Filed under: OS
Whats Your Favorite OS X Upgrade Superstition?
Russell Beattie has recently jumped on the Apple / OS X bandwagon, but he’s never been through a major upgrade of
the OS before and ponders aloud on his blog: ”What
is upgrading a Mac like? I’m about to do it twice, so I hope it’s painless as you would expect an Apple upgrade to be,
but I don’t know. Is it one of those things where you’re better off wiping the drive? Hmmm. I guess we’ll see in a
bit.”
I, personally, ascribe to a rather foolhardy ”Damn the
torpedoes, full speed ahead!” approach to major upgrades to OS X, but I was wondering what rituals you may go
through when upgrading. Does anybody out there have a set routine or some archane pagan vodoo-ritual that you
will go through before installing Tiger?
Discuss.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gavin Strange said 4:16PM on 6-16-2005
This is going to be my first proper OSX upgrade, as every other time i've diddled around it's just been a fresh install without any backups or anything.
This time this machine has everything i do, could someone please point me in the right direction of information for backing up everything?
I really can't afford to lose anything, i just didnt know if there's an application within osx that will back-up things for me - will 'backup' do an ample job? i've got it backing-up to my iDisk at the moment but im pretty sure i can just make it do it do an external HDD can't i?
Many thanks for your help guys and i can't wait for april 29th - just a shame i wont actually et mine on the 29th!
gav
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iBob said 8:17AM on 6-30-2005
1) back up everything important (prog installers and work) onto CDs.
2) check said CDs all burnt correctly.
3) clean install.
4) pluck only the things i need to put back onto my mac.
5) fiddle for the rest of the day, making sure everything works correctly.
6) relax.
Personally i feel a new OS install is always a good excuse for a spring clean of my Mac. two runs of filtering means any crap on my mac doesnt get put onto CD in the first place, and when you come to put your stuff back on, you can decide what you NEED and what you can just archive.
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Tim Lynch said 9:20AM on 7-29-2005
My plan is:
1. Backup anything that I remotly care about to LaCie D2 from PowerBook and G5.
2. On the powerbook start an upgrade
3. One the G5 do a clean install
4. Spend 1/2 day reinstalling apps on the G5 and getting the data placed back in the right places.
5. If the powerbook upgrade works leave it alone for a week and see if anything crops up and deal with it.
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Matt S. said 10:47AM on 7-10-2005
1. Backup, Backup, and Backup. Copy your home directory to another disk or computer. If you have more then one Mac, use the firewire target disk mode. On the computer you are going to upgrade, hold down T while booting, when you see the firewire logo, plugin the cable to your second Mac. Bingo, you're hard disk shows up on the second Mac. Drag over everything you care about. Firewire will move data at 400Mbps or possible 800Mbps if you have the newer Firewire.
2. Decide which way you want to try it first. i.e. Upgrade, Archive & Install, or just wipe it and install clean. I've been burned by Upgrade and even the Archive options, but I am a power user and have heavily customized things that will break when you upgrade. If you are going to upgrade or even Archive Install, then remove any haxies, add on drivers (custom touchpad driver, etc.). Backup your /etc directory if you run custom tweaks to Apache, etc.
3. I generally make sure I've got a good backup then I wipe the system during the installation of the new OS. I mess around with the new OS and then I migrate my data. Yeah, it's slow and painful, but at least I know it's gonna work. I also get to see how the new user experience has changed. I do a full install with the developer tools and X11 because I use them. I've got an OmniOutliner document with all the things I've done to each Mac. i.e. custom tweaks, things I did to fix stuff like PostgreSQL kernel optimizations, etc. This generally takes a few days for me to get everything back to normal, but I always learn a lot in the process.
I recommend a full backup, and a clean Spring install of Tiger. Also, note that Spotlight is going to need to index a ton of data, so it might be best to get it installed and working on a clean system with no data. Let it index then copy your data over and let it index your data. If you are on a laptop, make sure it's not gonna sleep while it's indexing. I suspect this will take a long time the first run.
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Steve M said 4:16PM on 6-16-2005
I've been running Mac OS, Linux and Windows systems for a couple of decades now, and I can tell you that upgrading without at least backing up your personal data is just foolish. Even if Apple does it perfectly, any number of things can go wrong during the upgrade process: power outtage, hard drive failure, a file that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Making a backup of your data and then not needing it is way better than having no backup and discovering that the update process has just eaten all of your work.
Of course, some people prefer to experience the frustration first hand before they learn the lesson.
