Upgrading to Leopard or do a clean install?

Hi
I just bought Leopard and installed it like they show it in the Guided Tour. Of course it is very handy that all my files and settings are saved and used in Leopard as if I hadn't changed OS at all, but was just wondering if it would be good to do a back up of my files and do a clean i install of Leopard? The reason why I would consider this is because when I had a Windows computer after a few months of use all kinds of crap were on my disk and a fresh install of Windows could take care of that. But maybe Macs don't get "filled up" in the same way? Or if they do, maybe "all that crap" is removed even if you only do an upgrade and not a clean install?
Thanks

I have an external HD I can copy my files to so doing a clean install would not be a big problem, but I just don't know if I wanna go through all that if it doesn't even help. Leopard is running fine, though I was expecting it to be a little faster (I was told it would be faster partially because of the 64 bit anyway), the animations when using stacks for instance is not as smooth as they could be. But that could be caused by many other things to I guess and not necessarily because I didn't do a clean install.
By the way now we're talking back-ups, if I try out Time Machine and back up my HD using it, can I then, if I change my mind, do a clean install of Leopard and use the back-up created by Time Machine to get my files back into my HD?

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Leopard wireless issues and clean install

I've been wrestling with wireless problems since upgrading to Leopard (I've discussed my issues on this forum). I've tried all the suggested fixes I've found, but still have spotty wireless. I'm going to try a clean install next (erasing my hard drive). Any suggestions on how to do this and increase my chances of solving the problem? I'll have to install Tiger first, as I only have a Leopard upgrade disc (not full install).
Thanks in advance.

There is an Upgrade DVD. It's called the "CPU Drop-In DVD" and was being shipped with new Macs that had already been built when Leopard was released. Several of my clients received their new Mac's with Tiger after Leopard was released. It was a choice of either take back the computers and reformat them and then repackage them. Apple chose to just include the disc.
I suppose the DVD could do a fresh install on a machine it came with, or one that matched certain criteria.
Many users of older machines have tried to use these DVD's to install Leopard to their Mac's that otherwise meet the hardware requirements for Leopard. It didn't work. The installer refuses to install to the older machine.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Leopard+drop+in+dvdproblem
I have no information about how the installer verify's the suitability of a machine, but using the DVD on another computer would violate the EULA.
Another thought... If you do a fresh install of Leopard you will probably want to reinstall iLife from your Tiger DVD's. iLife is not on the retail DVD, and I don't think it's on the drop-in DVD.
You may want to make a bootable clone of your existing Leopard installation with SuperDuper, just in case there are any problems with the installation or there is no improvement. Then you can just re-clone your backup to your boot drive to save time and effort.

How can I restore my contacts from a snow leopard time machine to clean instal of Lion

I recently did a clean instal of Lion (which was wayyyyy to difficult by the way--why this wasnt an easy option to begin with I do not know and am not happy about).
In my sleep depravation from the previous problem I accidentally synced my contacts from mobile me to take my computer contacts (deleting all my contacts from my phone and computer).
Fortunately I have a back up on my time machine from my previously installed Snow Leopard.
I tried to restore these files, but they seem to not be compatible.
Steps I took:
1.) -Opened Address Book in Lion
-Opened time machine
notes: i could not go backward in time with lion address book
2.) -Copied files from time machine address book to desktop
-completely unable to open files.
I do not want to use migration assistant because it seems to want to take ALL my files over and frankly thats not what I want to do at all.
PLEASE HELP!

Hi,
See this Excellent Link by Pondini on TM:
http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Index.html
May be Helpful...

Upgrading to Leopard, won't start from Install disk?? Even with 'C' held

Hello, I'm trying to upgrade to Leopard and then Snow Leopard. My DVD drive works, as in I can read DVDs, burn discs etc. When I insert the Leopard upgrade disk (genuine, bought from Apple and already exchanged once) it asks me to restart to get to the Installer - so far so good.
But it just won't get to the Installer stage, I only get the circle wheel, no matter how long I leave it on for. The DVD makes some noise, it is being read but it doesn't boot. I have tried holding the 'C' key and selecting the disk as startup via system preferences, to no avail. I exchanged the disk at the Apple store just in case it was faulty, but I'm still having the same problem.
Is this a hardware problem? Is there any way I could get round it?
Thanks i advance!
Julie

Do you know of a way to 'bypass' the restart to get straight to the Installer?
Do you have a second Mac around? You can "borrow" the optical drive in another Mac by starting it in Firewire Target Disk mode.
There are other ways, but they are pretty involved and require a bootable hard drive you are willing to erase.
And I heard that I'd have to erase my hard drive to upgrade to snow leopard directly, is this right?
No, you do not have to erase the drive.
The only thing I can think it perhaps your optical drive is going bad. I believe that drives have to meet more stringent requirements when called upon to boot from a disc than when just playing a DVD when they can skip minor errors.

