Re-Installing Snow Leopard - Backup required first?
Though I know its always good to backup before a reinstall, my Time Machine is not working (which is why I have come to reinstalling system). I am told that the process of booting from Snow Leopard disk and installing will save off all my data and settings, then they will be there after the install. Is this true? I am currently dragging photos and music onto external drive to be safe, but I thought I'd check out of curiosity.
Is this true?
Yes, unless you use the Disk Utility to erase the drive or a problem occurs during the installation.
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Similar Messages
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I installed Snow Leopard when it first came out but now my mac says it has os x 10.5.x. Where did snow leopard go?
Hi, after a little more looking, I think your response might lead me to a solution. It looks like the Snow Leopard install package is on my MacBook Pro hard drive but apparently something isn't right because I'm still running 10.5. I found something called 10.6 Install Package or something like that and clicked on it. It asked me where I wanted to install it and I said on the MacBook Pro hard drive in a new folder called Snow Leopard. It told me the installation was successful. I then restarted the computer but it is still using 10.5. Any suggestions on what to do now?
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Fresh install snow leopard - backup question
So here's the scoop;
My 2008 iMac is slowing down. What is the most efficient way to backup settings and files to an external drive, wipe the drive and run a fresh install for maximum speed?
I installed snow leopard as an upgrade from leopard on the day it was out and love it, I just like to start from scratch from time to time and I have a lot of files right now. I basically just want to backup all the files and preferences as they stand now, and copy it back onto a fresh install.1. Repair the hard drive and permissions.
2. Clone the system to an external hard drive.
3. Boot from the Snow Leopard DVD and use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat the drive.
4. Install Snow Leopard.
5. Restore your data from the external backup.
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.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive.
Source means the internal startup drive.
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. 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.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size. -
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. anyone can help me?
I assume the restart was prompted during the installation process?
First of all, that restart will take several minutes while files are moved into place and should not be interrupted.
If it fails, or you have interrupted the process, you'll need to boot from the installer (hold down the C key on startup) and use Disk Utility to erase the drive prior to continuing the installation.
That will wipe all data on the drive, though, so if you didn't make a backup before beginning the upgrade, you'll need to get your data off safely before proceeding. That may likely require the use of another Mac to access yours in Target Disc Mode. -
Am running Tiger 10.4.11; just got Snow Leopard 10.6.3 (regular OS disk, not upgrade). When I install Snow Leopard, will it wipe everything? overwrite Tiger? Do I need to make backups of applications and files to reinstall after Snow Leopard Loads? thanks!
Hi Donald,
No it doesn't erase anything by default, it does what we used to call an Archive and Install feature, which can give you a new OS, yet preserve your files and settings if you have enough room on your HD...
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!
If you think you may need Tiger to run any APPs that do not work in SL/10.6, then clone or backup first.
I would recomend 2 things before installing though...
Make sure you have enough RAM & HD space.
Snow Leopard/10.6.x Requirements...
General requirements
* Mac computer with an Intel processor
* 1GB of memory (I say 2GB at least)
* 5GB of available disk space (I say 30GB at least)
If it's a core Duo & not a Core2Duo, then it'll only run in 32 bit mode.
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the new Mac OS X SL/10.6 Install Disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
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.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214 -
Installing Snow Leopard on a Vintage iMac that meets all the technical requirements
I am trying to install Snow Leopard on "Vintage" iMac that is currently running 10.5.8. I have the Snow Leopard DVD but when I put it in I get an error message that says "Mac OS X Snow Leopard cannot be installed on this computer". I have already confirmed with Apple Tech Support that my system meets the requirements and should be able to run Snow Leopard. Any suggestions? Is there another way to install the Operating System. Tech Support said they couldn't help any further because it is a Vintage. But they suggested posting a question to the apple community.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!Try this first:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your 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.
Now boot from your Snow Leopard installer and try the installation. -
I just had a new hard drive installed after a hard drive failure. I need to install Snow Leopard, Lion and VMware Fusion. Should I use migration assistant to reinstall my old files and applications first or should I install the new Operating Systems first? Some of the old files do have corrupt data and I will have to pick and choose what back-up files I re-install.
Pondini wrote:
memalyn wrote:
Some files were backed up on another external drive but not all.
