On CDROM.
Offsite.
External drive clicking can be attributed to something other than hard drive failure, and that's low power. Though this is a 7200 rpm 8MB/cache full-size drive (read, requires power to run) its still in an external enclosure, so I removed it from its case and put in inside the G4.
That worked!
But getting anything across the G4's low-speed USB 1.0 port is painfully tedious. Still, something has to be done. I loaded up the kids and trekked out on Black Friday to brave the crowds around noon. Oddly enough, there weren't any. And there were no lines at the checkout. And I found a 500GB external USB drive for $87.
Backing up teh max0r in preparation for upgrading to Leopard was a non-issue. The high-speed USB 2.0 port on the mini is just that: High-speed. The idea is once I backup/restore everything, this new .5TB drive can become my Time Machine.
Leopard is fast and beautiful and I love the new dock and everything about it. I'm very excited. Until I install the 10.5.1 upgrade, which craters my box.
So I reinstall, and everything works great.
So I reinstall, and nothing works.
At all.
Further attempts to reinstall are blocked by copies of archiving my data to the point my boot drive fills up. Thank goodness for Terminal and the rm -Rf command.
Re-re-re-re-re-reinstalling again now.