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Trying to upgrade from leopard on my laptop

R

Ravich

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 20, 2009
773
0
Portland, OR
Mid 2008 MBP. I'm having trouble getting the information I need from the official website so I thought I'd ask here.

Am I able to upgrade without wiping my HDD and restoring from a backup?

Other than that, it seems I cant upgrade to 10.8 from 10.5. Do I just have to go with 10.6 instead? I'm not paying for more than one upgrade, so what would be the recommendation?
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
Ravich said:
Mid 2008 MBP. I'm having trouble getting the information I need from the official website so I thought I'd ask here.

Am I able to upgrade without wiping my HDD and restoring from a backup?

Other than that, it seems I cant upgrade to 10.8 from 10.5. Do I just have to go with 10.6 instead? I'm not paying for more than one upgrade, so what would be the recommendation?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can upgrade your MBP to the most current version of Mountain Lion, without wiping your HDD. However, you may think about waiting until OS X 10.9 Mavericks is released in the fall.

You can find specs on all Apple products, including maximum OS X version supported, by visiting EveryMac.com.
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
Ravich said:
Thanks for the reply.

How can I upgrade to Mountain Lion without first upgrading to Snow Leopard?
Click to expand...
You need SL to access the Mac App Store to download ML. I don't recall if ML is available for sale on USB drive or not, but you can check the Apple site.
 
R

Ravich

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 20, 2009
773
0
Portland, OR
Well I have a mac pro with snow leopard in addition to my MBP.

Would it be possible for me to upgrade my MBP to 10.6 using my installation DVDs that came with my Mac Pro, then upgrade to 10.8 through the app store?
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
Ravich said:
Well I have a mac pro with snow leopard in addition to my MBP.

Would it be possible for me to upgrade my MBP to 10.6 using my installation DVDs that came with my Mac Pro, then upgrade to 10.8 through the app store?
Click to expand...

No, the grey install disks are model-specific and cannot be used on other models. You can only use a retail copy of SL, which you can buy here for only $20.
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,137
15,602
California
Ravich said:
Well I have a mac pro with snow leopard in addition to my MBP.

Would it be possible for me to upgrade my MBP to 10.6 using my installation DVDs that came with my Mac Pro, then upgrade to 10.8 through the app store?
Click to expand...

If you have an extra external disk laying around you could use Carbon Copy Cloner (free 30 day trial version) to clone the 10.6 install from the Mac Pro to the Macbook, then you would be on 10.6.8 allowing you to update to Mountain Lion. It will involve some jockeying around with your data, but if you want to get this done without waiting for a SL disk you will never use again, it would work.
 
R

Ravich

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 20, 2009
773
0
Portland, OR
I wasnt clear. What I'm asking is whether I can use the DVD to upgrade my laptop from 10.5 to 10.6 and then purchase 10.8 from the app store.
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,137
15,602
California
Ravich said:
I wasnt clear. What I'm asking is whether I can use the DVD to upgrade my laptop from 10.5 to 10.6 and then purchase 10.8 from the app store.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, that will certainly work. All I was suggesting earlier was a way around having to buy and wait for the new SL DVD if you did not want to.
 
R

Ravich

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 20, 2009
773
0
Portland, OR
Well I already have the snow leopard DVD that came with my Mac Pro (desktop), but I was wondering if that would be problematic since I think the DVD says "mac pro" on it and it's already installed on my Mac Pro.
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
Ravich said:
Well I already have the snow leopard DVD that came with my Mac Pro (desktop), but I was wondering if that would be problematic since I think the DVD says "mac pro" on it and it's already installed on my Mac Pro.
Click to expand...
As I said earlier, no, you cannot use the grey install disc that came with your Mac Pro to install Snow Leopard on your MBP. You need to buy a retail copy of Snow Leopard, as I already stated.
 
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