My MacBook Pro and I had a bit of a rendezvous this past weekend. She's a 15 inch Core Duo with 2GB of RAM. Although she'll occasionally get as hot as a toaster oven (leaving red marks on my lap at times) and mooed like a cow when we first met, she's been a consistent workhorse for me.

But her hard drive needed a transplant. Sick of her sluggish performance and hard drive clicking noises, I decided that it was time to fix her up. So, I replaced her 320GB hard drive with, surprise, a 320GB hard drive -- this time a Fujitsu model instead of the Toshiba it replaced. Not because I thought the Fujitsu was any better than the Toshiba it'd be replacing, but because it was the least expensive drive I could find.

Although the hard drive installation went successful, it wasn't without its fair share of bumps along the road. Hopefully, the bumps I experienced could provide many some guidance on what to do as well as what not to do when upgrading your hard drive.

The Mac Classic was an early 90's 'budget' Mac running System 6 (check out Low End Mac's history and profile of this model), and I've personally never seem one in action. Since pictures are worth only so many words, I thought I'd post a YouTube video I stumbled across of a Classic starting up. The res/frame rate flicker (funny thing: I had to edit 'flicker' because I originally and instinctively typed 'flickr') and crummy Flash compression certainly don't propel this video to the top of the list in terms of video quality, but I figured this might still be a fun, though brief, look at an old school version of the Mac OS.

If ya'll know of any better videos of older versions of Mac OS booting or running, feel free to link them in the comments. If we can collect enough, I'll round them up in another post.

A reader of macosxhints.com has posted another method for creating a bootable drive that is friendly to both PowerPC and Intel Macs. While it's a twelve-step process, macosxhints.com has called it 'simpler', so who are we to argue? If you've been hankering for a way to create a bootable drive that can play on both sides of the Mac CPU fence, this tip just might have you covered.

If you're living in a Boot Camp world and have a need for changing your startup disk from time to time, enterprising TUAW reader David B. has written a couple of AppleScript apps with your name on them. Boot (Camp) Sargent beta 0.1 is actually two scripts: the first to set your startup disk to Windows (*shudder*), while the other resets to Mac OS X. In this fast-paced, multiple OS world we live in, little apps that save a few clicks can make all the difference.

Boot (Camp) Sargent is available at the first Google Pages site that I've ever seen used to promote or offer anything like this. Extra points for the tag line, "because holding down the Option key during startup is too hard", since I've actually heard people say that on the job in the past.

Yes, before you fire off a flaming comment, we know this is The Unofficial Apple Weblog, but we thought it might be nice to post a tip for those of you who either want or need to play with the next generation of Microsoft Windows, reportedly due out within the decade (hey, it was originally due in 2003 - by its present 2007 date they'll be almost half a decade late already). This Apple Discussions forum thread details a slightly more appealing trick for getting Vista, now in a public beta (but overloaded with download requests as of this writing), to install and run with Boot Camp. Basically, you need to have Boot Camp already set up and installed with Windows XP. Then, burn a DVD of the Vista beta you just downloaded. And before you ask: no, unfortunately, Vista won't run on Parallels Desktop - yet. Parallels has publicly mentioned making this work with a future version, but there is no ETA for when this support will land.

Now - and this is the 'at your own risk' part - you need to use some kind of partition manager (the forum poster used one from within XP, but I've heard you can use one that starts up from within the Vista installer when booting from the DVD) to delete an ambiguous partition that Boot Camp creates that is around 180-200 MB in size. Again, we can't stress this enough: this is done at your own risk - you are messing with your boot record and after this step, Boot Camp won't be able to adjust your partitions or blow away and reclaim your Windows partition anymore. Mac OS X and Windows will still boot just fine, but this isn't an ideal setup for the faint-of-heart Boot Camp user.

if you take the plunge and nuke that partition, however, you should now be able to boot from the Vista DVD and use it to upgrade your copy of Windows XP - which in and of itself could spark a discussion as to whether one should upgrade or install clean new versions of Windows; it usually isn't recommended with Mac OS X, who wants to take bets on Windows' ability to have a smooth OS upgrade ride?

If you try any of this stuff out, feel free to post your thoughts on the experience, and then go wash your hands of one of the dirtiest things you can do to a Mac.

Booting only two OSs on your MacBook Pro is, like, totally so last week.

Aside from earlier reports, it apparently is possible to bring a third OS to the party, as OnMac.net has posted a how-to wiki for booting WinXP, Mac OS X and Linux on a MacBook Pro via Boot Camp (so far, this is untested on other Intel Macs).

Gentoo is the version of Linux used in the how-to, but the Slashdot post where I found this is confident that it would be simple to get other flavors of Linux working.

But forget all this triple booting stuff... when is someone going to crack the 4 OS barrier? I want a quad boot with Microsoft Bob running on a MacBook Pro!

Who could've imagined that hell would freeze over and C.K. would lose it all in the same day? Check out his It's on! post. Did you notice his "Of course, the real key to this would be if Apple would just go ahead and release a version of OS X for PCs" line towards the end?

Granted we're still at ground zero in terms of this Boot Camp news, but I can't think of resulting a conclusion/speculation that I couldn't disagree more with. It's great that Apple's allowing all those Mac users to run Windows for an app or two that doesn't work in Mac OS X yet, but I really don't think Boot Camp signifies Apple's first step towards 'fighting the PC revolution' using anyone's hardware but their own. Aside from the 'Apple is a hardware company' business model argument, it would undermine both their business and engineering practices on a number of levels.

