Cloning the Mac to a New Disk

I've been enjoying the Mac OS X Leopard quite a lot in the last few weeks. Windows became mainly my games system and little else, as I found all the tools I needed on the Mac.

Vista it's a resource hog that crawls on a fast disk and 4 GB of memory. Mac in comparison is working in a small corner of the memory and running fast as hell, even in the old disk!
My current setup was a waste of resources: Having installed the Mac on an old disk, it was about time to swap it with the Windows Vista disk!

My objectives were clear:

1. Backup Windows important files to an external disk
2. Migrate the Mac to the Windows disk
3. Reinstall Vista on the old disk, with a minimal setup for games only (nothing beats DX10)
4. Place the backed up files back on Vista (or not)

Learning the workings of the Mac OS X system has been a painstaking process, because (1) I don't read manuals a lot :-p, (2) it's a hackint0sh system, and (3) the tool I've used doesn't work as advertised.

For cloning the Mac I've decided to use SuperDuper.

Unfortunately it seems the program has not been updated lately, so it always fails in creating a bootable copy on my Leopard 10.5.5.

The workaround I've found to create a bootable copy, is to install a Mac on the new disk, then boot from the old Mac and use SuperDuper with the correct options (read below).

Don't waste your time configuring the new Mac installing stuff, because we only want to take advantage of the boot!

SuperDuper will then transfer all the different files, and the new disk will have a working and bootable copy of your Mac.

If everything goes according to plan, you then can waste the old disk and place the Vista on it.

Disclaimer:

- If you don't have background installing Operating Systems, give up before you start! This is advanced stuff - leave it to the professionals.

- Partitioning and formating hard disks is a dangerous procedure, and there is a good chance you destroy all your data with a single click, if you don't know what you are doing.

- Remember to always prepared for the worst and backup your important files to an external disk or DVD.

Here's the entire procedure, from memory:

(Notice: Always turn off your computer before (un)plugging disks!!)

• Backup your Vista's important files somewhere else (external disk or DVD is advised)
• Unplug both the Mac disk and the backup disk, just to be safe.
• Insert the Mac OS X Leopard DVD, and during BIOS boot, press F8 to change the bootable drive to the DVD (the key may be different on your BIOS)
• Use the Disk Utility on the DVD (menu) to partition the Windows Vista disk, and make it a Mac OS X Extended Journaled partition (I told you to unplug the other disks so that you don't screw this up!)
• Install the Mac like you did the first time (remember to customize), and make sure you select the correct target disk. Let it install all the way to the end.
• Re-plug the Mac disk, and boot from it.
• Run SuperDuper, and select the options "Backup - all files"+"Copy different files from [old disk] to [new disk]". Notice: Other options may destroy the boot!
• Unplug the old Mac disk (so that the test on the new Mac is reliable)
• Press F8 on the BIOS and boot from the new Mac disk (this was the Vista disk)
• Check the system. Should be a perfect copy, and hopefully a faster one.
• Up to this point you have created a clone of your Mac. Now we will install Vista on the old Mac system.
• Plug the old Mac disk, so that we can install a new Vista on it.
• Unplug the new Mac disk, so that you don't screw the Mac disk with the Vista installation (partitioning, etc)
  
• From this point on, it's a Vista standard installation from DVD. Be prepared to download gigabytes of Windows Updates and drivers. It may take a whole day!  (ZZZzzzz...)
• Plug the Mac disk.
• On boot, call the BIOS (usually Del key) and set the new Mac disk as the default bootable disk. Now the PC will default boot the Mac, but you can press F8 on boot, to boot from Vista anytime.
• Restore the backed up files.

One last Windows Vista hint:

• If you want to create a Vista gaming machine (I know XP is faster but Vista has DX10), follow this link and try the Minimal configuration. Outstanding!