How to upgrade from Leopard to Mountain Lion

Question

How to upgrade from Leopard to Mountain Lion

I have a Mac Pro running Leopard. I just bought an iPhone 5. Apparently, in order to sync I need iTunes 10.7 which requires at least Snow Leopard. That wasn't listed on the iPhone box but I later found it on the Apple website.

Anyway, if I'm going to upgrade my whole operating system just for the phone I might as well go all the way to Mountain Lion. Do I have to upgrade to Snow Leopard, then Lion, then Mountain Lion or is it possible to just go all the way at once? I can't even find Snow Leopard in the Apple store. How do I get it?

My Mac Pro has two 1 TB internal hard drives. I have a 1 TB external hard drive that I use for Time Machine. Since the Time Machine is only 1 TB I backup the system files and data from HD1 and only certain folders of data from HD2.

A few months after setting up the Time Machine I purchased a 2 TB external hard drive and I use Carbon Copy Cloner to do incremental backups of both HD1 and HD2.

I have purchased just a few third party applications (Pixelmator, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, Final Cut Express).

This is my first Mac, my first upgrade, and I have never done any kind of restore from either of the backup drives. The whole idea makes me nervous. I REALLY don't want to lose any data or software functionality.

Can someone please help me with instructions on the best way to upgrade from Leopard to Mountain Lion without losing anything in the process? I don't care about the cheapest or quickest way. I just want the safest way so I don't lose data and I end up with a legitimate version of Mountain Lion.

Thanks in advance.

Mac Pro

OS X Version 10.5.8

2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Posted on Oct 14, 2012 12:03 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Oct 14, 2012 12:05 PM in response to What_Me_Worry

Upgrading to Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion

You can upgrade to Mountain Lion from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $19.99. To access the App Store you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or later installed.

You can purchase Snow Leopard contact Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service. The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will receive physical media - DVD - by mail.

Third-party sources for Snow Leopard are:

Snow Leopard from Amazon.com

Snow Leopard from eBay

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.

You can purchase Lion contact Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service. The cost is $19.99 (as it was before) plus tax. It's a download.

Be sure your computer meets the minimum requirements:

Apple - OS X Mountain Lion - Read the technical specifications.

Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion

1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)

2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)

3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)

4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)

5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)

6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)

7. Xserve (Early 2009)

Are my applications compatible?

See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps - App compatibility and feature support for OS X & iOS.

Am I eligible for the free upgrade?

See Apple - Free OS X Mountain Lion upgrade Program.

For a complete How-To introduction from Apple see Apple - Upgrade your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion.

Model Eligibility for Snow Leopard and Lion.

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 MobileMe service; fees and terms apply.

Lion System Requirements

1. Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor

2. 2GB of memory

3. OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)

4. 7GB of available space

5. Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.

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Answer 2

Arch-one

Level 1

0 points

Jan 9, 2013 3:15 PM in response to Kappy

Thank you Kappy, for a very thorough explanation of how to upgrade from leopard to snow leopard and lion.

Not to change the direction of this thread, I was interested in upgrading the OS on my Mac Pro, I am also running

Win Xp using Bootcamp. I am afraid to upgrade my OS fearing if I do, it will erase my Win. partion and everything in it.

If you or anyone tried this, I would appreciate letting me know.

Thank you!

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 9, 2013 4:26 PM in response to Arch-one

Upgrading OS X will not affect your Windows partition.

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