Hey. thinking of upgrading to snow leopard. should i back up my files first or is there any fear that i could lose files by upgrading???

Hey guys
hoping to upgrade existing OS to Leopard. before i do just wanna confirm that this operation wont effect my existing files on my mac??

You should be keeping a backup anyway.  I use CarbonCopyClone (free download) that makes a bootable copy of my internal drive to be used in case of emergency.  SuperDuper! also has a good reutation in the forum.  Either one would serve well.
Upgrading without a backup is very risky, despite the fact that few upgrade fail catastrophically.  Any hitch in the upgrade could send you back to square 1 and a full reinstall of all applications if you have no backup.

Similar Messages

  • I need to update my OS from 10.5.8 to snow leopard, should I back up my data beforehand or should it be okay to update straight away?

    My laptop has recently stopped updating all of the software on it because it is too out of date, but I'm yet to try and update my laptop. I have the disc for Snow Leopard, but I don't have a harddrive to potentially back up all my data to protect it from getting lost when updating the OS. Should I back up my data before updating? Or just wing it and do the update anyways? Thanks!

    Yes, you should definitely backup your data. And, before doing that you should repair your hard drive and permissions.
    Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
    After installing Snow Leopard download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store.
    Then should you wish to go further:
    Upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion or Mountain Lion
    You can upgrade to Mountain Lion from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $19.99.
    If you sign into the App Store and try to purchase Mountain Lion but the App Store says your computer is not compatible then you may still be able to upgrade to Lion per the following information.
    A. Upgrading to Mountain Lion
    To upgrade to Mountain Lion you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Purchase and download Mountain Lion from the App Store. Sign in using your Apple ID. Mountain Lion is $19.99 plus tax. The file is quite large, over 4 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.
         OS X Mountain Lion - System Requirements
           Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion
             1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later
             2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 5,1 or later
             3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
             4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later
             5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
             6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
             7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
    To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.
         Are my applications compatible?
             See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.
         For a complete How-To introduction from Apple see Upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion.
    B. Upgrading to Lion
    If your computer does not meet the requirements to install Mountain Lion, it may still meet the requirements to install Lion.
    You can purchase Lion by contacting Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service - this includes international calling numbers. The cost is $19.99 (as it was before) plus tax.  It's a download. You will get an email containing a redemption code that you then use at the Mac App Store to download Lion. Save a copy of that installer to your Downloads folder because the installer deletes itself at the end of the installation.
         Lion System Requirements
           1. Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7,
               or Xeon processor
           2. 2GB of memory
           3. OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
           4. 7GB of available space
           5. Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.

  • My Macbook Pro is running really slow, is there any suggestions that I could do being novice to this or should I take it in and let them look at it??

    I tried the Disk Utlity to see if there was something wrong but it went through the process and it was fast for the first 10 minutes then went slow agian!! I am not computer savvy by any means but I know there is programs running in the background, with that said though I have no idea what they are or anything else but it has never ran this slow or not sent mail out like this before!! anybody have any suggestions that I would understand!!

    Have a look here...
    macworld.com/mac-troubleshooting-what-to-do-when-your -computer-is-too-slow.
    Basically...
    1)  Make sure you have enough Free Hard Drive space for your Mac to Perform as expected...
    Rule of thumb is about 15 to 20 GB
    2)  And adding more RAM is always a prudent move... (4GB of RAM is a minimum for Mavericks... 8GB at least would be better.)
    You can use these Links to check which RAM is suitable for your Mac...
    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/
    Go to http://www.crucial.com
    It is Important to get the Correct and Matching RAM
    Those sites also have videos on how to Install RAM should you need it...
    Also see > OS X Mavericks: If your Mac runs slowly
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13895

  • I want to upgrade to snow leopard from 10.5.8. Im hesitant to proceed because I'm running iPhoto 7 and word 2004. I want to be sure these programs will still run and I won't lose my photos or the events I have ordered them by. Should i makea clone o

    I want to upgrade to snow leopard from 10.5.8. Im hesitant to proceed because I'm running iPhoto 7 and word 2004. I want to be sure these programs will still run and I won't lose my photos or the events I have ordered them by. Should i make a partition on my new Iomega external and clone it just in case? I'm running time machine and backing up all the time onto an old LaCie, and right now I have a copy of my iPhoto library on new Iomega, which I recopy every couple of weeks. I got the computer new several years ago and it came with iLife and 10.4 OS I think.