How was that done? Drag & drop? An app like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper?
Initially files were backed up on the iMac with Time Machine. I purchased a My Book external hard drive and after doing a full back up on it, I began doing all of my incremental back ups on it using Time Machine. Sometime later, I purchased a Western Digital external hard drive that included back up software on it called "WD Back-up" so I could use it to store all of my Music and Audiobooks on to keep my iMac and My Book free of those file types. The WD Backup software allowed me to pick and choose what files I wanted to back-up. I don't think I had been backing up Music and Audiobooks on the Mac anyway or maybe I was, I don't remember if I can selectively pick and choose files with Time Machine - I have not checked as I have not yet plugged it into my new hard drive. Once The My Book drive became full with regular back ups, around June or so I had to switch over to the WD Back up drive. I recall that I was very concerned that I could not do a full back up on the WD drive because if I did, I would have to reformat the drive and I did not want to do that, so I think I was able to selectively back up some additional files from my iMac but again, I do not know for sure since I have not looked at what is on the drive. I do know that if I was able to back up additional files I had to do it with WD Back up and not Time Machine, if that matters.
I know that the files in the partitioned drive and files associated with VMware Fusion are damaged. If I do a full restore, it will restore the VMware Fusion app and partioned drive
We need some clarification:
Do you mean there were 2 partitions on your internal HD? If so, how was the second one formatted? Was it backed-up?
No, there was only one partitioned drive. The way I understand it is the VMware Fusion software does the partitioning and the app resides on the Mac. After that was done, I then installed the Windows software on the partitioned drive. There is a critical file on the Mac under a Folder called Virtual Machines and in the Virtual Machines folder, the "Windows Bundle" or some such thing keeps locking each time the software crashes due to the problem files somewhere within the files in the VMware Fusion software that (I think resides) in the Windows environment that I cannot access. The Virtual Machine file on the Mac gets backed up so the Windows Bundles files get backed up and that includes all the screen shots (essentially backups) of the Windows environment. The Windows environment includes some of the apps and their data in Windows such as Quicken. Theoretically, the partitioned drive does not get backed up but in reality if the screen shots do, some of the partitioned drive does - corrupt or not. If you have a Quicken file open and a drop down screen in Quicken frozen when the system crashes, that is what gets backed up and there is no way you can get back into Windows or Quicken.
If I do a full restore, it will restore the VMware Fusion app
If you restore an OSX volume, yes, that will restore all apps, but that's not necessarily bad. If necessary or desired, you can always delete or reinstall a suspect app. That way, all your other apps will be ok. For most users, reinstalling all apps is a considerable project. See Transferring Applications for an explanation.
Well, that is true. To reinstall VMware Fusion, Windows and Quicken would much, much easier than all of the Mac software I have. Plus, the VMware Fusion version I have is not compatible with Lion and my goal is to install Lion, so I will have to upgrade VMware Fusion no matter what. Further, I'm so aggravated with the dual operating system, I've been looking at products to replace Quicken, so if anyone knows of a good home, small business and home rental financial product they can recommend, I'm all ears!
If I do a full restore, it will restore . . . and partioned drive
If there are 2 partitons, a full restore only restores the OSX partition. If a non-OSX partition was backed-up, it must be restored separately.
Now that I've said I only have 1 partitioned drive, does that mean it will restore the partitioned drive? I would prefer it did not. It seems now that it would be much cleaner to restore the OSX drive. Would I be able to do that?
So, depending on the exact circumstances, your best be may be to restore the most recent OSX partition, then restore/copy those files that were backed-up on another drive; reinstall VMware if necessary; restore the other partition.
So . . . things may be a bit more complex than we though, but perhaps less dire.
More detail on the various partitions and backups should clarify things. -
I have created a new partition on the Mac HD for Lion as I would like to dual boot. Do I need to install Snow Leopard on that partition before installing Lion? If so, can I use one of my Time Machine backups to do this?
zoominnana wrote:
Can I set up 2 different time capsule backups? one for the lion partition and one for the snow leopard partition?
No, you can't partition a Time Capsule's internal HD. Both partitions will back up to the same sparse bundle. keeping the backups for each partition separate.
Time Machine will not take the two OSX partitions as two different computers, but for best results, exclude the Snow Leopard drive from backups on the Lion partition, and exclude the Lion partition from backups on the Snow Leopard partition.
