[G4] Back up G3/G4

[Philip J Robar]

On Jul 20, 2006, at 12:24 PM, Tony Johansen wrote:

> On 21/7/2006 2:26 AM, "John Baltutis" <baltwo at san.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> On 07/20/06, Tony Johansen <tjoh7019 at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>>> Also I do not know if, when disaster strikes, and the G3 is  
>>> defunct, if I
>>> replaced it with a G4, would the restore still work? In other  
>>> words is there
>>> something about the G3 that would prevent a bootable clone that  
>>> originated
>>> on a G3 iBook from restoring onto a G4 iBook?
>>
>> <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25784 > should  
>> answer your
>> question.
>
> No... I'm confused a little. The article talks about more recent or  
> less
> recent but makes no mention of G3 or G4. As my G3 iBook is running  
> 10.3.9,
> would that then run on a G4 if it was of an age that it would have  
> been
> installed with Panther 10.3.9 when it was new?

The easiest way to understand this is to remember that any machine  
specific release of OS X will install and run on that machine AND any  
older machine that is supported by that version of OS X regardless of  
whether the older machine is a G3, G4, or a G5. Apple has never  
offered installs that will only run on the machine that the install  
was done on. (You should see the look of amazement on a Windows  
user's face when you tell them this.)

For example, say the current release of 10.3 is 10.3.3. It supports  
all Macs of type 1, 2, and 3 so a boot disk containing 10.3.3 can be  
moved to any of these three types of Macs and it will run. You can  
even make an internal disk external or vice versa and it will work.  
Then Apples comes out with the Mac 4 and it comes with OS X 10.3.3  
m4. 10.3.3 m4 has everything that was in 10.3.3 plus some stuff to  
support the new Mac 4's hardware so it will also install and run on  
the Mac 1, 2, or 3 - including moving that disk around between the  
four types. (But, 10.3.3 will not install or run on the Mac 4.)

Some time later Apples releases OS X 10.3.4. 10.3.4 has some  
combination of bug fixes and new features and all of the new hardware  
support that was added via machine specific releases of 10.3.3 so it  
install and run on any Mac 1, 2, 3, or 4 and you will be able to move  
a 10.3.4 disk between any of these machines and it will work.

Since 10.3 development has stopped, as long as your G3 has the latest  
version of 10.3.9 installed on it your backup will run on any G4 that  
10.3 ever supported. (I'm assuming that the 10.3.9 update available  
for download from Apple will at this point have had all the machine  
specific releases of 10.3.9, if there were any, rolled up into it.)


Phil