Few questions about Mac Mini

[verizoniphone4]

I was looking to purchase the current gen. mac mini (probably after this next refresh) as I am starting to switch our PC household to mac computers(we already own 6 iPods, a iPad 2 and 3 iPhone's and I wanted something that also worked better with photostream/iCloud).

Here I go....

1) If I replace the hard drive, will I...
A) Still be able to restore lion(in other words, does lion recovery boot with a new blank drive) or will I need to image a CD with the LionSED.dmg(I own a external DVD drive)
B) Have the iLife suite also restored to the computer or is it gone once you restore
C) Replace the original hard drive and have it still be servicable by Apple(has anyone done this)?

2) Is the graphics on the baseline model good enough for basic iMovie and watching a iPhoto slideshow withouht any lag?

3) Does the mini ever get loud while just surfing the web or viewing photos in iPhoto?

4) Has anyone used a Acer V223W display with this mini? I read elsewhere someone who used it as a second display on their iMac had issues with it so I hope that doesn't happen with the mini.

 

[theSeb]

You can clone the current hard drive to your new hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner and in settings tell it to clone the recovery partition as well.

 

[bogatyr]

1a. You can do an internet recovery with Lion and the current gen models (and some older ones with updated EFI firmware). Just hold Command-R when booting after installing the new drive.
1b. I know you can sign in with your iTunes account to the Mac App Store before you wipe it out and attach them to your account through there (they'll be under updates). Then they are always tied to your account. When you wipe out the system and reinstall on the new drive, they'll just be under updates or purchases.
1c. Hard drives are CRUs (customer replaceable units). Warranty will not be voided.

2,3,4 - I cannot answer these.

 

[LaunchpadBS]

You can clone the current hard drive to your new hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner and in settings tell it to clone the recovery partition as well.

FYI OSX Disk Utility does the same thing.

 

[fa8362]

1c. Hard drives are CRUs (customer replaceable units). Warranty will not be voided.

It's not quite that simple. If you break something, or if they say you broke something, the warranty is void.

 

[bogatyr]

It's not quite that simple. If you break something, or if they say you broke something, the warranty is void.

I haven't had any issues with Apple trying to pass off some issue as being my fault.

And while I can't say what Apple would do, Lenovo has replaced a motherboard that one of my employees damaged when putting the keyboard back. He broke the keyboard connector on the motherboard. We specifically told them it was our fault and they replaced it anyways under the standard warranty.

My point is: Some companies are quite nice when it comes to support.

EDIT: The keyboard damage was a result of the employee installing a CRU mSATA drive in the X220.

 

[theSeb]

FYI OSX Disk Utility does the same thing.

How can I clone my hard drive including the recovery partition with Disk Utility?

 

[verizoniphone4]

How can I clone my hard drive including the recovery partition with Disk Utility?

Go to one of the disks in disk utility and there should be a restore tab drag the disk with your stuff in it in the source box and the new drive in the destination box.

Edit: Not sure about the recovery drive only done this with a leopard install so no recovery partition

 

[theSeb]

Go to one of the disks in disk utility and there should be a restore tab drag the disk with your stuff in it in the source box and the new drive in the destination box.

Edit: Not sure about the recovery drive only done this with a leopard install so no recovery partition

Interesting. I must try this out.

 

[verizoniphone4]

Interesting. I must try this out.

Just make sure you drag the disks to the right box!!!
Source=Disk with files on it(you want to clone this disk)
Destination=Disk that will be clone of original disk

 

[theSeb]

Just make sure you drag the disks to the right box!!!
Source=Disk with files on it(you want to clone this disk)
Destination=Disk that will be clone of original disk

Thanks. I know what source and destination mean.

 

[LaunchpadBS]

How can I clone my hard drive including the recovery partition with Disk Utility?

By restoring, use your current drive as the source or image and your new drive as the target, do this from disk utility when booting from OSX install.

Beware though this does take the better part of 6 hours (at least mine did with 500GB data) but it works, I've done it with 3 drive and still have the recovery partition.

 

[theSeb]

By restoring, use your current drive as the source or image and your new drive as the target, do this from disk utility when booting from OSX install.

Beware though this does take the better part of 6 hours (at least mine did with 500GB data) but it works, I've done it with 3 drive and still have the recovery partition.

I wasn't aware of this functionality in Disk Utility. Judging from what you say though, this seems to take a lot longer than CCC.

 

[swordfish5736]

I wasn't aware of this functionality in Disk Utility. Judging from what you say though, this seems to take a lot longer than CCC.

It depends on where you are saving the disk image. If its to a USB drive of course it will take awhile. In target disk mode over fw800 it doesn't take long at all to make an image of a drive.