Upgrading OS

[JDN]

This is a bit of forward thinking, but i need to ask or otherwise ill forget.
Ive got a MPB (15" 2.0Ghz, 1G RAM) and when Leopard comes out i would like to upgrade to it as ive heard the cost for the upgrade software isnt going to be that expensive and im a student, so hopefully it will be cheaper still!

My question is, when you upgrade, do you lose everything on the computer? Is some kind of hard drive format carried out?

 

[Nermal]

You can upgrade to Leopard without wiping anything, although some people (such as myself) prefer to format just to "clean up" the system.

 

[thworple]

Ahem. I'm sure you meant Leopard! Panther was OS X ver. 10.3, and predates the current 10.4 Tiger edition.

And there are several options you are given by the installer when upgrading the OS. You can wipe the drive if you wish, or you can do a simple upgrade, which keeps your files and settings as they were initially. Although, as many here will tell yuou, its always best to back-up important files before the install, just to be on the safe side!

 

[MacBoobsPro]

This is a bit of forward thinking, but i need to ask or otherwise ill forget.
Ive got a MPB (15" 2.0Ghz, 1G RAM) and when Panther comes out i would like to upgrade to it as ive heard the cost for the upgrade software isnt going to be that expensive and im a student, so hopefully it will be cheaper still!

My question is, when you upgrade, do you lose everything on the computer? Is some kind of hard drive format carried out?

Not sure if it was a typo but Panther is already out We are currently using Tiger 10.4 and awaiting Leopard 10.5. Panther was 10.3 and Jaguar was 10.2.

Regarding upgrading there are some options when you upgrade. I cant remember what they are exactly, im sure somone else will fill you iin on these. These options allow you to upgrade and keep everything as is i.e. documents, music, photos etc. There is an archive install that will archive your existing user files and allow you to access them after the upgrade albeit from certain folders. So you will have to drag and drop stuff back to where you want/had it.

And then there is a clean install which is what I do every big update. This will wipe your entire system and start a brand new install. I do this because it 'freshens up' the system. Any files that were no longer used but taking up space (preferences for example) will be gone and any possible conflicts that had/could arise from a 18 months of use will be eradicated too.

Plus you get used to the new options in the update quicker as you need to fiddle with them to get stuff how you want it.

 

[JDN]

Yeh. of course i ment Leopard, it was early when i wrote that post, my brain wasn't functioning properly.

I guess its time to get me an external HD. Anyone got anything against Lacie??

 

[gauchogolfer]

Nothing against Lacie; I've got the 250GB external with FW800 and it works great.