There may be some files on the Lion partition that Time Machine on Snow Leopard won't like, among other things. See #10 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details. -
Can I upgrade to Lion from OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard)? Do I need to install Snow Leopard first? If so, Which version?
There are only two versions of Snow Leopard, the ordinary one and the server edition. Most people have no need of the server edition. Any Snow Leopard retail disc, no matter how old, even 10.6.0, can be updated to 10.6.8, so the version is pretty much irrelevant. You need to make sure your hardware is up to scratch for Lion though - you have to have an Intel processor, Core 2 Duo or better - NOT Core Duo.
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I have a first generation MacBook Air that has been refurbished via the Apple store. I installed Snow Leopard about a year ago and now, my computer wont update! It will download the updates restart my computer, but then I get an error message and the computer wont restart!
What is a error message and what do you see when it appears?
Haven't much problem with Airs around here, since they have a SSD they tend to be more reliable.
Perhaps it was a bad update, have you ran through this list of possible fixes?
Do as many as possible, starting with #1. Until the problem is resolved.
Use the boot 10.6 USB instead of the disk of course.
Step by Step to fix your Mac -
I need to upgrade my desktop which is running version 10.5.8. Do I have to install snow leopard first or can I go directly to mountain lion?
robertnb1985 wrote:
you can just go to apple.com/store and get it from there but the apple stores no longer have it, you might be able to buy it at bestbuy
Not necessary. The Apple web store has Snow Leopard disks at a very attractive price:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard -
re: Migrating my IPhoto from Time Machine Backup to my just-installed Snow Leopard OSX... the program is there, all my photos are there..... but my photos had all been neatly arranged in folders, and there is absolutely no sign of my folders. What a mess, 20,000 photos. How can I restore my folders?
(iphoto 08)Restore the library from Time Machine as shown in this screenshot:
Then open the library with iPhoto. No importing necessary.
OT -
Re-install Snow Leopard from TimeMachine backup
Hey guys,
What is the advance of re-installing Snow Leopard from a TimeMachine Backup, cause it installs just like before?? Or does it remove some (crap)files??
ThnxGizburdt wrote:
I backuped my MAcbook (Snow). But it is running a little bit slow, so i want to re-install it from the backup. But I wonder, if i re-install it from the backup. Isn't it slow again, cause It installs all the files back on my Macbook.
If you do a full restore of your system, almost everything will be put back. The only things missing will be the ones that Time Machine excludes automatically: system work files, most caches, your logs, trash, etc. So unless you have a corrupted cache (which is much easier to fix by clearing it), it's not going to help much, if at all. The only exception would be, if your HD is nearly full and badly fragmented, it may speed up a bit, but not for long. A much better solution would be to delete some old stuff.
If you do a new install of Snow Leopard from your Install disc (and load the "combo" update), that will get you a new version of OSX without touching your apps or other files. So if there's a problem with your installation of OSX, that may fix it. -
I installed Snow Leopard, upgraded it to OS X 10.6.8, paid for and spent the hours necessary to download Lion, but Lion will not install. Even though it says the requirements are 10.6.6 or greater, when I try to install, I get a message saying I need 10.7. to install Lion. What should I do?
Hi..
Make sure your Mac meets Lion's requirements.
Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
2GB of memory
OSX v10.6.6 or later (V10.6.8 recommended)
7GB of available spare
From here > Apple - OS X Lion - Technical specifications
If your Mac meets the requirements, installing the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo reinstalls the App Store for you which may help.
Restart your Mac after instaling the combo installed. It's ok to do this even though you are already running v10.6.8.
If you have anti virus software installed, you may need to disable that in order to install Lion. -
.How to install snow leopard
Upgrading to Snow Leopard
You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store:Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to 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. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mavericks if your computer meets the requirements.
Snow Leopard General Requirements
1. Mac computer with an Intel processor
2. 1GB of memory
3. 5GB of available disk space
4. DVD drive for installation
5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider;
fees may apply.
6. Some features require Apple’s iCloud services; fees and
terms apply.
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
2. 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 the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
(Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
Assistant. After you finish Setup Assistant will complete the installation after which
you will be running a fresh install of OS X. You can now begin the update process
by opening Software Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your
installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
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