Upgrading to FCP-2

Question

Hey,
I bought FCPS-2 about a month ago and have been practicing with it on my MBP,
while I still continued to do all of my regular projects on my G5 with FCP 5.1.4.
I am now thinking about installing the upgrade on my G5,
but I am concerned about a couple of things,
1) I have heard that you should never upgrade when you are still in the middle of editing a project,
and although I am not actually in the middle of any one project,
there are always going to be some projects that I will have to continually be going back into
to re-edit, so I really don't know when there will be a time that I won't be working on some part of some project.
If I do upgrade and have to re-edit something in an existing project,
what damage can or will I be doing to my existing video project if I had upgraded to FCPS-2?
2) Is there a wrong way to upgrade? I had heard once that just putting in the upgrade disks,
and allowing it to write over the existing applications wasn't the best way to upgrade,
but I don't know any other way to do it.
I would like to continue to use my G5 with the least amount of problems.
I have been editing projects using using FCPS-5.1.4 for the past couple of years,
and (knock on wood) I haven't had any major problems with my HD's.
I want to keep my system as healthy as possible.
I have never totally cleaned out my system and reinstalled my applications,
I had an Apple Instructor tell me that he cleans out & re-installs his entire system every spring.
He called it his spring cleaning. He said that it keeps the garbage from building up.
Short of cleaning my entire system out every spring,
Is there anything I should be doing (besides the normal updates)
to keep my system running in tip top shape?
Sorry for asking so many questions,
but I want to learn from the best and not just from my mistakes,
so that is why I am asking.
Thank you for any & all help regarding this issue.
Todd

Answer 1

*If I do upgrade and have to re-edit something in an existing project,*
*what damage can or will I be doing to my existing video project if I had upgraded to FCPS-2?*
If all works as it should... no damage at all. The next time you open a project that was created with an earlier version of FCP, it will ask you if you want to update the project so it will open. The normal safe procedure is to let the project update and then immediately SAVE AS, giving the project a new name. This way your original project still exists if you run into any issues.
*I had heard once that just putting in the upgrade disks, and allowing it to write over the existing applications wasn't the best way to upgrade*
I think the accepted procedure suggested by many here is to do a clean install.
Personally, I've never done that when upgrading FCP. My theory is, do the upgrade and see how it works. If I run into issues, I'll do a clean install.
The only thing I do before major upgrades is Repair Permissions and run Apple Disk Utilities and Disk Warrior on the system drive. So far I've never had an issue. I have also never done a clean install for OS upgrades, I just run the disks and go from there.
Having said all that, I have cloned my system drive so that if things do go terrible wrong, I'm not totally pooched.
rh