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

[JohnCL]

As noted here a backup is a must, but a backup is useless if for some reason it does not boot. ALWAYS test your backups by booting them.

 

[vansmith]

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.

You won't be able to fit the contents of your entire HD onto a DVD. You may not even be able to fit the contents of your home directory onto one DVD but you could use multiple DVDs. This would be quite tedious, time-consuming and inefficient in my eyes though. As an example, I have roughly 85GB worth of data in my home folder. Burning all of that to DVDs would take ages and consume 19DVDs (single sided, single layer DVDs). Now, I don't know how much data you have in your home directory (you may have much less) but your best bet is to backup to an external HD. The HD is reusable, quicker and great for making future backups.

Waiting until people give SL a run first is probably a good idea if you can't make a good backup and/or you don't feel comfortable tackling issues by yourself (this is why there is such an emphasis on making backups).

 

[iPod Nano]

I thought Disk Images were compressed so they take up less space then your data on your HD.

 

[DragonLance]

you'd compress everything and then make a disk image.

Keeping in mind when you clean install you'll have to pray your compressing software works on SL.

 

[iPod Nano]

Yeah, but I wouldn't be doing a clean install, I'll just do the 'Upgrade" option.

 

[GSewall350]

Is there a free program that does the same things as AppFresh?

 

[the8thark]

You say to use Superduper with an external hard drive for the backup. In your mind will you say a time machine full HD hack up to an external drive be just as good?

I want to hear your opinion on this.

 

[flylow]

Time Machine as backup

Time Machine will work. I did it yesterday, and also upgraded my internal disk on my '07 G5 2.4 to a 1.5TB drive (Samsung 154UI $99). Learned quite a bit in the process, but it worked.

I upgraded the disk first. Then did SL upgrade. Then replaced a stick of ram with a 2GB stick so i got 4 GB total.

- had a good time machine backup first (about a month's worth)
- booted off the OS CD (actually i realized i had left a CD in the drive and had to find the trick to eject the disk by holding down the mouse button when turning on the machine until the CD ejected)
- Had to use the disk utility on the os cd to format the drive
- had to install Leopard first (i noticed you can't restore a time machine backup to a blank disk)
- then rebooted on the cd and restored from backup (in utility)
- then installed SL

Now i'm doing a fresh time machine.

One thing to note - i don' think you can boot from a superduper that's not on a firewire drive

 

[bobtomay]

Intel machines will boot just fine from a proper SuperDuper! backup via USB.

 

[cwa107]

Is there a free program that does the same things as AppFresh?

Yes, AppFresh is free. I think eventually it will be a pay-for product. But in it's current state, it's free.

 

[cwa107]

You say to use Superduper with an external hard drive for the backup. In your mind will you say a time machine full HD hack up to an external drive be just as good?

I want to hear your opinion on this.

As I've said multiple times in this thread, a SuperDuper backup is preferred since it yields a bootable backup that can be instantly reverted back to should there be a problem. You can literally plug in your backup drive, boot from it and be back to where you were without having to do any extra work. With TM, you would need to reinstall the OS and then recover your data from the backup.

 

[bobtomay]

I have to agree with cwa. I keep both SD and TM backups. My SD backup is the one I rely on.

With only a single drive - have to recommend SD way above TM.

 

[blind_30]

Ok this is my first os upgrade on a mac. I am currently using tiger (10.4.11) and i will be upgrading to snow leopard. All i really want to keep are my music, movie and picture files and a few documents. Do i really need to get an external hard drive or would there be some way around this?

 

[cwa107]

Ok this is my first os upgrade on a mac. I am currently using tiger (10.4.11) and i will be upgrading to snow leopard. All i really want to keep are my music, movie and picture files and a few documents. Do i really need to get an external hard drive or would there be some way around this?

The purpose of the backup isn't to help you transfer your data, it's to protect it in the event of a catastrophe. When you're making a major modification to a computer's operating system, it's always prudent to have a backup. And of course, you should continue to use that backup long after your upgrade, because by far, hard drive failures are the most common type of hardware failure on a computer.

 

[blind_30]

Is it possible to do an archive and install and select only specific things to keep?

 

[cwa107]

Is it possible to do an archive and install and select only specific things to keep?

No. You can either upgrade or do a clean install.

 

[blind_30]

Ya i think im going to wait until i get my external before upgrading, im just inpatient and i really want snow leopard and dont want to wait until i have the money for an external. How exactly does SuperDuper work? do you have a link for that?

 

[cwa107]

Ya i think im going to wait until i get my external before upgrading, im just inpatient and i really want snow leopard and dont want to wait until i have the money for an external. How exactly does SuperDuper work? do you have a link for that?

SuperDuper!

 

[Simbad54]

- had to install Leopard first (i noticed you can't restore a time machine backup to a blank disk)

I just reformatted my entire system, as I wanted to increase my bootcamp partition.

With a blank, formatted disk, I booted my Mac from the original install disk, then clicked on Utilities, and then; restore from Time Machine Back Up.
So, it is possible to reinstall Time Machine Back Up's onto a blank harddrive. You didn't need to re-install Leopard first, although, of course it worked any way.

 

[Nighthawk4]

Just a thought.

How does the upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard affect a Boot Camp partition? Will this still work after upgrade? Is the Boot Camp partition updated by SuperDuper as well? I mean can you select the Windows partition in SuperDuper and then restore or boot from the backup of that as well?

I am really keen to try SL. However, having been screwed around so many times by Windows upgrades and new versions of Windows, I am nervous of trusting SL immediately on my iMac. I might give it a try with my Mini first. Would I need to buy another copy of SL for the iMac if I did that, or does it upgrade each Mac I own?

This is my first taste of upgrading a Mac OS, as I started with Leopard.