    Word 2004 is almost 10 years old, you will not be able to upgrade beyond Snow Leopard with it. IMHO you have gotten your money's worth out of the application and need to upgrade to Office for Mac 2011, this will work just fine and read your old files just fine too. What will not run beyond SL are all PowerPC (PPC) apps such as Word 2004. You will need to update, upgrade or replace any PPC based apps you want to use. I would recommend taking a little time and check for updates to each of your apps. Then open System Profiler (Applications - Utilities - System Profiler) click the Applications link on the left and then look for any PPC based apps, those are the ones that will not run. You can upgrade to SL just fine with the apps you currently have however if you want to go beyond SL (it's already 2 generations behind) you will need to update or upgrade your apps. You can take your time doing it but eventually you're going to have to begin

  • Weather widget not working after upgrade to Snow Leopard (Australian areas)

    The weather widget is not working since I upgraded to Snow Leopard.
    The feed seems to have changed from Accuraweather or something like that to Yahoo!Weather, and Yahoo!Weather seems to have problems (at least concerning weather data feeds from places in Australia).
    I live in Kempsey, New South Wales (Australia). I can't input that address, because it won't validate. When I try typing my address in the widget autocompletes with "Kempsey, Austral Eden, New South Wales (Australia)" (FYI, Austral Eden is a rural parish near Kempsey, but Austral Eden is not in Kempsey and Kempsey is not in Austral Eden). That address will validate, but there seems to be no weather feed: ie. I don't get any information displayed in the widget.
    The nearest address that will validate correctly is "Port Macquarie, New South Wales (Australia)". The Yahoo!Weather feed doesn't provide any information about that, either.
    I can get a weather data feed for Canberra. But Canberra is 800 kilometres from here.
    I think I want to change back to AccuraWeather. How would I do that?

    I'm annoyed by this as well.
    I was planning on buying my father the Snow Leopard upgrade for Christmas, but there is no way he'll want it without a working Port Macquarie weather widget. ( I'm not kidding! )
    I've looked at the AccuWeather widget as well, but it is really ugly!

  • Upgrade to snow leopard for free

    Hey,
    Wondering if anyone could help me, my friend bought a 13inch Macbook Pro (2009) just before Snow Leopard was released. I know if you bought your Macbook within a certain period, you could upgrade to Snow leopard for free. However, does anyone know if this is still on offer? As he wants to upgrade to Lion.
    Thank you very much,
    Reece

    No, seems like you had 30 days from purchase to claim the upgrade.  The same thing applies to Lion upgrades.
    They will have to purchase the $29 SL upgrade and then purchase Lion.
    Regards,
    Captfred

  • After upgrade to Snow Leopard temperature rockets skyhigh

    Hi everybody,
    After upgrading to Snow Leopard, and further to the dot 1 release my iMac runs so hot that it starts to smell. the power supply temp goes to 95 Celsius. It used to stabelise on 75 Celsius before the upgrade.
    Fans don't seem to kick in anymore. I shut down after every two hours or so to avoid damage.
    Apart from that SL runs fine. I read the other posts abt temperature, but awaiting a real solution.
    Thanks,
    Rob

    Go into Displays Preferences and, if you haven't already done so previously, put a checkmark in the box for "Show displays in menu bar". Then, click on the resulting icon that shows up in the menu bar to drop the menu and select "Number of Recent Items" and set it to 10. Now drop the menu a second time and see if there are two 1920 x 1080 resolutions. If so, one of them may be the older one previously in use that was working.

