I have purchased an external hard drive as backup for a Macintosh G4
tower computer. I brought the tower and external drive home from work
and would like to know if its possible to use the iMac I have at home
as the monitor for the G4 to move the information from the G4 to the
external drive? My iMac has system 8.5 and the G4 has system 9. How
are the two computers connected?

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Request for Question Clarification by mother-ga on 04 Aug 2002 07:12 PDT

Hello,

In order to answer your question correctly, we need to know the
following:

1. What type of external drive (the backup) are you working with? Does
it support FireWire?
2. What type of iMac? Does it support FireWire? Since it's running
MacOS 8.5, it sounds like it's one of the originals - in this release
only the Special Edition DV iMacs shipped with Firewire support. All
of the newer iMacs have FireWire.

See the following photo to determine what the different ports look
like (they will be in a different configuration on yours but the
actual ports look the same):

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

Let us know...

-- mother-ga

Hello Lkogc,

Let me divide your question into two parts and answer them separately.

1. [is it] possible to use the iMac I have at home as the monitor for
the G4...?

The short answer is no. The iMac does not have a connection to bring
in the video signal and display it. There are a few alternatives
though.

#1 You can purchase external interfaces for video (e.g. Avid Cinema)
but that generally cannot process the display output of the G4 (unless
you can generate output suitable for a VCR or video camera) - yet more
money.

#2 If you still want to pursue a "display" approach, it would probably
be less cost to purchase a monitor (than to get digital video capable)
- or better yet, borrow one from a co-worker or neighbor. A small
monitor would be OK for once only or occcasional use. You might even
be lucky and find a suitable monitor at a second hand store (e.g.,
Goodwill) for $25 or so. You would still need a keyboard and mouse,
but I'll assume you would just use the ones off of the iMac for that.

Once you have the display - copying the files is done just as usual.

2. ... move the information from the G4 to the external drive?

This you can do if you have a network connection without a display on
the G4. I will assume the external drive is already connected to the
G4. I will summarize a few options below.

#1 - use file sharing
 a. Enable Apple File Sharing on the G4 (at work?)
 b. Share both disk drives,
 c. connect the two machines with your network interface (e.g.,
Ethernet),
 d. connect to the shared disks using the iMac
 e. copy the files with the finder as appropriate

#2 - use a "remote control" program such as Timbuktu
 a. install the remote control program on both systems
 b. connect both with the network (though some allow slow access via a
"dial up connection")
 c. connect from the iMac and transfer the files

Timbuktu Pro has an evaluation version at
  http://www.netopia.com/en-us/software/evaluate/timbuktu_eval.html
Apple Remote Desktop
  (already mentioned in a comment - but requires OS X on the
administrative center)

Both of the above solutions require you to have a display on the G4
before you can proceed. As a result, I don't consider either of these
to be very satisfactory.

#3 - hook both drives to the iMac and use it to do the copies. This
could be done with an external case with an USB or Firewire interface.
I use an external Firewire hard disk on my iMac and the performance is
great. If you feel comfortable removing equipment from the G4 and want
to pursue this, I'll be glad to look up some suppliers for you.

#4 - haul the G4 back to work and copy the files there [sigh].

I realize these are probably not the kind of answers you were
expecting. The "best" in my mind is to get an inexpensive monitor and
run the G4 as usual. If you have any further questions on this, don't
hesitate to ask for clarification.

  --Maniac

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Request for Answer Clarification by lkogc-ga on 04 Aug 2002 23:00 PDT

I am using a MicroNet Advantage external hard drive, it has Firewire
and Ethernet, but the iMac does not have a Firewire connection, does
have an Ethernet connection. It is an older iMac 266. The G4 has both
conections its about a year old and is one of the 5?? models.

---

Clarification of Answer by maniac-ga on 05 Aug 2002 18:32 PDT

Hello Klogc,

In response to the clarification request, I looked at the
specifications for the Micronet Advantage and have come up with
another possible solution if you can get the iMac upgraded to OS 8.6
or later.

If file sharing is enabled on the G4, hook the G4 and iMac together
via Ethernet, hook the external drive to the USB port. You should be
able to copy the files to / from the G4 to the external hard disk.
This will work if...
 - the USB port supports USB 2.0 (I can't tell from online sites)
 - the OS is 8.6 or later (from the Micronet site)
 - you have installed the iMac update (for non-apple USB devices) -
though the 266 Mhz model might already have this handled
This isn't as efficient as hooking the drive up directly to the G4,
but would be another alternative.

  --Maniac

Might not be what I "wanted" to hear, but appreciate the other options
given. Very helpful. Thank you.

Hi lkogc

Are you interested in remotely controlling
the G4 from the iMac to monitor the
transfers?

[ http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/ ]
Wow, steep price

[ http://www.netopia.com/en-us/software/products/tb2/mac/index.html ]
This is a nice product that I've
used before


-AI

I can use my ibook as a monitor for my G4, it requires two Macs with
firewire support.
1. If you connect your external drive to your iMac and power up.
2. Connect your powered down G4 to your iMac via firewire
3. Power up G4 holding down the letter 'T' key until it appears on the
desktop of your iMac as a volume
4. Drag and copy files from the G4 volume on the iMac desktop to the
external drive.
The above assumes you can connect your external drive to your iMac in
someway, (whatever the connection type might be), and that your iMac
has firewire support.