Can I clone my hard drive in my iMac and stick it in my Mac mini and expect everything to work smoothly? Or are there specific drivers installed on the iMac drive?
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Cloning Drives
- Thread starter uplusd
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I don't think that will work. The drivers and settings are for the iMac and you'll likely not be able to boot the Mini off the clone, or worse...
You may have to search for it, but I thought I read a thread on here where someone had an iMac and a Mac Mini. I think the Mini's install disk was lost or destroyed and they asked about using the iMac install disk.
Everyone said it would not work because of the different drivers. Well he tried it anyway - and it worked. The iMac install disks may be the same as the Minis, and perhaps both drivers are on both. If the install includes both sets of drivers (and actually puts them on the hard drive) - it just might work. I'm not too familiar with the intricacies of the Mac install process, so I don't know if it actually would put all of the drivers on the hard drive, or just the ones it knows it needs.
I don't see the harm in cloning the iMac disk to an external drive and then trying to boot off of it with the Mini. If the system starts going batty due to wrong drivers being installed, just shut it down. I would be shocked if it did work - but it would be an interesting experiment, and may be helpful to others in the future if it did work.
Maybe someone here has already tried and will post here the results.
Everyone said it would not work because of the different drivers. Well he tried it anyway - and it worked. The iMac install disks may be the same as the Minis, and perhaps both drivers are on both. If the install includes both sets of drivers (and actually puts them on the hard drive) - it just might work. I'm not too familiar with the intricacies of the Mac install process, so I don't know if it actually would put all of the drivers on the hard drive, or just the ones it knows it needs.
I don't see the harm in cloning the iMac disk to an external drive and then trying to boot off of it with the Mini. If the system starts going batty due to wrong drivers being installed, just shut it down. I would be shocked if it did work - but it would be an interesting experiment, and may be helpful to others in the future if it did work.
Maybe someone here has already tried and will post here the results.