Time Machine for migrating to a new machine?

spockie

Hi,



I have an old Power Mac G4 (with CPU upgrade and upgraded graphics card) with an internal 120 GB HD running Leopard 10.5.1. The internal HD is backed up with Time Machine. In the last couple of days my old Power Mac is showing more and more issues like system panics after a few minutes and even during booting. The fan is making strange noises and I can smell burned cables. In short: It doesn't look too good.



Now my question: As this computer is already eight years old I decided not to search for the problems and fix them, but to buy a cheap Mac mini (also with a 120 GB HD) to replace my aging Power Mac. But what with all my data and applications? Is it possible to use the Time Machine backup as a base for setting up the new Mac? Or better, can I somehow restore my whole system to the new Mac, so that the Mac mini can seamlessly replace the Power Mac?



Tanks in advance for any suggestions!

mzaslove

Quote:

Originally Posted by spockie


Hi,



I have an old Power Mac G4 (with CPU upgrade and upgraded graphics card) with an internal 120 GB HD running Leopard 10.5.1. The internal HD is backed up with Time Machine. In the last couple of days my old Power Mac is showing more and more issues like system panics after a few minutes and even during booting. The fan is making strange noises and I can smell burned cables. In short: It doesn't look too good.



Now my question: As this computer is already eight years old I decided not to search for the problems and fix them, but to buy a cheap Mac mini (also with a 120 GB HD) to replace my aging Power Mac. But what with all my data and applications? Is it possible to use the Time Machine backup as a base for setting up the new Mac? Or better, can I somehow restore my whole system to the new Mac, so that the Mac mini can seamlessly replace the Power Mac?



Tanks in advance for any suggestions!

You can do it with TimeMachine (restore after setting OS X on the new machine), but you might want to look at the SuperDuper site -- they just finished the newest, Leopard compatible version, and it's free (though buying it gives you scheduling and other fun stuff). They are truly made to do this restore stuff.

kmac1036

You can buy the mini, but the old mac is PPC, so what you will do is boot the mini for the first time, run thru the initial setup, and then import accounts and settings from the time machine drive at the Migration Assistant. Bubble at the bottom that ask about time machine. click that one and start the import process. You can't do a FULL system restore, you installed 10.5 on the G4, it uses only the PPC code base that won't run at OS level on Intel. Rosetta will run the individual apps, usually ok. Super duper won't help much, doing the same thing as TM, it will load the PPC base which won't work.