Do I need to backup my harddrive before upgrading to Snow Leapord?

If I upgrade, will I definitely lose everything on my harddrive? Just wondering, cause I don't have an external HD or Time Capsule.

Thanks!

No, you won't lose any applications or preferences if you just upgrade!

You will only lose them if you do a clean install!

Though, obviously, backing up your files before performing the upgrade is always recommended... Never hurts to play it safe.

It's a good idea to backup even if you weren't upgrading to Snow Leopard! Yes, of course make a backup. Buy yourself an external hard drive and use a program like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable backup of your hard drive. Or, use Time Machine.

I had a lot of difficulty upgrading to Snow Leopard from Leopard because of incompatible software which left hooks in the OS. Two tries and two failures. If it were not for my Carbon Copy Cloner bootable backup I would not have been able to restore. I finally had to install Snow Leopard clean and restore from a Time Machine backup that I had also made.

Backups are a must.

Regards.

It's not essential, but always a good idea to keep a back up, especially if doing something as major us upgrading your operating system, in case anything goes wrong!

I must disagree.

It is essential to have a backup!

I repeat:

It IS essential to have a backup!

Unless that is you care nothing about any of the data on your hard drive.
There are users like this out there. My wife in fact, fits into this category.

While I am sure the vast majority upgraded without any issues whatsoever,

I upgraded to a kernel panic upon boot and never got into the Operating System. I am not alone.

As chscag, I also had a bootable backup which allowed me to boot to my external, browse the logs, find and remove the errant application that was causing the kernel panic and preventing me from even booting into SL.

If you have any applications you cannot live without until the developers get them fully compatible with SL, another reason for a bootable backup.

Compared to the headaches that occur if your new install fits into any of the probelm areas and considering the price of external storage today, an external backup is an indispensable tool.

bobtomay said:

I must disagree.

It is essential to have a backup!

I repeat:

It IS essential to have a backup!

Click to expand...

Let me add to that by saying that you not only need a backup when you upgrade something ...... having regular backups is a must.

There are so many threads on the forum about ( accidental ) deletion of data or even partition tables and then there is the issue of hardware suddenly dying.

In this world there are 2 types of people, those who have reliable backups and those who will.

Cheers ... McBie

I say this with the most light hearted smile....
I must have a chuckle in response to the 2 posts after mine ....when reading me saying "its not essential" and giving no credence to me saying "but always a good idea to keep a back up"

I don't feel the need to spell it out.... but yes, coming from someone who does perform regular back ups, IN MY OPINION, it is essential too, but the question was what it was, and I gave the answer which if read between the lines, which I have no doubt that it was, was answered
So, in future, I think I will take more care to give more detail as to my thoughts on the matter!

An external backup is a bit of a must, and time machine makes it so easy to be safe!