OS Extended (Journaled)\tAvailable t166.8 GB (179,067,105,280 Bytes)

    \tOwners Enabled tYes\tUsed t66.1 GB (70,969,675,776 Bytes)

    \tNumber of Folders t115,068\tNumber of Files t498,181



    Looks to be a lot more than 120 G available use. I must be missing something on the 120 G issue.



    You have any idea what "Journaled" means on: Format tMac OS Extended (Journaled)



    Late last night, upon checking with my Disk Utility, I got message on my old internal hard drive:
    • S.M.A.R.T. Status tFailing

    • This drive has reported a fatal hardware error to Disk Utility.

    • If the drive has not failed completely, back up as much data as you can and then replace it with a working drive.

    Running my system on the external WD hard drive, via Firewire 400, works great. I don' see any difference in performance than with my regular internal hard. If nothing else, the new drive seem to be an improvement. If the internal hard drive totally fails, will I be able to continue to just use the external hard drive or will I have to replace the internal hard to keep the computer working?



    Thanks so far for all your help. You save me a lot of time already. I'm waiting on Leopard for a Mac Pro replacement, but my 15 year old wants to keep this G4 because he and his buddies think this computer is "the best" in comparison to the other friends Windows machines. It is a beautiful and classic tower and monitor.



    Roy
  • Reply 6 of 7
    decemberdecember Posts: 62member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Royboy View Post


    Back to the my computer being able to see only 120G. "Get Info" shows:



    \tMount Point t/\tCapacity t232.9 GB (250,058,412,032 Bytes)

    \tFormat tMac OS Extended (Journaled)\tAvailable t166.8 GB (179,067,105,280 Bytes)

    \tOwners Enabled tYes\tUsed t66.1 GB (70,969,675,776 Bytes)

    \tNumber of Folders t115,068\tNumber of Files t498,181



    Looks to be a lot more than 120 G available use. I must be missing something on the 120 G issue.



    You are having the full 250 GB available; ~233 GB is the actual formatted capacity of a 250 GB drive. 250 GB ist the total number of Bytes; a different system of counting. (Displayed in brackets)



    The 128 GB ceiling is a limitation of the on-board IDE controller that internal drives connect to. Your external drive has its own SATA controller (in the external enclosure), so the 128 GB limit does not apply. Nice, huh?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Royboy View Post


    You have any idea what "Journaled" means on: Format tMac OS Extended (Journaled)



    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFS+#History 2nd paragraph.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Royboy View Post


    Late last night, upon checking with my Disk Utility, I got message on my old internal hard drive:
    • S.M.A.R.T. Status tFailing

    • This drive has reported a fatal hardware error to Disk Utility.

    • If the drive has not failed completely, back up as much data as you can and then replace it with a working drive.

    Running my system on the external WD hard drive, via Firewire 400, works great. I don' see any difference in performance than with my regular internal hard. If nothing else, the new drive seem to be an improvement. If the internal hard drive totally fails, will I be able to continue to just use the external hard drive or will I have to replace the internal hard to keep the computer working?



    I was going to suggest replacing the failing drive with the new one from the external enclosure, but that won't work because your internal drive is Parallel ATA, while the one in the external enclosure is most definitely Serial ATA and not compatible. Even if it was PATA, the 128 GB limit would apply again, and you would have to re-format and re-install.

    So instead, you have these options: In any case, make sure that all your relevant data from the failing drive is copied over to the external one. Then, you can either keep it this way, booting from the external drive; or replace the internal one. Keeping the external drive has the benefit of not costing any money and having a higher capacity than an internal PATA replacement drive, but it also has the disadvantage of being an external drive (another box on the desk) and using up that external drive that could otherwise be used for backup purposes. If your son wants to keep the G4 after you upgrade, you won't free it up then, either.

    So instead, you could get a replacement for your internal drive: either a 160 GB Parallel ATA, of which 128 GB will be usable (about $70); or a whatever-sized Serial ATA, for which you would have to get a separate PCI SATA controller card. A 320 GB SATA drive would be less than $100, but the SATA controller would be another $50.



    Then again, those $150 could also be spent towards a new external backup drive for your new Mac Pro; so it's really up to you which way you want to go.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    royboyroyboy Posts: 458member
    december,



    Thanks for the information. I understand the 120 (128 ) Gig issue much better now.



    I'll probably go for a 120 Gig internal drive and keep the external one attached to the G4. I plan on using 2 internal drives on the Mac Pro. One for the primary drive, the other for backup.



    Roy
Sign In or Register to comment.