Laptop Hard Drive w/ Tiger, AE and FCP... Will it Work in Another Computer?
 

A friend of mine has a Mac Power PC laptop with Tiger, After Effects and Final Cut Pro installed.

If he pulls the hard drive and puts it into a different Mac Power PC laptop, how likely is it that AE and FCP will work on the new machine? He doesn't have the registration info or the install disks.

(I'm a PC person, but I told him I'd post a message for him here.)

Hello,
I've recently upgraded my MBP with a larger HD. I used SuperDuper for Mac cloning & Snapshot for Bootcamp. I'd suggest your friend use Superduper ( free version ) and clone the entire OS with apps. to an external HD. He can then boot off the external HD on the new laptop to ensure compatibility before swapping internal HD's. There should be no problems as long as you do not run FCP with the same serial #'s simultaneously on a closed network.

Thanks very much Mel, I'll pass the info. on.

FCP 3 would not run on another computer when moved via hard disk as you describe. I can't speak for the current version.

Hello Ernest,
Sorry to hear it does not work for you. Out of curiosity, I tried cloning & booting off several of my machines...this is what happened.
I cloned a MBP HD and was able to boot my Mac Pro, Final Cut Studio 2 requested a serial # , I entered the info/# provided on the startup screen of FCP from the original machine/MBP & the FCS2 apps. worked. I did not have to provide other "upgrade" serial #'s that was required during the original install. Shake did not work without providing original #'s and Adobe apps. did not either.
I cloned a G5 HD & was able to boot a G4, again FCS 2
only required information easily obtained from the startup screen of FCP ( I took a snapshot of the screen, I can't read that fast ). Adobe apps. & Shake did not work
without original #'s.
I first used a Lacie HD mini for cloning. It did not work regardless of connection, FW 400/800 or USB 2.0. I was successful with a Lacie d2 HD Extreme via FW 400 on the PPC machines. The PPC Macs did not initially boot off the cloned external HD. I used Disk Utility to repair disk permissions & reset the PRAM, which fixed the problem. I'm not a Mac techie, I just like playing with 'em & again, this is only my experience.
Hope this info. is useful.