[G4] Backing up hard drive

[John Baltutis]

On 11/05/06, Richard Klein <rich at richardklein.org> wrote:
>
> I'm trying to help my sister (long-distance) replace the hard drive in
> her Gigabit Ethernet.
>
> Tech Tool Pro 4 reported 869 bad blocks in a surface scan of her Western
> Digital WD400BB 40GB hard drive.  She has an external USB drive that's
> at least 40GB, so I'll have her format that, back everything up onto it,
> and then take it out of the external case and use it to replace the
> Western Digital drive.
>
> How can she back it up so that, after putting the replacement drive into
> the Mac she can just boot directly from it?

First, have her check the "Setting up your Power Mac G4" manual. It can
accomodate at least two IDE HDs-I have the same machine w/two 128 GB HDs
installed. If she can't find it, have her download it from
<http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/PowerMacG4_GigEthernetSetup.PDF>.

The problem with trying to backup to the USB HD is that the machine won't boot
from USB HDs; thus, there's no way to know if the clone/backup is any
good.Personally, I'd put a second HD (max 128 GB) into the machine (setting it
as slave), clone/backup to it, boot from it, and ensure that it works exactly
like the original. Then, replace the original with another HD (max 128 GB), set
it to master, and backup/clone the first to the second.