The OFFICIAL Mac User Support Thread

[jaguarr]

Rubbish!

I hardly ever do it. It's quite pointless. Read this. EXERCISES IN FUTILITY PART 2: REPAIRING PERMISSIONS IS USELESS

That suggestion was specifically mentioned as fixing the problem with iDVD not starting up by several people on the Apple Support discussion boards, so it's worth suggesting (and not like it costs him anything to do). In another life, a few years ago, I also used to work with a lot of Apple engineers (from the Kodiak beta through the Jaguar release) and they all swore by and recommended permissions repairs. Your mileage may vary. It's not a cure-all, no, but I've never had a lick of real problems with any of my Macs by following that advice and I've had several occassions where programs that wouldn't start up for one reason or another had that problem resolved by repairing permissions. So make of that what you will. Interesting article, though.

Golgo, if you have a PowerMac G4, you can snag an internal Superdrive from OWC for uber cheap:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/powermac/

You just have to remove the front faceplate from it as vodoun mentioned before installing it. When the Superdrive in my G5 died, this is where I got a replacement from. OWC is a reputable, quality vendor and they even have videos on their site for you to follow along with in replacing the drive.

jag

 

[wiegeabo]

Hmm. I'd think with it being USB it would work with any Mac.

 

[jaguarr]

Hmm. I'd think with it being USB it would work with any Mac.

It most likely would. But why pay $100 for an external drive (that gets mixed reviews from what I have read) when he could snag an internal drive for $30?

jag

 

[Golgo-13]

Wow, your the best jag; and here i was about to spend 100 bucks plus for one on Amazon.com! Also Thanks Vodoun!

When you guys say remove the front plate, you mean off my G4 or the dvd drive itself?

Here's the two- i'm going be purchase one today: the Samsung? Or the Pioneer?
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/powermac/

 

[jaguarr]

Wow, your the best jag; and here i was about to spend 100 bucks plus for one on Amazon.com! Also Thanks Vodoun!

When you guys say remove the front plate, you mean off my G4 or the dvd drive itself?

Here's the two- i'm going be purchase one today: the Samsung? Or the Pioneer?
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/powermac/

You have to remove the front plate from the DVD drive itself or it won't fit into the bay on your G4. OWC sends instructions on how to do this. It's not difficult. Of the two drives, either will work fine. The Samsung looks like it has the ability to burn DVD-RAM discs where the Pioneer does not, though. It also has Lightscribe capabilities, which is pretty damn cool technology (let's you burn/etch graphics onto the tops of CD's and DVD's if you're using the proper media).

jag

 

[Golgo-13]

The Samsung is what i was thinking with going with too; i was just puzzled as to why the one that seems to be able to do more, cost less. Thanks again.

 

[jaguarr]

The Samsung is what i was thinking with going with too; i was just puzzled as to why the one that seems to be able to do more, cost less. Thanks again.

Don't know why the Pioneer is more expensive. Could be related to the margins on the drives after OWC buys them from their dealer or the manufacturer. Some manufacturers also put certain price points on their gear that manufacturers can't dip under (Apple is notorious for that). Hell, ask OWC why the price difference.

jag

 

[Golgo-13]

Don't know why the Pioneer is more expensive. Could be related to the margins on the drives after OWC buys them from their dealer or the manufacturer. Some manufacturers also put certain price points on their gear that manufacturers can't dip under (Apple is notorious for that). Hell, ask OWC why the price difference.

jag

I should! I'm just estactic that either one of them are so much cheaper than what I would have paid for at Amazon.com!

 

[Golgo-13]

Anyway to free up Hard disk space on my Powermac G4?

Its capacity is 55.9, and i'm down to 8.9. I have 130,384 folders and 569,442 files. I'm getting a tad worried i'm running out of space.

 

[vodoun]

Anyway to free up Hard disk space on my Powermac G4?

Do you keep your Mac on through the night? every Saturday morning it does a huge chunk of clean up maintenance at 03:15am.

Saying that you don't really have to wait. http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/maintscripts.html

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html

or

Buy an external USB/Fire wire enclosure and hard drive? if your internals are not already occupied?...

 

[Golgo-13]

Do you keep your Mac on through the night? every Saturday morning it does a huge chunk of clean up maintenance at 03:15am.

Saying that you don't really have to wait. http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/maintscripts.html

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html

or

Buy an external USB/Fire wire enclosure and hard drive? if your internals are not already occupied?...

Yeah i leave it on most of the time. I'm thinking about buying an additional ATA Hard disk sometime next month. I'm still using the one G4 came with...i never upgraded.

I installed the Superdrive today, and it's working just find. I started wondering if i should have just left the other one in there and just set one up as master, and the other as slave...

I'm still a little pissed that i can't get my iMovie nor my iDVD applications to either stay open (in the case of iMovie) or launch -in the case of iDVD, despite updating software.