When Moving To Leopard Please Do A Clean Install

There are so many questions on this forum and in the DVD SP forums about installing Leopard and having issues with FCS2.
*NOTE: FOR BEST PROTECTION AND BACKUP, ALWAYS CLONE YOUR BOOT DRIVE TO ANOTHER DRIVE, EXTERNAL OR INTERNAL, USING CCC OR SUPERDUPER.*
It's been said many times many ways:
1. Do not do an update install.
2. Do not do an *archive and install*.
3. *Backup your critical files, mail, etc. to a third drive. Know what you are doing and make certain you have original installers for all your needed applications and serial numbers*.
4. Do a clean wipe of your boot drive, install Leopard and update the OS.
5. Install FCS, and do a software update repeatedly to get to the latest versions of your proapps and proapps support.
Install the rest of your apps, and restore the critical files.
*KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING*.
For those of us who have done this, the early reports are no or minimal issues.
*HOSTS - Please don't delete this*.

I'm actually working on this today; I've got Leopard installed and running on a clean, zeroed out drive on my MacPro. I've done the updates (There weren't many since I got 10.5.1 on the disk) and I'm ready to install a brand new FCS 2 that arrived via UPS Friday.
I've got FCS 1 on another drive with 10.4.10, along with everything else I use, all nicely backed up, so I'm free to forge ahead with this new installation. When it's finished, and I've updated to 6.0.2, etc., I will copy over one or two of my project files (all my media is stored on an outboard RAID), and update them, relink the media, and check them out.
I imagine I'll be keeping the old versions for awhile, too, until I'm really sure. But this way, I don't really have to worry, or bother backing up the new versions, until I'm ready to make the permanent switch.
I'll post later on how it went.

Upgrading to Lightroom 5 after a clean install removed my Lightroom 3

Hi,
I recently had to do a fresh install of Mavericks on my Mac to eliminate some corrupted files. After the install of the new OS, I am not able to restore applications from my TimeMachine backups. I previously had Lightroom 3 installed, but I installed from a disc and I can't find the serial numbers anywhere. I thought I would just upgrade to Lightroom 5 so I bought the upgrade through Adobe to avoid losing serial numbers again, but when I try to install Lightroom 5, it asks me for my Lightroom 3 serial number.
I need help either restoring my old Lightroom 3 app from a TimeMachine backup or figuring out how to activate my Lightroom 5 upgrade.
Thanks so much in advance for your help.

you need your lr 3 serial number to use the lr 5 upgrade, and using timemachine to restore adobe apps is notoriously faulty.
if you still want to try using timemachine, contact apple for help.

Snow Leopard install was a clean install or an Upgrade?

I was wondering if there is a way to find out if an installed version of Snow Leopard is from a clean install or from an upgrade from an earlier version. Is there an indication on the About Apple menu as to the type of install that was performed?
Thanks
John

baltwo wrote:
There won't be a Previous System folder because the SL installation process no longer includes the Archive and Install option.
See my reply above. It applies when doing a normal upgrade installation of Sno.
baltwo wrote:
There's also no Erase & Install option. All you get is install.
Sure there is an erase and install option. You have the option to erase and install. Just because there is no erase and install check box doesn't mean that there is no erase and install option.
If It was an upgrade install, that is on top of an existing installation or erased and installed and then migrated from a previous installation, then you >should note applications in /Applications that aren't shown in the install log. If you erased the boot volume and installed SL, then installed other apps, then >all of those should show up in the install log.
Good points, I think. I don't use the logs that much.

How do you RE-INSTALL Leopard 10.5 over already installed LEOPARD upgraded?

