Prepping for Snow Leopard, things to do while you wait...

cwa107


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For those of you that are first time OS upgraders on the Mac, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a list of best practices before an upgrade. So, here goes - and for those of you who are more seasoned, please chime in too.

1. First and foremost, backup. If you don't have a backup drive, get one now. An external USB hard drive of equal or greater capacity to the average Mac should cost less than $100. It is CRITICAL that you backup, particularly if you have critical data or software on the machine.

For this upgrade, I would recommend using a tool like SuperDuper, which creates a bootable clone of your entire hard disk. This way, if you find that something goes terribly wrong or that a key piece of software won't run on Snow Leopard, you have the option to boot back to your old environment intact.

2. Get your hard disk and OS as clean as possible. Run Verify/Repair Permissions and Verify/Repair Disk in Disk Utility. Download Onyx and run all of the maintenance tasks. Clean up old application you don't use or need.

3. Use a program like AppFresh to get all of your existing applications up-to-date. This is critical since developers are working hard to get their apps ready for Snow Leopard and are releasing updates this week (and probably next too).

Anyone else? Chime in...
 

pigoo3

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That's a pretty darn good prep list "Mr. Moderator"...thanks & thanks for including the application names that make prepping easier as well!:D

- Nick

p.s. Links would have been even better!;)
 
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cwa107

cwa107


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That's a pretty darn good prep list "Mr. Moderator"...thanks & thanks for including the application names that make prepping easier as well!:D

- Nick

p.s. Links would have been even better!;)

Done.
 

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I would like to suggest that anyone who has any "hacks"/workarounds installed consider removing them so as to mitigate any problems you may encounter during the upgrade. I frequently read that troubles during an install can be caused by these little hacks that, while they work for your current install, can cause havoc during the upgrade process. This can be seen in Engadget's review of SL.

While it has already been stated, I would like to attest to the importance of making backups. I can't (and I'm sure many others will agree) stress enough that making backups is absolutely essential. I would highly recommend that if you don't have an external HD already, you consider postponing the upgrade until a means of backing up your data is in place.
 
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cwa107

cwa107


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I would like to suggest that anyone who has any "hacks"/workarounds installed consider removing them so as to mitigate any problems you may encounter during the upgrade. I frequently read that troubles during an install can be caused by these little hacks that, while they work for your current install, can cause havoc during the upgrade process. This can be seen in Engadget's review of SL.

Good one. I know Unsanity's "Haxies", particularly ShapeShifter, were MAJOR problems going from Tiger to Leopard. In fact, I don't even believe Shapeshifter was ever resurrected for Leopard.

While it has already been stated, I would like to attest to the importance of making backups. I can't (and I'm sure many others will agree) say enough that making backups is absolutely essential. I would highly recommend that if you don't have an external HD already, you consider postponing the upgrade until a means of backing up your data is in place.

Agreed. I have absolutely no sympathy for people that come here after making a major modification to their OS without a backup and whine how their lives are ruined.

There was a time that backup devices were prohibitively expensive. The process was cumbersome and the software was terrible. Nowadays, you can train a chimp to do it and external drives are available for less than the cost of a night out at a fancy restaurant. There is no excuse.

In fact, the first time I see a thread from someone who has a non-working system following an SL upgrade, my first reply will be "restore from backup".
 
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Top stuff there. Superb advice.
 

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Agreed. I have absolutely no sympathy for people that come here after making a major modification to their OS without a backup and whine how their lives are ruined.

There was a time that backup devices were prohibitively expensive. The process was cumbersome and the software was terrible. Nowadays, you can train a chimp to do it and external drives are available for less than the cost of a night out at a fancy restaurant. There is no excuse.

In fact, the first time I see a thread from someone who has a non-working system following an SL upgrade, my first reply will be "restore from backup".

OUCH!!! My eyes are still stinging!!!;D

But yes I remember those days...and I do agree. When computers & computing was a "new thing", hardware was very expensive, and software was as "clunky" and user "unfriendly" as it could possibly be...I could understand a user's confusion & lack of hardware!

