BASIC PREPARATION FOR INSTALLATION OF A NEW SYSTEM

Here is some advice on the steps to take for a successful installation of Snow Leopard (or any major system update or upgrade):
1. Do not start until you have made two bootable back-ups, so that you can easily return to the situation you had before the installation, if something goes wrong. A bootable back-up is a back-up of everything on your drive to an external drive and made "bootable" (that is, you can boot off this external drive to restore your main drive to its pre-existing condition). There are a number of pieces of software which make bootable back-ups. For little money, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. I use Synchronize Pro X, which costs a bit but is industrial strength software. Over the years, I've found that SPX does the job much faster than CCC or SD, and, most importantly, Qdea (the SPX people) puts out a new version of SPX to deal with the new system or update much more quickly than do any of the other back-up software people. Sometimes you won't get the new version of CCC or SD until quite a while after the release of the new system software, and you're not able to make a bootable back-up in time, if you want to install the new system software quickly. HAVING A BOOTABLE BACK-UP IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO ENSURE THAT YOU DON'T LOSE ANY DATA AND THAT YOU CAN RECOVER QUICKLY IF THERE'S A PROBLEM WITH AN INSTALLATION. Test the bootable back-up by booting off it before you try the installation of the new software.
2. Verify and Repair your main drive and Repair Permissions before doing any major installation. You want your drive data to be in excellent shape before putting in a new system or update. When the installation is done, repair the permissions again.
3. Check carefully for any information about the compatibility of the new system software with your primary applications and peripherals (in particular, printers). Even with a good new installation, you may lose a printer if it's old and there's no new driver for it. Don't be surprised after the installation that you've lost the use of your printer or other important peripheral device.
4. If you run into problems, check the Apple discussion forums to see if someone else had the same problems and find out what they did to solve them.
Message was edited by: jsamu50901

You may be able to make a bootable back-up with DU, but DU can't do a quick update of the back-up as time progresses. The beauty of a piece of software like Synchronize Pro X is that, once you have a bootable back-up, you can quickly update it week by week. SPX can very quickly find the changes in your master drive and put those changes on the bootable back-up. With DU you have to start from scratch each time to make a whole new disk image.
A bootable back-up isn't just for use to protect against an installation problem. I've had a computer stolen in a hotel room, and I was able to use a friend's computer (which was also a Mac) to keep working. I just hooked up my back-up, booted off it and now his computer appeared to be my computer, because my bootable back-up recreated my usual work environment on his computer.
Similarly, if your main drive fails, you've lost nothing if you have a bootable back-up. You're up and running again very quickly.
I keep my bootable back-ups up-to-date always. And with Synchronize Pro X, this is very quickly and easily done.

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