Before you Install Tiger....

[wrldwzrd89]

This is a naive question which is a "hangover" from my PC days. Once, when I reformatted on of my old Windows PCs, I deleted the drivers for the CD drive and could then not reinstall Windows. I assume from CubaTBird's comment that if I boot to the Tiger CD and format my hard drive once booted to the CD, I won't have this problem? I'll be able to continue with the Tiger installation?

This is probably the route I'd like to take. Though as most people said, it's probably more psychological than necessary.

-bb

Macs have been able to boot from CDs since the System 7 days. Driver problems were uncommon, but not unheard of, in those days (System 7 to Mac OS 9); you only had to deal with them if you had a third-party CD drive. With modern Macs running Mac OS X, even if you have a third-party drive, this problem's occurrence has been reduced to practically zero.

In other words, install as you please. Mac OS X will take care of the hardware side of things for you.

 

[7on]

Macs have been able to boot from CDs since the System 7 days. Driver problems were uncommon, but not unheard of, in those days (System 7 to Mac OS 9); you only had to deal with them if you had a third-party CD drive. With modern Macs running Mac OS X, even if you have a third-party drive, this problem's occurrence has been reduced to practically zero.

In other words, install as you please. Mac OS X will take care of the hardware side of things for you.

And one of the main reasons why Mac OSX isn't released on PCs, because of the hardware.

 

[rtdgoldfish]

QUESTION: If someone were to wipe their drive and do a full reformat and all....hell, even zero their entire drive, and they were to install OSX Tiger on their system clean and fresh, what version of iLife would they have on their system? Same as their previous version? Or maybe they would need their old system disks, or their copy of iLife 04 or 05, to reinstall iLife?

I was just wondering the same thing. I have a Mini and wanted to do a clean install of Tiger. However, iLife '05 is on the Mac Mini install discs. Will I need to do a clean install from these discs (Panther) and then do an upgrade to Tiger?? I don't want to go out and purchase iLife, I already have it. There must be an easier way to do this.

 

[Mechcozmo]

I was just wondering the same thing. I have a Mini and wanted to do a clean install of Tiger. However, iLife '05 is on the Mac Mini install discs. Will I need to do a clean install from these discs (Panther) and then do an upgrade to Tiger?? I don't want to go out and purchase iLife, I already have it. There must be an easier way to do this.

If you insert the disk after the Mini is started up in Tiger, maybe it will have an "Install iLife" option?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

If you insert the disk after the Mini is started up in Tiger, maybe it will have an "Install iLife" option?

My iMac's Software Restore system contains a Mac OS X installer (which I won't need once I get Tiger) and a Software Restorer tool, which restores all the other applications that came with my Mac. I'd suspect that that tool would have an iLife installer inside - it should run just fine from within Tiger, and you don't have to boot from it.

 

[chaos86]

personally i will make an exact copy of my 60GB powerbook drive onto my identical 9.5mm 2.5" firewire drive and then boot from the FW drive and install tiger over it, without the archive thing. for the time being when i want to play in tiger ill boot from the FW tiger drive. of course, for work ill use panther on the internal just for the stability, till the new OS levels out with 10.4.1 or .2. after its all clear on tiger ill open up the mac and switch em out.

same thing i do every time (since os 9, skipping the 9>X transition for a dual boot option on one drive)

 

[GroundLoop]

Archive & Install

Quick question since I switched after Panther was out. When you do an Archive & Install, how much space does the "Previous system" folder take? I have an 80GiB drive in my Powerbook, 60GiB of which is used. Would I even be able to do an Archive & Install? Do I need to bite the bullet and buy an external HD?

Hickman

 

[840quadra]

Personally, this is going to be my first fresh install since 10.2.

I really want to give Spotlight a nice clean disc and OS to start out with.

All my machines are gonna get a freash install, but all good points made above.

Same here.. I just bought a PM G5, I am just using it as a Toy at this point.. All of my primary work is still done on my (sigh..) G4 upgraded B&W G3. The Digital audio in my signature is only been assembled for about a month now. so in a Sense I have 2 new Powermac computers that will get a flush and reload

 

[Platform]

That's exactly the difference between Upgrade and Archive & Install: Upgrade overwrites the old system files, A&I archives them in a folder called "Previous System". Your home directory and settings are kept intact in both cases (using A&I you can choose not to keep them, but why would you).

OK thanks for that

 

[bankshot]

Quick question since I switched after Panther was out. When you do an Archive & Install, how much space does the "Previous system" folder take? I have an 80GiB drive in my Powerbook, 60GiB of which is used. Would I even be able to do an Archive & Install? Do I need to bite the bullet and buy an external HD?

Hickman

Depends on what options were installed with Panther (for example, were all foreign language packs installed? printer drivers?). I never install extra languages, Asian fonts, or unneeded printer drivers (you have to do a custom install and uncheck those options, so most people will probably have them), and my Previous System folders were generally in the 3 GB range. I'd guess with all the other junk installed, it's more like 5 GB, maybe a little more??

