Heart Transplant

[CoMpX]

OK, this is probably a stupid question but would I be able to switch the hard drives in a Mac mini G4 and an iBook G4? I want to take the 80GB out of my mini to put in my iBook and the iBook's 60GB will go in the mini.

Once they are switched, I plan to use each machine's original install disks to wipe and reinstall OS X on each machine. Will this work?

Thanks in advance.

 

[jsw]

They're both standard laptop drives. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

 

[CoMpX]

Thanks. I'm just more concerned about the software. When I switch the drives, they would have the native software for that particular model on them. (ex. iBook software running in Mac mini)

Would I even be able to boot it in a different system or would I have to boot off the install disc and reinstall from there? Either way the hard drive is getting formatted.

 

[jsw]

You'll likely have flaky behavior if you boot, but they'll probably both boot up off the other drive. Regardless, when you're ready, insert the install disk, hold 'C' while booting, and it should go right to that disk for the boot.

 

[CoMpX]

Perfect. Thanks for your help.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

OS X is amazing at this stuff. If you switch disks everything should behave as it did before except on the other computer. If you took the hard drive out of one of the Developer Transition Kits and chucked it into an iMac it boots up without any issues! Windows has serious issues with hardware compatability layers. OS X doesn't give a crap. I don't think this will work for the Intel macs that got released after the DTK because of a different partioning system.

 

[jsw]

The thing is that it usually boots and runs fine as long as the systems had the same CPU type (and sometimes even if not), but little flaky things can happen if certain files aren't there or aren't the right ones.

Usually it's fine, but not always.

And I forgot to mention that an Archive & Install would probably do the trick - no need to remove all your files, apps, etc. unless you really think you need to do so.

 

[CoMpX]

And I forgot to mention that an Archive & Install would probably do the trick - no need to remove all your files, apps, etc. unless you really think you need to do so.

Actually, that's not a bad idea and it would probably save me some time. I am giving the mini to my dad so that one I will do a clean install on, but I want my iBook to replace my mini. So if I just archive and install on the iBook, I won't have to do a recovery from the external to get all my stuff back. Thanks for the idea.