  • Should I upgrade to Snow Leopard?

    Hi. I'm on a white Macbook. I think it's one of the first generation Macbooks, not sure. I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.11 and am thinking of upgrading to Snow Leopard. Will this make things run slower? Faster? I've got a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo processor with 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. I will only upgrade it it doesn't strain the processor and slow things down. I've got 124 GB available of 148 GB capacity. (I keep all of my music and most of my photos on a separate hard drive)
    Thanks!

    Hey Wade,
    I know of at least 1 person on the forums here who is running Snow Leopard on a first-gen MacBook like yours. It seems to run very well.
    I'd say it's definitely worth investing the $29 in the newer software. Which version of Photoshop do you use, though? I believe CS3 and anything earlier don't always work well with Snow Leopard.
    ~Lyssa

  • I have a Mac mini OSX 10.4.11 Intel Core Duo, 512mb, 1.83 GHz with iTunes 9.0.3. What steps do I need to take to get my music library to my iPad. I dont think I meet the requirements to just upgrad to snow leopard and/or lion. I want the music I paid for

    I have a Mac mini OS X 10.4.11, intel core duo processor (not core 2 duo), with 512 mb and 1.83 GHz processor.  I only have version 9.0.3 of iTunes because it hasn't let me go higher, which I believe is because of the operating system.  I want to get my purchased music from the Mac mini to a different computer (that has the latest version of iTunes) and also my iPad.  The Mac mini does not meet the requirements listed to simply upgrade to snow leopard or lion. As far as I can tell.  Forgive me if I am lacking here...this is new to me.  What can I do to get the music transferred.  I have invested alot of money over the past few years on all this music that I should be able to transfer.  Thank you in advance if you can help me.

    If you want to sync it to the iPad from that Mac, you need to upgrade it to at least 10.5.8.
    If you want to copy the music to another Mac, you don't. Move the iTunes folder of the item in the Finder's sidebar over as you would any other folder. If you put it somewhere other than the Music folder, launch iTunes with the Option key held down and point it to that location.
    (61713)

  • Does anyone else think that the AppleMac group of products are marketed in a greedy way? I have MacBook Pro 10.5.8 and am now told that I have to upgrade to Snow Leopard to sync my new iPad. Of course there isn't enough memory on the MacBook? I'm angry!

    Does anyone else think that the AppleMac group of products are marketed in a greedy way? I have MacBook Pro 10.5.8 with Leopard and am now told that I have to upgrade to Snow Leopard so that my system can download the relevant iTunes upgrade to sync my new iPad and get my audiobooks (which don't appear anywhere on the device right now). Of course there isn't enough memory on the MacBook and Snow Leopard costs more also? I don't have financial resources to pay for all the new memory requirement and related upgrades they say I need just to sync my iPad with my purchases.

    Thanks for the reply but I already knew this. $20 for Snow Leopard which asks for 5gb free memory. I can only see that I have 4 gb (which I feel is rather a pathetic amount of available memory for any computer). To upgrade this computer's memory will cost another fee (I haven't researched this yet but gather it's more than $20). Then of course I could also be told that the OSX Mackbook Pro that I have can't be memory upgraded - which means I'm being told to buy a new computer - hence my very frustrated last email. I have been given a lovely iPad 2 as a present and now can't sync at all with anything because of this ongoing upgrade nightmare. How on earth am I going to be able to sync my movies, audiobooks etc to this new device??

  • Rephrase..Have 2009 iMac running snow leopard should I upgrade to Mavericks

    Rephrase..Have 2009 iMac running snow leopard should I upgrade to Mavericks

    If your machine meets the specs, the latest is Yosemite; make sure you check all the requirements as your machine falls right at the back end of being supported - meaning that it will not run at its maximum speed due to an older processor. You'd also need an absolute minimum opf 4 GB RAM - 8 would be much better.