But personal computers have been around now for approx. 30 years (give or take a couple)...and folks young or old really don't have much of an excuse (young folks grow up on computers, and old folks should have caught on after 30+ years)!!! OUCH again!:eek:

So do those backups...or be forever scorned!;D

- Nick
 
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" Prepping for Snow Leopard, things to do while you wait..."

1. Wait until it is actually out, then wait at least another week to give people a chance to use actually use it before you ask a specific question about how it operates/what it does/what it doesn't do/how to make it do "X".....

2. If it hasn't been at least a week later from the actual release... see step #1.
 
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" Prepping for Snow Leopard, things to do while you wait..."

1. Wait until it is actually out, then wait at least another week to give people a chance to use actually use it before you ask a specific question about how it operates/what it does/what it doesn't do/how to make it do "X".....

2. If it hasn't been at least a week later from the actual release... see step #1.

Hehe, nice!
 
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If I were to create a Disk Image of my drive, do I have to put it on something the same size as my drive, or would it be compressed?
 
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you CAN compress it with the right software, but you must ensure you
1) can uncompress it when you want to use it again
2) make sure its lossless compression, or things might get weird :D
 
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This is probably a silly question, but I'm new to Macs. Is the backup created with Time Machine (onto a Time Capsule) sufficient? Or do I need to do a separate backup before upgrading to SL.

Thanks!


- Frank
 
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cwa107

cwa107


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This is probably a silly question, but I'm new to Macs. Is the backup created with Time Machine (onto a Time Capsule) sufficient? Or do I need to do a separate backup before upgrading to SL.

Thanks!


- Frank

I'd recommend doing a SuperDuper backup instead as I mentioned above. While the Time Machine backup is OK and you should be able to eventually get back to the state you were in, the SuperDuper backup will actually be bootable and you can immediately revert back to the old system should something go awry.
 
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What about burning a Disk Image onto a DVD with Disk Utility? Will that work?
 
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cwa107

cwa107


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What about burning a Disk Image onto a DVD with Disk Utility? Will that work?

I'm sure it could be made to work, but I don't understand why you wouldn't just use an external hard drive.

If the answer is "I can't afford to buy one right now", then I think I'd just hold off on upgrading for the time being. Inevitably, there are always unforeseen costs in an OS upgrade. Some of your software might not work, you might need some more memory, a bigger HDD, etc. If funds are tight, now is not the right time.
 
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You're probably right about that, but I think 2GB RAM and a 120GB HDD should be pretty good for SL, and I don't really see the need for an external hard drive for this, since a simple disk image would work.

Just curious - why do we need to take so many precautions on this upgrade? I've done 3 Mac OS X upgrades before and have never before been told to back up my data until now.
 
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cwa107

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You're probably right about that, but I think 2GB RAM and a 120GB HDD should be pretty good for SL, and I don't really see the need for an external hard drive for this, since a simple disk image would work.

If you can make a disk image and burn to a DVD, more power to you. I'm just saying for the overwhelming majority of users, backing up to an external HD is a good practice because of the ease of which it can be done and the easy rollback options should something go wrong.

Just curious - why do we need to take so many precautions on this upgrade? I've done 3 Mac OS X upgrades before and have never before been told to back up my data until now.

Back when Leopard was released, a very rosy picture of the upgrade process was painted, both by members here and the media. Even still, we fielded dozens of threads from disgruntled users who had problems, many of them that wanted to go back to Tiger - and were upset when they learned how difficult of an ordeal that would be.

As a rule of thumb, any time you make a major change to a computer (any computer), it's always best to back up. As I said before, it's cheap and easy, and it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Remember, there are only two types of computer users in this world, those that have lost data and those that will....
 
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Don't forget to get your product activation codes together. Some stuff like MTR and Office can be cranky with codes sometimes. Printers also seem to dislike migrating sometimes as well, though 10.6 is suppose to be uber smart when it comes to getting print drivers from online and your old system. Parallels folks... don't forget to back up those VM's as well... just in case.
 
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Thanks cwa. Yeah, I'm just going to burn a backup of my Disk Image, as I think it can fit on a disk. I'll do that just before I decide to upgrade. For now, though, I will just wait until people know what issues there are and Apple corrects them.
 

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