If I clone the hard drive on my iMac, can I use that clone to synchronise my Macbook with the iMac or is the clone somehow identified only with the drive from which it was cloned?
Lionel: In the past I have used clones from one mac (say: a G3 “boiled sweet” CRT iMac) to start up a G4. I made sure that each was capable of running the system version of the other.
Any problem would probably be a CPU/RAM/clock speed incompatibility, or a PPc v. Intel difference.
Certainly if you are cloning system stuff you would need to have reasonably close similarity. For files this would not be a problem as such, although application versions might matter.
Suggestions:
try it on an (erasable) partition
make sure that the clone origin is in good nick (system housework!)
don’t put all your eggs in one basket: make backups.
This is NOT the last word, and others may have different advice.
Lionel Ogden 