Update

conchubhar1

Does the update from one version of osx to another, this time leopard to snow leopard, ever work?


I have way too much stuff to trasnfer by ipod - will an update work where all my apps and other stuff is still intact work this time?


Cheers.

pvik00

conchubhar1 wrote: »

Does the update from one version of osx to another, this time leopard to snow leopard, ever work?


I have way too much stuff to trasnfer by ipod - will an update work where all my apps and other stuff is still intact work this time?


Cheers.

The Apple terminology is upgrade. When Leopard came out a few users reported problems around it.

I personally always do a clean install, because I'm a resource conservation freak.
You can go for an 'Archive and install', this will save your old system in a designated folder but otherwise will give you a clean system. Once you moved your stuff around you can drop the whole thing.

Sad Professor

I did an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard the last time and had no problems. If your worried an archive and install is the best compromise. Or just wait and see if there are any reported issues with doing an upgrade.

I don't think it's ever really necessary to do a clean install on a Mac. I can't remember the last time I did one.

I'll probably just do an upgrade for Snow Leopard tbh.

conchubhar1

thanks

hhm mixed signals there - i dunno what to do.

Red Alert

I only did one when I upgraded the HD. Archive and install is probably the best.

ozt9vdujny3srf

tbh with the price you can get external hdds these days, its no harm to get a time machine backup disk anyway, so even if you want to format, you can do a backup beforehand and get all of you stuff back.

babypink

personally, I always do a clean fresh install.

Habit I guess.

BrookieD

A clean install is always the way to go if you can back up your data with a time machine.

Archive and install is the 2nd best option.

As per above the price of a 2nd external drive is well worth it for back ups.

conchubhar1

by clean install

what exactly do ye mean?

Sad Professor

conchubhar1 wrote: »

by clean install

what exactly do ye mean?

Erasing the hard drive and doing a fresh install.

conchubhar1

is that an option when the new os cd is put in?

Sad Professor

Yeah, if you click options it will give you 3 choices, including "erase and install".

I assume Snow Leopard will offer a similar choice. Although it will require that Leopard already be installed first.

conchubhar1

ill transfer music from my ipod and rest on discs - i spose


but i will try an update first as it would be vastly easier!!!!


thanks all!

Sad Professor

Do you not have a backup hdd, conchubhar1?

If not I'd really recommend you get one. My iMac's hard drive just failed out of the blue a few days ago. I'd have been screwed if not for Time Machine.

deevey

Any time i've upgraded my machine, I've gone for

1. External hard disk / Carbon Copy Clone (its free)

2. Fresh Install to the machine to be upgraded

3. Migration assistant to pull my old accounts over from the cloned disk.

The upgrade option has worked on other machines flawlessly i've tried it on though.

When snow Lepoard comes out thats the way i'll do it too, seeing as the install is supposed to be so small it shouldn't take too long, and uses a hellofalot less space apparently.

If something goes wrong I still have the backup that I can clone backwards to.

conchubhar1

no and i cant afford one at the moment or for the quite considerable forseeable future

i have 12 gb left on my ipod and i have since backed up stuff on 3 dvds

so i shoudl to clean install as to avoid problems altho i would prefer if i could get all my music over without having to get it back of the ipod

i might be able to borrow an ipod and use it as a usb drive

pvik00

Having no backup it doesn't really matter which path you choose as you potentially can loose all your data at any given time.

If you think you cannot afford an external HDD then you could still back up your system using some service on the internet, and pay as little as 1-2 Euro a month.

I'm using this (to complement my disk backups + archivals):
http://aws.amazon.com/s3/

Sad Professor

pvik00 wrote: »

Having no backup it doesn't really matter which path you choose as you potentially can loose all your data at any given time.

+1

conchubhar1 wrote:

no and i cant afford one at the moment or for the quite considerable forseeable future

Snow Leopard is going to set you back 30 euro. It wouldn't cost you a whole lot more to get an external hdd. My advice, skip Snow Leopard and save towards that. Having a proper backup is more important than having the latest version of the OS. In the long run, using DVDs for backup would probably work out more expensive than an external hdd.

so i shoudl to clean install as to avoid problems altho i would prefer if i could get all my music over without having to get it back of the ipod

As said earlier, if you are worried, do an archive and install. You'll get a clean system and your data won't be erased. There is no need for a clean install.

conchubhar1

well i have loads of dvds laying abut that i bought very cheap ages ago - decent quality too


hhm i think ill do arcive and install - how much space does that take up as i only have 12.99 gb free now on the macbook


i have literaly no money to spare even 1-2 euro a month and i would see snow lopard as a much better deal than a external hd

conchubhar1

well i have loads of dvds laying abut that i bought very cheap ages ago - decent quality too


hhm i think ill do arcive and install - how much space does that take up as i only have 12.99 gb free now on the macbook


i have literaly no money to spare even 1-2 euro a month and i would see snow lopard as a much better deal than a external hd

pvik00

conchubhar1 wrote: »

i would see snow lopard as a much better deal than a external hd

This is really up to you, but is only true if you believe Snow Leopard is worth more than all your data.
I don't think it does, it's more like Apple has done a good job at selling it. I'm just saying it's not the Messiah, just another OS version.

If you're on a tight budget - and I'm pretty sure others will back me up on this - you don't really have to embrace Snow Leopard so early, even if you won't invest in an external HDD.

Profiler

(edit)

Moved to more appropriate thread

conchubhar1

ye - but i like the opengl and a few other things that would make me using stuff on my macbook easier and its 30 euro

oneofakind32

I did a Tiger to leopard upgrade on my macbook with no problems at all! It took about an hour and worked fine after. I had lots of free hard drive space at the time cus i had just swapped out my HDD! I also did it on my mates Macbook, his hard drive was about 70-80% full. The upgrade took a good 2 hours, there was a half an hour where the scene stayed the same and I though i had lost all his data on him but I sat it out and it worked in the end with no data loss!

pvik00

conchubhar1 wrote: »

ye - but i like the opengl and a few other things that would make me using stuff on my macbook easier and its 30 euro

OpenGL is not a new feature, it has been around since god knows when. (I mean pre-OS X era of the 90's)
What you mean is OpenCL. It is really just an API (yet powerful) to enable software developers to utilize the otherwise mostly idle capacity of the GPU's, no silver bullet.
Analogous to OpenGL, it will not do anything unless applications are using it's specific calls, thus the programmer designed the app to take advantage of it. So it's 30 euro plus the price of the app that uses it.
In general, it will take years for big software houses to release products with OpenCL in mind.
There's a lot of hype around this, whilst many people (home users) will never use any of those apps that were designed for and benefit from this feature.

If you go for this which will probably give you nothing instead of backups that yield immediate benefits, that's really just giving in to Apple's marketing machinery.

Many other new features are just like that, I'm happy to elaborate if you like.

conchubhar1

whatever it is called

i have seen the features in snow leopard and i liked them but was definitely nt going to upgrade - later i saw the price


it has nothing to do with their marketing - jobs wasnt there