 

[Rezzo]

Anyone know if ComicBookLover is any good?

 

[wiegeabo]

Just played around with it. Looks pretty good. But do you have to pay for it? I'd just use something like Comical instead.

 

[wiegeabo]

Interesting article about Snow Leopard, with some comparisons against Microsoft and Windows 7.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...mac_os_x_snow_leopard_apple_ups_the_ante.html


Interesting thing I noticed is the opposite directions Apple and Microsoft take. Apple is essentially an open software based company running on proprietary hardware, while Microsoft is a proprietary software company running on essentially open hardware.

 

[Golgo-13]

Question:

When you install an ADDITIONAL Hard drive in your comp, do you have to specify to your computer which one you want it to start up from, or does it recognize both of them and just boots up from the original one..and only uses the second one when it needs additional HD space..?

 

[wiegeabo]

Are you talking about installing another drive in a desktop, or an external drive through USB/Firewire?

 

[Golgo-13]

Are you talking about installing another drive in a desktop, or an external drive through USB/Firewire?

An internal drive, My Powermac g4 came with a 55 GB HD. according to my comp manual, it can hold up to 4 HD. I ordered a 160GB one-(ultra ATA/100).

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST3160815A/

 

[wiegeabo]

It's been a while since I've dealt with multiple internal drives, but I believe OS X will continue to use the original startup disk. You can change it whenever you want in system preferences.

You might have to set the jumpers on the drive depending on how you want to use it: slave, master, or cable select.

 

[Golgo-13]

Is there a way i can 'transfere' all the info i have on my original HD to the bigger one, and just use the original one (55.GB) as the slave, and the larger new one (160GB) as the master?

If push comes to shove, i'll just keep using the original as the main HD..i was just asking if the Operating System automatically spills over into the new HD once the original HD has used up all it's storage...

 

[wiegeabo]

You can set up your new drive as the startup disk and put OS X on it within System Preferences.

There probably is a way to set your slave drive as a spillover, essentially giving you one super large drive. But I've never done that. It probably involves setting them into some kind of RAID formation.

As for cloning your old drive to the new one, again, I'm sure it can be done, but I've never done it on a Mac, and have only had fair success on PC's.


Jag would likely know for sure, but he had to go get himself pro-banned.

 

[wiegeabo]

You can set up your new drive as the startup disk and put OS X on it within System Preferences.

There probably is a way to set your slave drive as a spillover, essentially giving you one super large drive. But I've never done that. It probably involves setting them into some kind of RAID formation.

As for cloning your old drive to the new one, again, I'm sure it can be done, but I've never done it on a Mac, and have only had fair success on PC's.


Jag would likely know for sure, but he had to go get himself pro-banned.

 

[Matt Murdock]

I'm running the latest version of Mac OSX and prefer the Safari browser to Firefox. Only problem is that the Editor Mode for the board isn't available in Safari. Any way I can fix it, or do I just have to live with Firefox?

 

[Golgo-13]

You can set up your new drive as the startup disk and put OS X on it within System Preferences.

There probably is a way to set your slave drive as a spillover, essentially giving you one super large drive. But I've never done that. It probably involves setting them into some kind of RAID formation.

As for cloning your old drive to the new one, again, I'm sure it can be done, but I've never done it on a Mac, and have only had fair success on PC's.


Jag would likely know for sure, but he had to go get himself pro-banned.

Yeah, that's what i want to do. I'll look around the web for answers and/or wait until jag makes it back.

As far as putting the latest OS X on the new drive, i don't have to re-install the 10.5/Leopard from the disk do i, cause that would suck, as i got it from a friend and don't have the disk anymore?.. The only disk i OWN is 10.4.

 

[wiegeabo]

Well, if their isn't a way to clone your old drive onto the new one, then I assume you'd have to install from scratch.

 

[Golgo-13]

I found this for anyone else interested:

After you install the drive.....

Additional or Second Drive
....Start up your computer as you normally would. Upon startup, you should see a Dialog Box telling you that the drive is not initialized and asking if you would like to initialize it now. Click on "OK." The computer will complete the startup process and the drive should be mounted on the Desktop.

If if you do not get the dialog box at startup, open your "Utilities" and launch "Drive Utility." This will list all available drives and tell you if they can be initialized or not. Select the new drive from the list and click on "Initialize." Once the new drive is initialized, it should appear on the desktop.

Your new drive is now ready for use.

It doesn't specify whether the second drive will be used as a spill-over though.....

As far as cloning the drive; i found this:

To quickly clone the 40GB to the 80GB, just use Disk Utility. After partitioning your 80GB as Apple Extended (Journaled), select the Restore tab. Drag your 40GB into the Source field, the 80GB into the Destination field, check the Erase box and click the Restore button. The result will be an exact duplicate but with the extra space.

If anyone can confirm that this is indeed the right way to do it, before i mess around and erase everything i know and love , i'd greatly appreciate it.