By the way, I'll just chime in here and say that I think Archive & Install is the only way to go. It saves your apps (no need to reinstall iLife!), user data and preferences, provided you select the option to do so (as someone said, why would you not). After Tiger's been running along fine for awhile, just delete the Previous Systems folder and go on with life!

Compare that with the pain of an Erase & Install (you have to backup all your data, reinstall all your apps) and the potential problems with Upgrade Install (at best, old junk is left lying around everywhere from the previous system; at worst, old junk from the previous system conflicts with the new system and makes your computer unstable! ).

 

[e²Studios]

Depends on what options were installed with Panther (for example, were all foreign language packs installed? printer drivers?). I never install extra languages, Asian fonts, or unneeded printer drivers (you have to do a custom install and uncheck those options, so most people will probably have them), and my Previous System folders were generally in the 3 GB range. I'd guess with all the other junk installed, it's more like 5 GB, maybe a little more??

By the way, I'll just chime in here and say that I think Archive & Install is the only way to go. It saves your apps (no need to reinstall iLife!), user data and preferences, provided you select the option to do so (as someone said, why would you not). After Tiger's been running along fine for awhile, just delete the Previous Systems folder and go on with life!

Compare that with the pain of an Erase & Install (you have to backup all your data, reinstall all your apps) and the potential problems with Upgrade Install (at best, old junk is left lying around everywhere from the previous system; at worst, old junk from the previous system conflicts with the new system and makes your computer unstable! ).

My Mac Mini is maybe 3 weeks old, i dont have much on it as it is, what would be the issue with just doing a standard "easy upgrade" option? If i do the standard upgrade i shouldnt lose all of my setting i would think/hope. I am still debating if i should arhive install my iBook which is a bit over a year old, and i will definately archive install the iMac.. i think.. This whole upgrade process confuses the hell out of me. I'm just glad on my two newer machiines it should be failry straight forward.... now on to...

One last question.. When i last upgraded my iMac G3 500 DV SE to 10.3 i had to do some sort of firmware update to the hardware before it would work. The install would start but then the screen just went wakko, upon investigation i found that i had to boot in to os9 and apply some update to the hardware. Does anyone know what that was, and if i need to do it again before tyring 10.4 so i dont go bonkers again?

Ed

 

[IJ Reilly]

And I don't know all the technical features, but one reason not to bother with a reformat and clean install is because if you're just going to do that and move those preferences back over to your newly installed OS, you may bring any problems back with you to your new system. There's no point if you're going to just move settings over to Tiger.

Maybe I'm wrong though. So if you don't mind doing a fresh install and reinstalling all apps and redoing all screen/LCD calibrations, system preferences, and all app preferences, then cool. Otherwise, what's the point?

As far as I can tell, there isn't any good reason to go anything but the upgrade install route. Even archive and install seems pointless to me. I've upgraded from 10.0x to 10.3x on several Macs with no problems. Given the amount of times people are advised to reinstall OSX to "fix" problems that most certainly have nothing to do with the OS, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the number of people who get some kind of good-feeling hit from wiping a hard drive. But let's not mistake it for usefulness -- and please, let's not recommend it.

 

[Mechcozmo]

One last question.. When i last upgraded my iMac G3 500 DV SE to 10.3 i had to do some sort of firmware update to the hardware before it would work. The install would start but then the screen just went wakko, upon investigation i found that i had to boot in to os9 and apply some update to the hardware. Does anyone know what that was, and if i need to do it again before tyring 10.4 so i dont go bonkers again?

Ed

Shouldn't need to do that again... but I'll add that to the FAQ!

 

[GroundLoop]

Depends on what options were installed with Panther (for example, were all foreign language packs installed? printer drivers?). I never install extra languages, Asian fonts, or unneeded printer drivers (you have to do a custom install and uncheck those options, so most people will probably have them), and my Previous System folders were generally in the 3 GB range. I'd guess with all the other junk installed, it's more like 5 GB, maybe a little more??

By the way, I'll just chime in here and say that I think Archive & Install is the only way to go. It saves your apps (no need to reinstall iLife!), user data and preferences, provided you select the option to do so (as someone said, why would you not). After Tiger's been running along fine for awhile, just delete the Previous Systems folder and go on with life!

Compare that with the pain of an Erase & Install (you have to backup all your data, reinstall all your apps) and the potential problems with Upgrade Install (at best, old junk is left lying around everywhere from the previous system; at worst, old junk from the previous system conflicts with the new system and makes your computer unstable! ).

Follow up question:

Are your music files stored in the "Previous System" folder? I have about 25 GiB of music. So if that is replicated into the "previous System" folder, then I will either have to burn them to DVDs or get the external drive.

Thanks for the response.

