Questions regarding upgrading to Snow Leopard

[fwwwn]

Hey guys. So now that OS X 10.6.3 is out I've decided it's time to upgrade. Currently running 10.5.8

Few questions:

1) Since I haven't formatted in 3 years I also want to start fresh. If I buy the R329 Snow Leopard, can I do an Erase and Install or am I limited to Upgrade / Archive and Install?

2) If I do an Archive and Install, what will the system look like on first boot? I.e. like a fresh install, or will all my apps/photos/music still be where they should be?

3) If it is a fresh system, with all the files in an archive folder, can I just copy it across or is it more complex? I.e. do I need to reinstall iWork, Adobe CS3, etc. or can I just copy the .app files to the new applications folder? Also, what about fonts?

That's all for now, but I'm sure I'll think of more. Of course I can just upgrade... but I want to do it right since this current install is getting a bit cluttered. Thanks for any and all advice

 

[StbA]

1. In Disk utility in the set-up format the HDD
2. Backup thru Time Machine and restore from that, everything will be back in it's original place.
3. Refer to 2

 

[burn]

1. Yes you can use the cheaper upgrade disk to do a full install... Do a clean install with step 2 below.

2. As mentioned above, Time Machine is absolutely amazing Just do a backup through time machine and then run it on the clean installation. Will restore everything as it was...

 

[PeterCH]

Hey guys. So now that OS X 10.6.3 is out I've decided it's time to upgrade. Currently running 10.5.8

If it ain't broke, why fix it? Do you really need to upgrade? I'm running on Leopard and all is well. I use an Intel X25M as my boot drive and my system starts up in a couple of seconds (under 5) - from switch on.

Few questions:

1) Since I haven't formatted in 3 years I also want to start fresh. If I buy the R329 Snow Leopard, can I do an Erase and Install or am I limited to Upgrade / Archive and Install?

If I were you I'd get Carbon Copy Cloner for Mac (Free) and copy the entire drive over to a seperate partition on a different HDD. Then I'd UPGRADE to Mac OSX SL. AFAIK the SL disk does not ask you for Leopard disks when installing fresh.
If it doesn't work out, just do a fresh install. CCC is a great app which I used to copy my entire Leopard partition from my WD Macintosh HD to my Intel SSD - fully bootable and all.

 

[StbA]

@PeterCH.

Snow Leopard is much faster than Leopard, things work better.

Based on my experience (about 40 macs done) upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard causes issues. Trust me when I say to use the Time Machine backup as your restore, it's basically like a upgrade installation but without the hassle of trying to pinpoint inevitable errors with a real L->SL upgrade.

 

[PeterCH]

@PeterCH.

Snow Leopard is much faster than Leopard, things work better.

Based on my experience (about 40 macs done) upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard causes issues. Trust me when I say to use the Time Machine backup as your restore, it's basically like a upgrade installation but without the hassle of trying to pinpoint inevitable errors with a real L->SL upgrade.

I've upgraded Tiger to Leopard and had no issues. The only issues I had were with bad RAM and bad graphics card (ATI X1900XT). In fact, it's possible the RAM was not bad at all, but the GPU was at fault. Apple said I couldn't plug in an ATI 4850 into my 1st gen Mac Pro but I did and it now works 100%. Thank you Apple for creating a piece of junk like the ATIX1900XT which overheats and causes O/S crashes and which cost me R5K when the system came out.

Also early Intel Macs are apparently not true 64bit compatible - I know my Mac Pro says 64bit workstation on the box but the EFI it's using is 32bit. It won't utilize Snow Leopard properly, so I won't get the benefits of increases speed. However, putting in the Intel X25M as Macintosh HD allows me to boot up in a couple of seconds (it takes 2 sec for OSX to be read off, the remainder is the other HDDs warming up/unparking) and PS CS4 starts in under a second.

 

[d0b33]

I just did a clean install with the upgrade disk and installed everything manually, I like a freshly installed system.

Apple said I couldn't plug in an ATI 4850 into my 1st gen Mac Pro but I did and it now works 100%. Thank you Apple for creating a piece of junk like the ATIX1900XT which overheats and causes O/S crashes and which cost me R5K when the system came out.

A stock 4850 that works on a PC?

 

[Synaesthesia]

Yo Peter, your Mac Pro can't run the kernel in 64-bit, but everything else is 64-bit. Snow Leopard is faster and there have been some nice improvements.

