Apple

Put the old ibook into target disk mode and fired up disk utility on another mac to try and make an image. that I could later use with the installer to restore everything on the other ibook.
No matter what I try it won't let me make an image because it insists the device is busy even though nothing is using the drive and no windows are open.

What version of Mac OS is running on the Mac that you are running Disk Utility on? I suggest opening the System Preferences for Spotlight and for Time Machine and make sure that both are set to ignore the drive that is in target mode.

I currently only have the two ibooks available so one has the fully up to date 10.3.9 and the other has just basic unupdated 10.3

Okay, since everything is on Panther, then we can forget about Spotlight or Time Machine being an issue.

I'm a little confused about exactly what you're doing. Are you trying to create an image of the 10.3.9 drive (for example, on an external drive, to be used later to replace what is on the 10.3.0 drive now), or are you trying to copy the 10.3.9 drive contents directly onto the 10.3.0 drive?

In any case, if you are using Disk Utility, are you booting your mac and running Disk Utility from an OS X installation disc? That's generally the best way to go.

It actually doesn't matter if you use a Panther, Tiger, or Leopard installation disc, since all you are using it for is to boot the Mac and to run the copy of Disk Utility that's available from the Utilities menu of the installer (very similar to booting an SGI from an installation CD and using inst's "run shell command" to do admin tasks on a hard drive.) Any installation CD/DVD that will let you boot the iBook and load Disk Utility will work. Be sure to run the copy of Disk Utility that is on the CD/DVD, not one that is on a hard drive.

If you want to save a disk image, connect an external drive to the Mac that you want to image, boot the Mac from the installer disc, launch Disk Utility from the Installer's Utilities menu, and use it to create the image on the external drive.

If you want to create a direct copy of one Mac's drive onto another Mac, boot one of the Macs into Target Disk Mode, then connect it to the other Mac. Boot the other Mac from an installer disk, launch Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, and go to the "Restore" tab. You should see icons for both Macs' drives on the left. Drag the volume you want to copy to the "Source" field. Drag the volume you want to be replaced over to the "Destination" field. Click the "Erase Destination" box and then click "Restore." Come back in the morning, and everything should be finished. (I recommend having a backup of the disk you want to copy before doing this, just to protect against accidentally erasing the wrong drive.)

Good advice, but it does sound like it belongs in some sort of techno cross-talk act: "you backed up before trying to back up, right?..."

You're right, of course. I think that was my way of politely saying, "Dude, seriously, be careful! Pay attention!"

I found that booting from the DVD didn't work the way I wanted, either because of limited tools available or not being able to unmount the drives. In the end I made a minimal partition on an external drive, and copied system files onto it to use it for staging backups.

You can also boot in single user mode and run either/both hdiutil and asr from the command line. Use hdiutil if you want to create/manipulate disk images, and use asr for cloning, etc.

For example, from the asr man page, here is a sample command-line that will clone a disk without an intermediate image step:

Firewire was b0rked. Did some voodoo involving drawing power over firewire through an ipod charger and a data connection over USB. After I got an image to an external drive things went smoothly after that.