Converting osx 10.4 to 10.5

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Hi just purchased the 10.5 retail disc, and was wondering before I start the install should I back up all of my pics, music, videos etc? Or will the install wipe the HDD?

Probably a stupid question but I would rather be safe than sorry.

Thanks

(macbook 1.83ghz 2gb ram)
 
C

chas_m

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Borderline stupid question. :)

Personally, I would ALWAYS make a complete CLONE backup before doing ANY major system upgrade. You're going to need an external hard drive anyway (for Time Machine once you get Leopard installed), so you might as well.

The install won't wipe the HD unless you tell it to BUT that's no reason not to make a backup. As you say, better safe than sorry.
 
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Thanks very much chas,

Iv got a 500gb freecom exHDD with at least 200gb free so I think I should be alright there.

Still finding my feet in the mac world after converting in the new year, need the upgrade to get the itunes update so can sync my 3gs. retail disc took long enough to get here lol

Stupid is stupid does :p

Thanks again
 

bobtomay

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15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Yep, backup is an almost must do before upgrading the OS.

ex.
When I upgraded to 10.6, I had a 3rd party driver that was not compatible and caused a kernel panic on boot. Could not get into 10.6 at all after the upgrade.

No problem though. Booted to my 10.5 backup, browsed the crash log, found the offending file, moved it out of the system folder, booted into 10.6.

Took all of about 5 minutes thanks to that bootable backup.
 
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In addition to the all-important local backup, you should also keep an offisite backup of your importnat and irreplaceable files. No matter how you do it (cloud, drive swap,etc.) JUST DO IT!
 
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Further as others suggest backup, he do a clean install rather than an upgrade.
 
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Further as others suggest backup, he do a clean install rather than an upgrade.

Amen!

I take an OS version change as an opportunity to reformat the hard drive and do a fresh clean install, get rid of all the crud and problems.

But first,
- Back up your documents, music, pictures...
- Be sure you have installers for all of your applications, especially including ones you downloaded.

P.S.: put your macbook specs into your profile, so they'll show up under your name. And your specs need to be more complete for people to help you better (if in doubt, you can post "help me figure out what the heck my computer is" :-D )
 

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