[krs9999]

I have 10 Macs in the family and one Dell Mini running 10.6.4
We now decided we need another Dell Mini with 10.6.4 to take on trips.
Is there some way to clone the OS X install from the first Dell Mini to the second one the way I can do that on the Mac with either SuperDuper or CCC/

Or do I have to start from scratch again?

[drew74]

Originally Posted by krs9999

I have 10 Macs in the family and one Dell Mini running 10.6.4
We now decided we need another Dell Mini with 10.6.4 to take on trips.
Is there some way to clone the OS X install from the first Dell Mini to the second one the way I can do that on the Mac with either SuperDuper or CCC/

Or do I have to start from scratch again?

As long as you format the mini's HD correctly using your original install media the CCC clone should install on it just fine, afaik. You might need to run NBI again to be safe. I don't know if it will be any quicker than a clean install though.

[underwhelmed]

You will need to run NBI on any clone, otherwise it won't boot because there won't be a boot loader installed.

You can also do a fresh install and restore from a Time Machine backup. I've done this a couple of times to keep from having to install programs one at a time and manually transfer browser bookmarks and settings.

[krs9999]

Thanks for the tips.

I decided to just go through the normal routine using my Mac to prepare the USB drive.
Right now I'm almost half way through the SL install but now the install seems to be stuck at the "About 28 minutes" remaining markand hasn't moved for maybe 10 minutes.
Every once in a while I still see the USB stick flashing, so I assume something is still happening and I'll just hang in there for a while longer.

I used the very lates bootloader that's up on the website, I recall for my last Dell Mini I used the previous version. Hope there is no bug in the new version that prevents SL from loading.

---------- Post added 02-27-2011 at 12:14 AM ---------- Previous post was 02-26-2011 at 11:21 PM ----------

Well, turns out the install was moving along even though the progress bar stopped moving and the time stayed at 28 minutes.
Patience paid off - suddenly the screen changed to two icons, the USB on the left (but it was a hard drive icon) and the internal drive on the right.
I selected the internal drive on the right and booted - took a long time but eventually everything came up properly.
Haven't checked everything out yet - one part is a bit confusing and that is Bluetooth.
This Mini is supposed to have Bluetooth - it shows Bluetooth in the bios as enabled but when I check with the Mac it says there is no Bluetooth.
Any suggestions how I can find out what's what related to Bluetooth?

[soho100]

Are you sure it has Bluetooth, all 10v's came without Bluetooth as standard.

I've hacked many 10v's and found the best way was to remove the new drive which is easy, pop it in an enclosure and attached to a 10v running OSX, clone with Carbon Copy Cloner and then run NBI over the drive, reinsert the drive in the 10v and it works fine.

[CCharless]

Originally Posted by krs9999

This Mini is supposed to have Bluetooth - it shows Bluetooth in the bios as enabled but when I check with the Mac it says there is no Bluetooth.
Any suggestions how I can find out what's what related to Bluetooth?

There isn't any Bluetooth module in the 10v but you can buy one and install it. If you plan to upgrade the RAM, it's easy to do both at the same time : you can buy it here on ebay and there are plenty of explanations and instructions on that page too : eBay.be: DELL J613H 2.1 Bluetooth module + cable for mini 10 10v

[krs9999]

Thanks for the input re Bluetooth.
The seller had Linux on the Mini and he supposedly used Bluetooth so I thought there may be a Bluetooth device that's not compatible with OS X.
Not that important, however, I discovered something else last night that surprised me.
When I look at the System Profiler in my first Mini, it shows the Model Name as "Mac" and the Model Identifier as "Inspiron 1011" with a processor speed of 1.67GHz - exactly what I would expect.
On the new 1011, that information is totally different:
Modelname is MacBook, Model Identifier is MacBook 2.1 and processor speed is 2.05 GHz
Then when I check the Bios, the first Mini has an N280 processor, the second one an N270.
That probably accounts for the different System Profiler information - what surprises me is that Dell shipped the same model with two different processors.

Wonder if that has any bearing on why the second Dell starts up differently, one first gets the hard disk icon before the Apple and I also noticed that the start up disk doesn't show up in System Preferences - that's actually true for both of them.