  • Should I upgrade to Snow Leopard/ Lion using a MacBook Pro with 2.26 GHz Inetl Core 2 Duo Processor and 2GB Memory? Can my old macbook take it?

    Should I upgrade to Snow Leopard/ Lion using a MacBook Pro with 2.26 GHz Inetl Core 2 Duo Processor and 2GB Memory? Can my old macbook take it?
    thanks

    Yes. You should be fine with Snow Leopard, but Lion requires a minimum of 2 GBs of RAM. If you upgrade to Lion I would first upgrade your RAM to at least 4 GBs if your model supports it. Also, see:
    How to Install OS X Updates Successfully
    A. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions:
    Boot from your current OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list.  In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive.  If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally. 
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
    B. Make a Bootable Backup Using Restore Option of Disk Utility:
    Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
    Select the destination volume from the left side list.
    Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
    Check the box labeled Erase destination.
    Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
    Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
    Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
    C. Important: Please read before installing:
    If you have a FireWire hard drive connected, disconnect it before installing the update unless you will boot from this drive and install the update on it. Reconnect it and turn it back on after installation is complete and you've restarted.
    You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)
    The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update.  While the installation is in progress do not use the computer.
    D. To upgrade:
    Purchase the Snow Leopard Retail DVD.
    Boot From The OS X Installer Disc:
    Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
    Restart the computer.
    Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
    Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
    Wait for installer to finish loading.
    E. If updating:
    Download and install update(s) 
    Use Software Update, or
    Download standalone updater(s).

  • I have OS X 10.5.8, should I upgrade to Snow Leopard, or a later version?

    I have  OS X 10.5.8 on a 2008 Macbook Pro. Should I upgrade to Snow Leopard, or a later version?

    Depends. If you use and need PPC apps, then SL. If you don't use any of those, then go to whatever the machine supports. Details at Lion specs and MLion specs.

  • How far should I upgrade from snow leopard

    how far should I upgrade from snow leopard.  I just installed more RAM for a total of 4 GB.
    Thanks

    Check that your computer is compatible with Mountain Lion/Mavericks/Yosemite.
    To check the model number hold down the option/alt key, go to the Apple menu and select System Information.
    iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) model number 7,1 or higher
    Your Mac needs:
    OS X v10.6.8 or OS X Lion already installed
    2 GB or more of memory (More is better - 4 GB minimum seems to be the consensus)
    8 GB or more of available space
    Check to make sure your applications are compatible. PowerPC applications are no longer supported after 10.6.      
    Application Compatibility
    Applications Compatibility (2)
    Do a backup before installing. 
    If you can/do upgrade, I recommend you make a copy of the installer and move it out of your Applications folder. The installer self-destructs. The copy will keep you from having to download the installer again.  You can make a bootable USB stick to install using this free program.
    Bootable USB Flash Drive – Diskmaker X
    If your computer isn’t compatible, you might be able to upgrade to Lion. Personal opinion, I'd stay with Snow Leopard rather than Lion.
    Computer Compatibility - Lion                       Lion

  • Should I do any "maintenance" before upgrading to Snow Leopard?

    Are there any simple things I should do before doing a direct upgrade to Snow Leopard? I have gone through and deleted a ton of files that I don't need, but that's not the maintenance I mean. Should I do a disk repair, clear cache, etc? Anything?

    I verified the disk, but it's fine. I also did a permissions repair.
    For backups I've used Time Machine (to a 500gb external). I know it's not the best solution, but I like it. It's been working fine since Leopard came out, and I have done one restore from it.
    Actually, just tonight I've been experiencing a lot of beachballing, I'm not sure what's causing that. One thing I should point out is that I recently installed some new ram, and I've heard that can occasionally cause issues (but I doubt it's the problem).

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