[Craig Alan]

I’ve used CCC this way and it works fine. However–
It

[Craig Alan]

Sooner or later your system drive will fail or get messed up or your mac will need a trip to the shop. Why not spring for an external drive on which you can clone your system. If you get a loaner, you can boot from this drive and not miss a beat. If your system drive fails or gets corrupted you can boot from the external copy and clone it back. It’s not a matter of if but when.

OSX 10.2.3; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000; write professionally for a variety of media

[Craig Alan]

Back up all using CCC. https://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html.

It’s free and easy to use.

Then reformat system drive using apple’s drive utility. If you are installing panther then use Mac os extended (journaled). Then install new system. If the old system is safe and intact on external drive then just use that drive as old computer when the install gets to the part about migrating old data onto new system. Apple calls it a migration utility and it works really well. The installer asks if you are updating an older Mac. Click yes. Then it tells you to plug it in to firewire port. Then turn it on. Do that. At some point it asks you to reboot old computer. No need just click continue. It takes care of the rest. It will bring you right back to where you left off. If you own ms office then delete the trial software that gets installed cause it will mess with the office documents when you try to launch them.

You can then use the external drive to do incremental backups using CCC

[Craig Alan]

reformat the drive using apple’s disk utility, then boot from the install cd.

OSX 10.2.3; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000; write professionally for a variety of media

[Craig Alan]

This worked for me going from 10.2 to 10.3 on a powerbook. It’s called a migration utility. It worked perfectly with a couple of gotchas. The install program installed a couple of things that conflicted with existing programs. For example, I needed to uninstall stuffit and reinstall it. But the one that really messed me up till I figured it out was it installed a trial version of ms office. Once I uninstalled that, my old office files worked fine. However these are separate issues from the migration utility. My desktop looked the same, my files were all placed where they should be, a huge time saver. User identities were all in place. No problems with permissions etc. Now whether tiger will update from 10.3 as well–we’ll see. There is nothing special you need to do. Back up your system drive to a firewire drive. Erase and reformat your drive if you like. Run the installer and at the prompt follow the directions. The only thing different is since the firewire drive is not a computer, you can skip the step where you reboot the source disc. Just plug the firewire cable in when it tells you to and unplug it when it tell you to. It

[Craig Alan]

another possibility:

from https://www.machome.com/tips/display.lasso?grr8=93

Easy File Sharing with Remote Macs and PCs
OS X’s Personal Web Sharing feature is an easy way to share large files with Mac and PC users. The only software needed on the remote computers is a web browser. Here’s how to use this handy OS X feature.
– Choose System Preferences from the Apple Menu and click Sharing. Under Services you’ll see a list of available sharing options.
– Choose Personal Web Sharing and click Start.
– Make note of the address provided at the bottom of the window and close System Preferences. (The address will look something like https://10.180.75.99/~cmcveigh/)
– Return to the Finder and choose Go>Home. Find the Sites folder, open it and toss out the index.html file and the images folder (unless you’ve already created your own web page)
– Place the files you want to share with remote Macs and PCs into the Sites folder and send your address to the people who need access to your files. Voila, easy file sharing.

OSX 10.2.3; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000; write professionally for a variety of media

[Craig Alan]

if they share an internet connection she might already have a hub of some sort.

OSX 10.2.3; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000; write professionally for a variety of media

[Craig Alan]

When a system is really messed up and you can

[Craig Alan]

you can add a card if you have a slot to give yourself extra firewire ports. not expensive and worth it.

OSX 10.2.3; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000; write professionally for a variety of media

[Craig Alan]

If they really are “old” projects: save the original dv tapes, and any other source material. Output an extra master onto a dv tape. Try to label everything. Save the project files on your system drives. Back that up. Use CCC to back up your entire system drive–will save you lots of headaches and decision-making. Then reformat the external drive and start clean. If they are not really old and you need the material active, then read Jerry’s post to understand that FCP already has its way of organizing this stuff and all the files will be named after what you called the project. You can then trash what you don’t need and keep what you do. If it is really overwhelming you and you need to work on the new project ASAP, then get a new external drive and start fresh and worry about this organization later. Don’t keep the media on your system drive. If cost is a factor, you might consider removing the external drives from their cases and just putting in new ones. If it’s not a case designed for that, then get one that is. Drives and cases have come way down in price. You might even consider a hot swap case that allows you to swap drives in and out in their own trays. You could have a different drive for each client/project and since it would be for only one they could be smaller and cheaper. Find the sweet spot for $ per gig when you are ready to buy.

OSX 10.2.3; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000; write professionally for a variety of media