Clone Hard Drive and boot to different Mac

So, is it possible to boot an iMac from an external hard drive that is the clone of a macbook hard drive and viceversa? No matter the different screen resolutions and/or other hardware resources?

It is preferable to install the OS directly on the Mac, using a Mac OS X installation disc, instead of cloning off another Mac. You can then duplicate the data in the user account on both Macs. However, what you propose should technically work.

Back up any data on the iMac that you want to keep.

Clone the MacBook Pro's internal drive volume to the external drive. For cloning, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Change the startup disk setting to the external drive to confirm you can boot off of it and it works like the internal drive. Change the startup disk setting back, shut down and disconnect the external drive; connect it to the iMac. Make sure the iMac can see the external drive and change the startup disk setting to the external drive; start up the iMac from the external drive. Make sure it works properly. Once you are satisfied, use the cloning utility you used before to clone the external drive to the internal drive. Change the startup disk setting back to the internal drive and try to start up from it. Restore any other data from the backup you made.

Yes in theory it is possible...

If you have an Intel Mac you can boot from either an Intel cloned drive or a PPC cloned drive.

If you have a PPC Mac you will not be able to boot from an Intel Mac clone.

There are times even when you meat the above criteria that the clone does not support a particular piece of hardware that the machine you are trying to boot has, so it simply may not have the drivers to use that piece of hardware, but you should still be able to boot from it.

The above is (I believe) why "KW" is stating that the preferred method to install is to install from DVD, as it will load all the appropriate drivers that are specific to that machine.

If Apple were to load all drivers for all Macs on every install... your OSX would need a lot more Gigs on your little hard drive.

If Apple were to load all drivers for all Macs on every install... your OSX would need a lot more Gigs on your little hard drive.

Yes sure, I can imagine. I was only wondering if, in case of need, it could be possible to boot my own system (on a clone ext. hard drive) to a different Mac. This would sound great because I could boot my cloned iMac hard drive on a friend's Macbook without problems. Did I understand well?

Exactly as long as you understand that the PPC will not boot from an Intel cloned drive.

This feature is nice for trouble shooting, moving data, or utilizing your software config with someone else's or another one of your Macs, in time of need.

Actually, the key difference between PowerPC and Intel (in terms of a drive being bootable) is the drive's +partition map scheme+. PowerPC Macs can only boot if it is *Apple Partition Map*. Intel Macs can boot if it is *GUID Partition Table* (preferred) or *Apple Partition Map*. +Partition map scheme+ is a characteristic of the drive, not the volume. A clone duplicates the volume, not the entire drive.

Therefore, if you clone an Intel-installed Leopard volume onto an external drive that has +partition map scheme+ that is *Apple Partition Map*, it should be bootable on a supported PowerPC Mac. The cloning process only affects the volume, so the external drive still retains +partition map scheme+ of *Apple Partition Map*. The Leopard installation itself is universal between Intel and supported PowerPC Macs.

If the Intel Mac actually performed the Leopard installation onto that external drive, then the drive would have to have +partition map scheme+ that is *GUID Partition Table* (because Installer insists on it). THEN, it would not be bootable on a PowerPC Mac.

And I believe ALL drivers and components that were available when the installation disc was create is installed. Drivers do not take up too much space, and they are ignored if not needed. The reason you want to install from the Mac's original disc, is because the disc that comes with specific Mac model may have drivers and components that are new for that model; things that are not included in an older Mac's installation or an older retail installation disc.

I have a bootable Leopard +maintenance/emergency startup disk+ on a small external drive. It was created on a PowerPC Mac (so the +partition map scheme+ is *Apple Partition Map* ). It has a standard installation (plus my maintenance utilities such as TechTool Pro). It can boot my Power Mac G5 and my Intel iMac, and there is no appearance of anything being missing and stuff not working. The old Mac OS 9 (and earlier) did customize the installation based on Mac model; from my experience, Mac OS X does not, with the notable exception of Tiger. For Tiger, Apple had a completely different build between Intel and PowerPC Macs.

Wonderful! Thank you very much!

Not a problem, post back if you have anymore questions.

Well that must have takin awhile to type... Very good info thanks "KW".