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Brian said 4:16PM on 6-16-2005
question from a first time upgrader. If I back up y full system (which I intend to do) then do a clean install...will I just be ablet o drag my user folder back in users and have all of my old goods working right away?
Thanks.
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froopyloot said 4:16PM on 6-16-2005
Seriously, if you back up nothing else, back up your iTunes... I have had more trouble with the iTunes Library than anything else. From 9.2.2 to 10.1 and so on, every time I have had funny results. I have had no other problems with any other data with any major update.
~m
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Moquiti said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
This wil be close to what I intend to follow during the upgrade, using Cocktail or Onyx, and SuperDuper! instead of the Unix command line:
run cron & repair permissions; make a full bootable backup; reboot and run Disk Utility from Panther System CD or reboot in single user mode and then continue startup; delete all caches; repair permissions; run installer as "archive & install;" reboot; repair permissions; test. The less dragging of files around the better, for me. I let the installer do it, and it does a decent job.
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Chris said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
Heh, my plan this year, like last, is to do a backup to one of my external HDDs then head to the Apple Store. I'll probably just slap the new OS in there while sitting on one of the benches in front of the store.
Thank god it's being released in Spring this time around. I froze my buns off for Panther. Just hope they give out something more interesting than Panther's cat tags.
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Matt said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
This was one of the things I noticed after switching to the Mac world from the PC/Linux world. People in Mac-land are much more likely to have these voodoo practices than others, it seems. It's kind of amusing.
That said, I tend to back up my data and then hit the upgrade button. I've never had a major problem...
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Darkside said 11:22PM on 7-14-2005
Matt,
Windows users don't have voodoo practices?!
Technicians: "Reinstall Windows, that'll solve [insert any problem here]."
Seems like an evil, dark ritual to me. Not to mention time-consuming.
Panther's Archive and Install is less than favorable; OS X has been criticized before because of its "lazy installer" (occasionally, for some reason doesn't replace/install things like it should), but it's true. I did a complete wipe and fresh install when Panther came out; my roommate did an Archive and Install. He was experiencing weirdness for months afterwards, until he finally broke down and reinstalled on a freshly-formatted drive. All roses from there on out.
And yes, I realize what my Windows comment and the above advice look like together. "Hello pot," I say to myself; "hello kettle," I respond. ;-)
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Dean Shan said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
I back up my user directory and some of my user preference (mail.app database and such) to an external HD. Then I just wipe the drive clean and start with a nice fresh install of the new OS.
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kc! said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
A few common practises:
1. Wait 24 hours (reading Macfixit.com for problems)
2. Backup everything
3. Repair permissions
4. Run disk repair (DiskWarrior or the Apple version)
5. Upgrade during Apple phone support hours
Note: I have RARELY had any problems and RARELY followed these steps... but even if you just make it to #1, you are ahead of the game. Let Mr. "slap the new OS in there while sitting on one of the benches in front of the store" discover all the excentricities, and read about them online the next day!
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David M. said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
First of all, any user of any OS should be concerned at upgrade time. (If you are not, then you've never been bitten). The reason for this is because all machines (much like humans) are unique. After the months pass and you've installed a bazillion applications and you now have Hello Kitty for a cursor and you've set your machine up to check the weather every morning with some spyware app, well, now you have a unique system. Perfectly suited to you and your needs, but a far far stretch from what the OS developers are thinking about. They want to make the upgrade work for a fairly stock system. Go beyond that and you're taking some risks. [NOTE: If your system data is not important to you, then "Who cares?"]
In terms of Apple and OS X, the TidBits folks have been pumping out these awesome eBooks (the "Take Control" series) for many Mac topics. Joe Kissell is a talented author who writes great "Upgrade your Mac" eBooks. I have purchased several revisions and been happy that I did. Here is the Panther upgrade link. Be patient, as they'll have one out for Tiger soon enough. (And "No, I do not work for these people or otherwise profit from this book series.")
My only voodoo pre-upgrade is a complete system backup onto an external FireWire drive. I don't like losing data.
Links are stuck at the bottom thanks to a broken commenting system.
http://www.tidbits.com/
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/upgrading.html
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MacOtto said 4:15PM on 6-16-2005
My first real OS was 10.3.x and I am now going to upgrade. I believe that I am going to upgrade without taking backup of any sort. Have had my mac for allmost a year now and havent whiped the disk klean once since windows. I trust apple to have a nice upgrade. Mr.Naive.
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