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Okay, so I have an ancient piece of crap computer which is running Mac OS 10.3.8. My dad has a Mac running 10.4.11. I have an ethernet cable which I have used to transfer files back and forth, but my question is, is there any way I can copy the OS over? 10.3.8 is painfully out of date.
You can't just move an existing OS install from one computer to another. You'd need an install disk. I don't know how these things work in the Mac world but whatever platform it is, you need to properly install the OS to get the right drivers installed for your hardware.
Yeah, that's what I figured. Oh well, no harm in asking.
The limited set of Apple hardware has made it occasionally possible to get away with something like this. Simply copying the System folder might not work, though (and a few apps could break). If the newer one's an Intel Mac it definitely won't work.
There is a way to test it, though, as long as you have a backup or don't mind potentially screwing up the system on one of the drives. You can boot from any external (only Firewire on PowerPC Macs) drive and also turn any Mac with a Firewire port into an external Firewire drive using Target disk mode. I can post more details if you're really interested, but you'd be better off installing the system properly.