Upgrade Install a bad idea?

See this thread which discusses all installation options: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5648970

+"The so-called "enhancements" do not outweigh the benefits."+

Such statements should be prefaced with "IMO" because that's what it is...your own personal opinion. BTW, "enhancements" and "benefits" are more or less the same, ergo, one cannot really "outweigh" the other.....

David,

Thanks for your comments. Spotlight has re-indexed so that is not the issue. I have managed to reboot while holding down the c key and re-installing which is a little better but still not working. I keep getting (under Finder) 'application not responding'. Still can't close down from the screen etc. Reading other posts, there appears to be a dividing line forming between Intel Macs and IBM G Macs. That would certainly explain why my iMac upgraded first time without any issues. I have considered doing a clean install, but if the problem is inherent then that will not resolve it. I am tempted to hold fire for a couple of days and see whether Apple come up with a patch. The only annoyance then is that by definition, our OS disks are somewhat less than perfect.

Regards,
Andy

Vestan - Hi,

The Macmini is a G4 1.25ghz. Can you confirm yours to be an Intel? As per my reply to David's comments, there appears to be an issue according to whether you are upgrading an Intel powered machine, or an IBM.
Regards,
Andy

Hmmm.... Ive had various results... I upgraded my machine at work with no problem... it took a while for the upgrade to complete but it worked out fine. My iMac 24" Core 2 extreme that I have at home was a diffrent story. I tried the upgrade to start off with and it went through successfully, rebooted and hung on a blue screen with spinning beach ball for about half an hour... OK... time to turn it off... So I ended up doing an archive and install and that went through OK and I have a bootable system that doesnt work very well (im not going to go into the details but basically I cant force quit applications and have to turn the computer off totally and start it again to get it up and running) I just downloaded the latest updates and installed... Ill post the results. Maybe back up your data and apps, do a clean install and move data back. Good thing if you havent backed up your data running 10.4 anyway 😉 IHTH.

Hi Andy,

My MacMini is a 1.83Ghz Intel Core Duo with 1Gb Ram, so I guess this validates the issue being related to pre-Intel models.

Sorry
VP

David, I appreciate your comments and agree 100 percent about taking the necessary precautions prior to installing anything new on your machine whether it be a new OS or simply new software. Fortunately for me I had a fairly recent back up before I attempted to install Leopard on my iBook G4. What I am dissappointed in is the fact it took my computer into a dead zone. I could have been smarter and played with Leopard on my daughters iMac first. However, if I liked it the results would have been no different when attempting to install it on my G4. The software went through it's diagnostics and identified my machine compatible before it completely took it out.


Right now I'm really struggling with how much accountability Apple should take in these situations. I do hold myself personally responsible for attempting the install and feel with a system that had the minimum requirements I should have waited to see what happens to others but I didn't and now I'm looking at a substantial dollar investment to either try and get my system running either back to Tiger, upgrade to run Leopard, or simply buy a new computer. As I said I'm struggling with how much of this cost I should bare and how much Apple should take some responsibility.

I'm not sure Apple should get out squeeky clean on this one.

How exactly do you make a "clone" back up??

I use Apple back up my "user" to an external hard drive, weekly. and a few critical files daily.

I will be upgrading next week to 10.5 and making a "clone" sounds like a good idea, also will Time machine make a clone?

Start with:

http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html and
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/backuprecovery.html

then visit the Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper!, and other backup utility sites.

These are the options and recommendations from macfixit. There are four alternatives, in decreasing cleanliness order:

•Erase and Install: Deletes all your stuff and reformats the partition, giving you an absolute drop-dead guaranteed clean installation. This is recommended if you have a backup of all your stuff (made, for example, with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, though it can be done with Disk Utility instead) and are willing to restore your stuff manually from that backup afterwards.

•Archive and Install, and don't preserve users: This moves everything aside to a Previous Systems folder and installs a clean system and an empty fresh user. You then have to migrate all your stuff manually from Previous Systems. This is a good alternative if you can't make that backup; it is a clean installation, but the partition was not reformatted so if there are disk-level or file system-level problems, they will remain.

•Archive and Install, and do preserve users: This moves a lot of stuff aside to a Previous Systems folder, and installs a fairly clean system, but it preserves network settings and existing users and their files. This is very easy but a bit risky, since old preferences and other files are permitted to remain and can cause trouble later.

•Upgrade: Merges the installed system right into the existing system. Not recommended.

Please help! I am brand new at this. Just bought my first computer ever 2 months ago..It is a mac book...the black one...I am still at the looking around in the applications stage. I think Leopard looks great so I bought it and just stuck the install DVD in my macbook...I double clicked on the Install disc icon..followed a few prompts...I thought I was doing the right thing...it took a while but it did say installation complete...I have not even started clicking on anything ...Can you direct me? What is my next step? have I ruined my computer? I did no archive or erase...I guess I should have asked more questions at Apple store, but they were so busy....I am afraid to start trying anything.please thanks for your patience, remember I am new at this, although I think I have figured out how to get this message to you.

My first choice would always be an upgrade. Naturally, backing up the original disk first.
What can you lose? A few hours,if it fails?
My choices:
1. Backup and upgrade
2. Backup, erase, install

I did an upgrade install on two Macs and no problems with either. Both are running smooth and as I'd expect Apple software to. Both systems were relatively clean of 3rd party hacks/"enhancements" so that probably explains my success. The only maintenance I performed before the install was through Disk Utility on the Leopard install disk.

No. you're fine. Sit back and enjoy it.