I have an iMac computer that originally had Tiger installed. I did all the updates to Tiger and was ready for Leopard. I used "Super Duper" and cloned my hardrive before I installed the new Leopard (10.5 dvd) using th UPGRADE option. After installing Leopard (UPGRADE) and upgrading to 10.5.2 I felt I might get better results with either a "CLEAN INSTALL" or an "INSTALL & ARCHIVE." So, I put the LEOPARD 10.5 DVD back in my Mac, thinking the INSTALLER CHOICES of UPGRADE, ARCHIVE & INSTALL or CLEAN INSTALL would show up again and I could just ERASE this version of Leopard and do the CLEAN INSTALL or ARCHIVE & INSTALL and start over! Well when i put the DVD in the BIG X with the install and restart but not the INSTALL CHOICES? i tried 'OPTION" key hod down and "C" key hold down. what do I do? Thanks in advance for your support and help

baltwo wrote:
If you installed the Time Machine & Airport update, the install disk probably doesn't recognize the HD.
really?? I would find that very strange. Archive and install should definitely be possible anyway. At the screen where one sees the choice of a disk to install to, there should be an "Options" button. Clicking on it should bring up a screen with a choice of upgrade and install (I believe that's the default), archive and install, and erase and install. Choosing archive and install should allow one to proceed.

Oct 2014: from Snow Leopard, can you do a clean install using download of OSX10.8?

Hi there,
I'd like to do a clean install from Snow Leopard using the OSX10.8 download from Apple's website. It states there that i must have Snow Leopard already installed to do this, so does that mean it's impossible to do?
I'd appreciate any help on this please.
Thanks for your time,
Richard
MacBook Pro 15", mid 2010 running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, 8gb ram, 500gb HD, Intel Core i7

Hi QuickTimeKirk, thanks very much for your prompt reply.
The fact that it's only sold via the App Store with a redemption code - does that mean it's not a full version of Mountain Lion in its own right? It's just an upgrade?
The reason for the 'clean install' is really because part of this whole process is the need to update certain legacy software, and also the machine is starting to show a few unusual behaviours. Nothing too earth shattering, just enough to cause me a bit of grief. So with everything considered i just thought, 'right, time to overhaul the whole system' - what better time to start - repair the HD (if necessary), go through the usual back-up routines and wipe the disk. Hence the decision for a completely clean install.
So, if you happen to know if the Mountain Lion download is a full version that would be great.
Thanks for your help Kirk, it's appreciated, and hope to hear from you soon. Best wishes, Richard

Time machine full after clean install of snow leopard

I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard by doing a clean install. I just connected my external HD to backup Time Machine, and it's telling me the disk is full and there's not enough space to backup, even though it spent some time deleting files. I'm guessing that it's not deleting files from before I installed Snow Leopard? I'm not sure of the best way to manually clear the earlier backups. (in case it matters, my external HD is partitioned with Super Duper backups on one half, and TM on the other).
I tried looking at the TM troubleshooting tips, but wasn't sure of the best way to deal with this - rather safe than sorry!
Thanks for any advice.

The "proper way" is while in time machine, go to the specific backup you want to delete. Then click the gear shape or the settings on the menu bar. There is an option "delete backup".
When opening your time machine HD and open "Backups.backupdb" are there two machines appearing or just one? If there are two, go to the time machine icon in your doc and control click on the icon. Select the option "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" and select the older machine to access and/or delete backups.
I believe at times I've also just deleted the specific backups when accessing the time machine HD in the finder.

With the Clean Install of Leopard System Slowness

I have a MacBook Pro 2.0 Core Duo 2GB RAM (first generation)Mac OS 10.5.1 w/recent updates.
Initially, I did an upgrade from Tiger to Leo and there was no slowness. I was asked one of the external audio interface manufacturers that their driver might not work properly if upgraded from Tiger to Leo (without clean install). It needs a clean install so I performed a clean install of Leopard.
Now, my MacBook Pro is slow when I try to run (start) an applications e.g. Logic Pro 8 or when I try to navigate through folders. There is a delay in displaying icons or opening files.
Are there any services or back ground applications that I can turn off? Has anyone else experience similar issue?
Thanks
Mitch

thats happening all the time. it is not a one time thing. if there was a run away process it should get killed when a reboot is performed right?
it appears that i have to modify Leo so that only needed services and apps running but not sure which one to kill