Apple licensing out Mac OS X to run on anyone's hardware would unleash the very stability and management nightmares that they've been trying to avoid by controlling both hardware and software. This scenario is very much like what would happen if they opened up the iTunes and iPod platform: look at Microsoft's 'Plays for Sure' attempt at helping iTunes' competitors. Napster's own CEO has publicly stated that, more or less: it sucks.

In the context of an industry where anyone and their mother can slap together parts for PCs with crazy glue and duct tape, Apple's model of controlling the hardware that their stellar software runs on has far more of a purpose than simply gouging people's bank accounts; and even the age-old whine of "but Mac/iPod hardware is more expensive" has been thoroughly discounted.

Please, readers of TUAW, I beg you: don't listen to C.K. He's clearly lost it. Let's all have a moment of silence for our fellow blogger in hopes that he can find the strength to regain his sanity.

Of all the people who could create a Universal OS X boot disk (*cough* Apple *cough*), is anyone surprised that MacOSXHints (as far as I know) got there first? Top it off with the fact that they also created a NetBoot image and, well... now they're just making everyone else look bad (*cough!*).

This article at MacOSXHints describes the first half of the process - creating a Universal, bootable image of OS X - and it sounds pretty darn easy. The second step - enabling the Universal image with NetBoot superpowers - is right here. I haven't used either of these (since I don't have a shiny Intel Mac anyway), but they both sound like pretty simple little tricks. Enjoy.

For today's TUAW Tip, I thought I'd cover some of the basic essentials for starting up your Mac, especially for recent switchers who feel naked and lost without their BIOS. I compiled the list I have here from Magical Macintosh Key Sequences (which Dave mentioned last September), Apple's own keyboard shortcut documentation and personal experience:

• X during startup - Force Mac OS X startup
• option - (eventually) brings up a screen with startup volume choices
  
• Option-Command-Shift-Delete - Bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)
• C - Start up from a CD that has a system folder
• N  - Attempt to start up from a compatible network server (NetBoot)
• T - Start up in FireWire Target Disk mode (very handy for plugging your Mac into another as an external hard drive)
  
• Shift - start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items and non-essential kernel extension files (Mac OS X 10.2 and later)
• Command-V - Start up in Verbose mode.
• Command-S - Start up in Single-User mode
• cmd-opt-p-r - Zap PRAM. Hold down until second chime.
• cmd-opt-n-v - Clear NV RAM. Similar to reset-all in Open Firmware.
• cmd-opt-o-f - Boot into open firmware
• hold mouse click - force eject a CD/DVD

While this by no means is a definitive list (and I'm not sure if every one transfers over to the new Intel Macs), it should get you started with what your Mac is capable of on startup. Feel free to add your own in the comments. One word of caution, however: some of these shortcuts aren't meant to be used on a daily basis. For example, Apple doesn't recommend (and neither do I) that you use the Zap PRAM or Clear NV RAM shortcuts any old time your Mac starts acting funny; those are mainly for situation-specific troubleshooting circumstances.

We all know that the Intel Macs can easily boot from USB drives, but that was never really a viable option on the PowerPC machines.

At least, that's what most of us assumed. Mac OSX Hints jumps on Yet Another Opportunity To Prove Me Wrong, this time posting a step-by-step guide to booting your PowerPC Mac with a USB 2.0 device. The procedure has been tested on the newer iMac G5 models (with the ambient light sensor onward) and the 1.33GHz 12" PowerBook G4, but it's worth giving it a try on other newer PPC Macs, too. It's pretty tricky, involving some fancy Open Firmware manuevering, but the procedure looks promising.

Give it a try and let us know how it works, ok?

We've already discovered that Intel Macs can boot from USB drives, but MacOSXHints has devised a way of booting these fancy new Macs from a USB iPod, without having to partition it or ruin its ability to play music and videos. There are a few steps involved, so check out their play-by-play for the full deets on how to imbue your iPod with an Intel version of Mac OS X.

Last week Dan posted about the new complications of Intel OS X drives not being bootable on PowerPC Macs, and vice-versa. The report came from Jon 'Wolf' Rentzsch, who recently updated the originating post with some specifics about booting and partition schemes, with one fairly positive detail: Intel based Macs can boot from USB2 drives.

While many in the Mac community prefer FireWire over USB2 for various reasons, this will nevertheless open the doors for OS X to be bootable from more external hard drives. What are the chances I can bring a slimmed down OS X installation along with me on a 2 or 4 GB USB2 flash drive? I guess a geek can dream.

I found this cool video on YouTube via Digg this morning. They simultaneously boot an iMac G5 and a new Core Duo iMac to see which is faster at booting. The Core Duo, of course, leaves the G5 flailing in the dust, but I, along with many of the commenters on Digg, am suspicious of the state of that iMac G5. It really shouldn't hang on boot for as long as it does. During the video, one of the guys says that the iMac G5 had been through its initial boot and then was immediately shut down, so I wonder if they forced it to shut down and some of the disk check processes are running and slowing things up.

In any case, despite all these academic arguments, if you watch the video and you've ever seen an iMac G5 boot before, you're still going to realize that the Core Duo is absolutely smokingly fast.