Fresh install advice Please!

[benlee]

Sorry if this has been discussed but I'm really anxious about Leopard and want to get all ready for it.

So I have a MBP and an fw800 external. I want to do a fresh install just for so its "fresh". I then want to redownload only the programs I really use.
Other than that i have about 40 gigs of music
less than a gig of photos
and a handful of important documents
I definately want to backup my keychain and bookmarks (I think i can sync w/ .mac and resync to leopard)

I use my computer for law school so I want to make a backup of my system incase something goes wrong.

What do you all suggest I do?
Should I make a backup of my drive a couple days before friday on one partition of my external and preserve another partition for bootcamp? Then just drag over my music,photos and documents from the backup. Then sync with idisk for keychain, addressbook, and safari?

Thanks for any advice to make this go as smooth as possible.

[mad jew]

I think you've answered your own question. That's how I'd do it. :)

[Trepex]

Sorry if this has been discussed but I'm really anxious about Leopard and want to get all ready for it.

So I have a MBP and an fw800 external. I want to do a fresh install just for so its "fresh". I then want to redownload only the programs I really use.
Other than that i have about 40 gigs of music
less than a gig of photos
and a handful of important documents
I definately want to backup my keychain and bookmarks (I think i can sync w/ .mac and resync to leopard)

I use my computer for law school so I want to make a backup of my system incase something goes wrong.

What do you all suggest I do?
Should I make a backup of my drive a couple days before friday on one partition of my external and preserve another partition for bootcamp? Then just drag over my music,photos and documents from the backup. Then sync with idisk for keychain, addressbook, and safari?

Thanks for any advice to make this go as smooth as possible.

Hahaha well done. You'll make an excellent lawyer if you always prep to this degree :)

[IJ Reilly]

Do the backup, forget the "fresh" install. If you're in law school, you've got enough going on in your life without spending a whole lot of your time accomplishing nothing of value, and very possibly causing yourself harm. If you don't want some installed applications, just throw them away.

[benlee]

Do the backup, forget the "fresh" install. If you're in law school, you've got enough going on in your life without spending a whole lot of your time accomplishing nothing of value, and very possibly causing yourself harm. If you don't want some installed applications, just throw them away.

Just curious. What harm could I be causing? The main reason I want to do a fresh install is because I want to get rid of the languages and such. I need to free up some space on my Harddrive because it gets way down there when I rip a dvd.

As long as I back up my lawschool notes onto like 5 different media and Omni Outliner Pro works with leopard I should be all set.

[IJ Reilly]

Just curious. What harm could I be causing? The main reason I want to do a fresh install is because I want to get rid of the languages and such. I need to free up some space on my Harddrive because it gets way down there when I rip a dvd.

As long as I back up my lawschool notes onto like 5 different media and Omni Outliner Pro works with leopard I should be all set.

Both languages and unwanted applications can be easily removed on an existing install. Wiping your hard drive to get there isn't necessary.

If you insist on going the big cannon route, just make sure you've backed up everything you might want in the future, including but not limited to all the application reinstallation discs you'll need to get back to where you want to be. Are you 110% confident? Then go ahead.