Moving from G5 PPC to New Mac Pro

eholz1 · #1 August 12th, 2008, 06:37 PM

Hello Mac users,
I did search the forum for answers to my question, did not find any right away.

I have been using a Mac PPC G5 since 2004 or so. I am running Leopard 10.xx on this PPC. Due to requirements in software (seems more new software is for Intel version only) I have decided to break down and get a new Intel Mac Pro (dual 2.8, etc).

I have 2 G-Tech external firewire drives, and 1 internal SATA, and 1 external SATA to Firewire drive. All these drives are formatted as Extended, non-journaling (only 1 partition on each). Will the new mac read these drives without issue? I plan to place the external SATA/Firewire (It is in an ICY Dock) in to one of the spare bays in the new system. This drives carry the bulk of my data.

I have many applications, iPhoto 6, iMovie 6, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, and a few others. I plan to re-install all these apps on the new machine. I might try to copy my pref files for final cut and soundtrack to the new system.

I would also like to copy all the data under my user name on the "Macintosh HD" to the same username on the new mac. I plan to have the same user names on the new system.

I am trying to cover all the pitfalls in moving from my old system to the new one. I have seen postings recommending not using the setup assistant or the migration assistant to accomplish these tasks, and I do not mind reloading the apps, too much, particularly if it is safer!

any tips or advice on the process will be appreciated.

eric

Frida · #2 August 25th, 2008, 03:29 AM

I used the Migration Assistant to move from a G4 running Tiger to an Intel iMac. No problems. I then updated to Leopard using the standard 'Upgrade' option, again without problems. I would try Migration Assistant first since that is the easiest option. You will have to do some tidying up after since not all settings are copied, but compared to a clean install and re-entering all settings and preferences and user data and God knows what it would be a breeze. If you are not happy with the result, try the other more cumbersome method.