Clean install of Leopard made my system run slow

I have a MacBook Pro 2.0 Core Duo 2GB RAM (first generation)
Initially, I did an upgrade from Tiger to Leo and there was no slowness. I was asked one of the external audio interface manufacturers that their driver might not work properly if upgraded from Tiger to Leo (without clean install). It needs a clean install so I performed a clean install of Leopard.
Now, my MacBook Pro is slow when I try to run (start) an applications e.g. Logic Pro 8 or when I try to navigate through folders. There is a delay in displaying icons or opening files. There is a huge delay when I try to switch from Arrange windows.
Are there any services or back ground applications that I can turn off? Has anyone else experience similar issue?
Thanks
Mitch

thats happening all the time. it is not a one time thing. if there was a run away process it should get killed when a reboot is performed right?
it appears that i have to modify Leo so that only needed services and apps running but not sure which one to kill

All USB drives disconnect after upgrade and clean install of MAC OS X Mavericks

I first upgraded to Mavericks and noticed that my external USB dries would disconnect after MBP Retina Mid 2012 model was updated to Mavericks. These worked fine in all versions of Mac OS X before upgrade. So I did a clean install figured my machine would benifit from this anyway. This did NOT fix the problem.
Wouldn't be much of an issue but I use this macine as a media server with Plex and all the media is in one of the external USB 3.0 drives. All drives are from Seagate, and have found no info there. Guessing this is a bug that Apple needs to fix unless its a Seagate issue which I doubt.
My TEMP FIX while my machine is plugged in to the power adapter and drives.
SETTINGS - ENERGY SAVER - Power Adapter - Computer Sleep set to NEVER

If the tracks are recognized by your iPod (playable), search VersionTracker for "iPod". You'll find a number of utilities that can transfer your tracks and your playlists from your iPod back to your Mac.
If they're just on your iPod as data, then I'm not certain since I don't use a custom hierarchy, but you should be able to copy the folder back to your iTunes Music folder, turn off the "copy to iTunes library when adding to library" preference, and then use the Add To LIbrary command to get them recognized by iTunes. Again, though, I don't use a custom hierarchy, so you might want to ask that question as a new post, just to get additional opinions.
BTW, an iPod is not a reliable backup for your tracks. Too many situations can arise that would cause your iPod to need to be erased. I strongly recommend that you make backups, particularly of any tracks purchased from the iTunes Music Store or that would otherwise be difficult to replace, to CD, DVD, external hard drive, or other medium.

Installing XSAN 1.0 on Leapard Clean Install? HOW?

Has anyone had any luck installing Xsan 1.0 on Leopard 10.5 Server clean install?
The only way I know of is installing 10.4 server, install xsan 1.0, software update xsan, then upgrade to 10.5 server.
The problem with this is that the netinfo errors keep coming up after upgrading to 10.5 server.

Hi
Have you tried posting in the XSan Forum yet?
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=810
I don't know too much about XSan but I would guess you really should be using at least 1.1 and ideally the latest version 1.4? See:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1862
for more information. The errors regarding NetInfo seems to support this?
Tony

Need to A & I or do Clean Install - How to Save iLife?

Hello All,
Had some problems on the computer and I now need to perform A & I at a minimum, but since I have an external I figure I might as well just back up my files and once and for all perform a clean install (since I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard without doing a clean install).
Questions regarding this:
I assume I cannot just drag iLife apps onto the external and then drag them back? True?
If I need to reinstall them, how do I do so (I don't even remember if they came on a separate disc when I bought the computer or if they were integrated into the Tiger install disk?)
How about the iphoto library? Do I just copy over the iPhoto Library folder and then everything will work A-OK?
Thanks!

avsrock90 wrote:
I assume I cannot just drag iLife apps onto the external and then drag them back? True?
I think it's best to use the installer.
If I need to reinstall them, how do I do so (I don't even remember if they came on a separate disc when I bought the computer or if they were integrated into the Tiger install disk?)
The iLife package is on your 1st install disk that came with your Mac. Insert it while running Leopard and a window will pop up. Choose install bundled software. Then do a custom install of the package so you can choose what all you want put back on Leopard.
How about the iphoto library? Do I just copy over the iPhoto Library folder and then everything will work A-OK?
This will help you take care of the library.
iPhoto: How to move the iPhoto Library Folder to a new location

Upgrading to Leopard or do a clean install?

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