Installing Snow Leopard Fresh or Upgrade for my setup...

Hi guys,
Just got my Snow Leopard disk... awesomely excited!
Never done this before so need to ask... what's the best way of going about the upgrade?
I currently have Leopard installed with Time Machine external HD running for backups.
Should I stick the disk in and upgrade? then restore from Time Machine?
Should I do a clean install, formatting first then installing, then restoring from Time Machine?
Or what?
I'd appreciate some direction. Just need to break the newb barrier
Thank you!

In your place, I would move to SL if, and only if, I had an external drive with a bootable clone of my internal on it and had my files backed up in some other secure place. I think that there is enough risk in going to SL that such conservatism is warranted. I would not use time machine alone for backup/restoring. This app can be problematic and, consequently, its solo use is too risky for me. You will be able to extract your settings, files, and programs from your clone if you do an erase and install.
To erase and install (upgrade is covered below), start up to your DVD and stop after selecting your language. Use the menus to start Disk Utility and erase your drive. Quit Disk Utility and proceed with your installation. At the end, you will be able to choose to reclaim your settings, files, and apps from the clone (plug in the external at the point of the last install restart).
If you do not like SL, then you can restore your internal using the clone. I would do all cloning and related restoration with SuperDuper or some other up-to-date cloning app. Your clone also will serve as an independent backup for your data.
I want to mention that upgrading is a sound process on a Mac. Still, I also would insist on having a bootable clone on an external before upgrading. An upgrade is performed by installing over your existing installation from the desktop or having started from your SL DVD. All you programs, data, and settings will be present after an upgrade, but incompatible programs will be archived.
Message was edited by: donv (The Ghost)

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  • Suggestions for Safely Installing Snow Leopard

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    1. Repair your hard drive and permissions:
    Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your OS X 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) 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.
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    1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
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    4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
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    Kappy many thanks for the posted advice on SL, which I followed, thanks to being directed here from replies to my own post on my SL install problems...
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    2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
    3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
    4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
    5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
    6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
    7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
    8. Data Backup (Commercial)
    9. SilverKeeper 2.0 (Freeware)
    10. MimMac (Commercial)
    11. CloneTool Hatchery (Shareware)
    12. Clone X (Commercial)
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    1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
    2. Toast
    3. Impression
    4. arRSync
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    Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
    Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
    Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
    Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.
    Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your OS X 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 Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) 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 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.

  • Im trying to instal snow leopard on my macbook. its running tiger 10.4.11 and it meets all the requirements  but it ask me for a restart to begin instalation progres, i restar it and it doesn't happen anything

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    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
    But it does it automatically unless you specifically erase the Disk, but will replace Tiger completely for the OS & several Apple Apps like Safari, Mail, etc, yet preserve your old settings for those!
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    2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
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    3. Click the First Aid tab.
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    5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

  • How Best To Install Snow Leopard For A Non-Techy?

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    Message was edited by: Julian Brown

    Julian Brown wrote:
    As a keen Mac-user (but by no means a technical expert) I would like my Snow Leopard experience to be as painless as possible, so how best to install it please and at the same time eliminate my old Leopard problems outlined above?
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