Aqua lung, you can put PC graphics cards in a Mac Pro, but they only work in windows.

Or you can flash a PC 4870 or 4980 to the Mac ROM and it will work in OS X. Not the 4850 though. This can save a lot of cash - for more info check Netkas.org and hardmac.

Lastly, @ Francios, I recommend you make a full backup of everything you need, and just go for the default upgrade. It should work fine.

 

[fwwwn]

Ok thanks for the confirmation that the "upgrade" disc is indeed a full mac os x disc.

I have since read that the iLife apps aren't on the SL disc, so can I use the "install bundled software" feature from my original Tiger discs that came with this mac? The leopard disc doesn't have iLife on it either.

Problem with Time Machine is that my external HDD isn't big enough for a full backup (can maybe save my photos and music on it), and I don't have any funds for a bigger ext. HDD... How reliable is Archive and Install?

 

[Sputnik]

The "install bundled software" will work for iLife.
I upgraded to SL recently and installed a new larger 7200 rpm Harddrive and more memory. Mobileme handled the rest; bookmarks, keychains, address book, calendar. My music, documents and pictures I just copied over manually. I placed my existing harddrive in an external casing I had anyways.I have gmail set to imap, so that just had to sync. As for my applications, I just downloaded the latest version and installed what was necessary, thereby getting rid of anything I didn't need anymore.

 

[d0b33]

Yeah I used my ilife bundled with leopard after I installed SL, ilife 08 i think. just pop in the original restore disk and choose optional extras.

 

[Shardie]

If I was you i'd do a full install, not upgrade. at least you know that if anything goes wrong you know its not the archived files etc etc

 

[PeterCH]

I just did a clean install with the upgrade disk and installed everything manually, I like a freshly installed system.


A stock 4850 that works on a PC?

No, the Mac 4850 with 512MB RAM with EFI not BIOS. Idiots at Apple say that it's not compatible with 1st Gen Mac Pro but it works 100%. The card uses a faster slot but it defaults to slower speeds if used with the older Mac Pros. Apple wants people to buy the more expensive and obsolete Nvidia 8600 or 8800 - can't remember now - for 1st Gen Mac users or the AT 2300 (or similar 2xxx card). It Would have been nice of Apple to design the ATI 1900XT to work properly the first time around - they only charged double the PC equivalent (for the time) and then NOT LIE about the fact that a 1st Gen Mac Pro can take the stock Apple 4870 without problems.

I could have bought a flashed one from EBAY for less - 4890 with 1 or 1.5GB RAM but went with the Apple one.

 

[PeterCH]

Yo Peter, your Mac Pro can't run the kernel in 64-bit, but everything else is 64-bit. Snow Leopard is faster and there have been some nice improvements.

Early Intel Macs are not capable of total 64bit SL kernel. There really is no speed benefit in uprading a 2006 Intel Mac to SL, according to what I read. Even if fully 64Bit there is no benefit over the partial 64bit performance L gives me. However, if you have benchmarks for the early Mac Pro Xeons which show there is better performance with SL - please share.

Aqua lung, you can put PC graphics cards in a Mac Pro, but they only work in windows.

You can use some ATI cards, they just need to be flashed beforehand.

 

[Synaesthesia]

Well that would necessitate re-installing all apps. So my advice just upgrade but if anything isn't lekker you can consider a full rewipe. It'll probably work perfectly.

 

[fwwwn]

Hmm I just realised I can backup all my stuff considering I am also lending a friends external at the moment - both combined have enough space on them. Probably going to do a complete manual backup and then a fresh install. Nothing wrong with my mac now, and been maintaining the **** out of it, but would be nice to have an out-of-the-box system again.

...Or I might get lazy and just do a standard upgrade

Now I just need to go buy SL. Costs R329 everywhere, right?

 

[phiber]

329 is right, do your self a favor and try clear one drive to do a time machine backup and restore... Much easier, will put everything back where it is ...

 

[burn]

If it ain't broke, why fix it? Do you really need to upgrade? I'm running on Leopard and all is well. I use an Intel X25M as my boot drive and my system starts up in a couple of seconds (under 5) - from switch on.

I could never go back to Leopard after using Snow Leopard, it's called progression... If everyone never upgraded anything we wouldn't ever progress. There is a lot more to SL than 64 bit Catch a wake up and join the human race in our development