Second drive, fresh install, Tiger, Oh my....

[Hoef]

Please don't flame me .... I tried to search but there wasn't a solid concise thread on this, just pieces. Some of you might have done this before .... I am new to Mac and this will be my first migration, some tips appreciated.

1) Gonna buy me a new Hardrive and do a fresh Tiger install (OS 10.3.9 now)
2) Reinstall all my programs
3) Use current drive as data drive besides the newly created OS/program drive

Questions ....

How do I make sure I preserve all my data and that the new installed OS recognizes the older HD as the place the data needs to be (e.g. USER directory)? Would back up and restore be any help? These might be easy questions but mind bogging to me and like to know before I start this adventure.

Any help appreciated.....

 

[faintember]

1) Gonna buy me a new Hardrive and do a fresh Tiger install (OS 10.3.9 now)
2) Reinstall all my programs
3) Use current drive as data drive besides the newly created OS/program drive

Questions ....

How do I make sure I preserve all my data and that the new installed OS recognizes the older HD as the place the data needs to be (e.g. USER directory)? Would back up and restore be any help? These might be easy questions but mind bogging to me and like to know before I start this adventure.

Any help appreciated.....

Humm. I may not be much help, but ill try, as i did something similar to this recently, and i may just not get what you are asking for!

First, what kind of Mac is this? If it is a 'book or Mini, you may want to look into a external FW/USB 2.0 enclosure. If this is the case either download
Carbon Copy Cloner(free) or SuperDuper!(shareware) to clone your old system onto the new harddrive, then do an Archive and Install from the Tiger DVD. The A&I will create a folder named "Previous System(s)" that contains your old user data, etc.

You could also just install Tiger onto the new HD, then copy all the files over manually from the old HD.

If you have a PM where both drives can be internal, then use CCC or SuperDuper! as mentioned above, or use the manual copying method. Then, in either case, once things are up and running well, you could wipe the old HD and use the above mentioned programs to create a boot-able copy of your new HD onto the old HD, just in case something goes wrong in the future!

Someone on these forums probably knows a little slicker/alternative way of doing this, but the above mentioned way will work.

Hope this helps (or even makes sense!)

 

[Hoef]

Hi faintember, thanks for your response .... I have a PM so they'll both be internal. How do I get my system to recognize that the user data is not on the OS disk anymore. Maybe OSX is smart enough that it recognizes it after copying and I still have a Windows mindset

 

[MacAficionado]

Assuming that you don't want to install over the existing boot drive, all you have to do is move the HD to the second connector on the cable. Remember the Hard drive needs to be set to cable select so it will boot from the drive that is first in line or where the original is currently plugged into.
I hope I'm right on this, at least it is how I understand it.

No need to set master,slave or none of that sh*t.

 

[colocolo]

I think I understand your question.
The copying part should be easy; others have already covered it.

To set another home folder rather than the default set up by the system:

go to Applications->Utilities->Netinfo Manager

Navigate to users, find the specific user you want to change the path.
You'll see in the bottom, one of the parameters is home, and the value is
/Users/name

Change it to

/Volumes/HDName/Folder/

Hope it helps.

 

[Hoef]

I think I understand your question.
The copying part should be easy; others have already covered it.

To set another home folder rather than the default set up by the system:

go to Applications->Utilities->Netinfo Manager

Navigate to users, find the specific user you want to change the path.
You'll see in the bottom, one of the parameters is home, and the value is
/Users/name

Change it to

/Volumes/HDName/Folder/

Hope it helps.

That's perfect!! Thanks a lot....