Hickman

 

[Mechcozmo]

Are your music files stored in the "Previous System" folder? I have about 25 GiB of music. So if that is replicated into the "previous System" folder, then I will either have to burn them to DVDs or get the external drive.

If you check the box to preserve the settings, then they will not be moved there. If you do NOT check the box then they will be moved there, but it is just a simple drag and drop into iTunes again and then deleting the originals.

 

[Little King]

Sorry if this has been asked already, I don't think it has, if I were to do an Archive and Install, would my Applications still remain in the Applications folder, or would I have to re-install them?

Thanks for the help,

Little King.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Sorry if this has been asked already, I don't think it has, if I were to do an Archive and Install, would my Applications still remain in the Applications folder, or would I have to re-install them?

Thanks for the help,

Little King.

Applications in your user-level Applications folder are only archived if you choose not to keep the users and network settings. Applications in the system-level Applications folder are always archived.

 

[NeoMayhem]

I will definitely be doing a clean install. I have done about 10 clean installs of jaguar about another 10 or so clean installs of panther, all on my iBook G3.

Doing one more clean install will not be a big deal for me, however, I will probably end up doing an archive install on my families computer.

Because I have several more days to back things up and plan for the clean install, I will probably end up using the HFSX filesystem for tiger, as described in this hint: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=200502011939237&query=hfs

 

[lssmit02]

As far as I can tell, there isn't any good reason to go anything but the upgrade install route. Even archive and install seems pointless to me. I've upgraded from 10.0x to 10.3x on several Macs with no problems. Given the amount of times people are advised to reinstall OSX to "fix" problems that most certainly have nothing to do with the OS, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the number of people who get some kind of good-feeling hit from wiping a hard drive. But let's not mistake it for usefulness -- and please, let's not recommend it.

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but IJ Reilly seems to have a valid point, particularly when comparing the upgrade option to archive & install where you preserve your settings. From what I can tell, if you are happy with how Panther is running (from a stability point of view, not a features point of view ), just upgrade to Tiger. Is there really a chance that any part of the system won't be replaced by the upgrade path? If so, what is it, and does it matter? Doesn't an archive and install of Tiger where you preserve all your settings and import the home directory just reinstall all of the "problems" that would be present in an upgrade of Tiger? If this is wrong, I'd love to understand why, because then I would do the archive and install option.

 

[mkrishnan]

Doesn't an archive and install of Tiger where you preserve all your settings and import the home directory just reinstall all of the "problems" that would be present in an upgrade of Tiger? If this is wrong, I'd love to understand why, because then I would do the archive and install option.

This is true, and for this reason, I'm going to do an archive and install *without* importing the users, and then I'm going to manually bring some stuff over from my user folder (iTunes and iPhoto libraries, Documents folder, bookmarks, maybe a couple of other things) and re-create most of the rest. It'll be time-consuming, but fun, in a sick sort of way. And I bought a Mac to have fun in a sick sort of way!

 

[stcanard]

From what I can tell, if you are happy with how Panther is running (from a stability point of view, not a features point of view ), just upgrade to Tiger. Is there really a chance that any part of the system won't be replaced by the upgrade path? If so, what is it, and does it matter?

For the most part you are right, and most people won't see a problem.

The part that upgrade doesn't necessarily touch is the system configuration like /etc /var and the like. It tries to be smart and retain the settings and changes that were made on the older system, and this can run you into problems if there is a newer version of the software that doesn't work well with these settings, or you've installed extra software that conflicts (for instance you're running a custom version of qmail, and tiger is installing and starting postfix). Other things like jobs that used to be in crontab, but now are in Tiger's new deamon start system could be problems.

If this happens, the problem won't be obvious and will likely show itself in wierd and unintuituve ways that you will probably just write off as Tiger's instability.

The more customizations you do to your system, the more likely something like this is to show up. OTOH if you don't touch the system files, don't install hacks and plugins, you're probably safe just to do an upgrade. That's why there is so much dissent between the upgrade and archive/install camps. Neither has ever had the other's experience, because they use their systems so differently.

Doesn't an archive and install of Tiger where you preserve all your settings and import the home directory just reinstall all of the "problems" that would be present in an upgrade of Tiger? If this is wrong, I'd love to understand why, because then I would do the archive and install option.

Not necessarily, because the archive and install only preserves the settings under your user directory which shouldn't be affected by software upgrades. If they are it's fairly easy to trash the plist, because it will show up in an individual application, instead of something that's buried deeper in the system.

The reason to do an archive and install is that a conflict, if it does arise, will likely be very difficult to identify and correct. You may not even realize it's a problem and just be disappointed in Tiger. So for the most part, even though most people probably won't run into a problem, it's safer to do the archive and install and not have to worry about it.

It also helps clean out the crud that tends to accumulate in the system directories.

 

[lssmit02]

It'll be time-consuming, but fun, in a sick sort of way. And I bought a Mac to have fun in a sick sort of way!

Amen!

The part that upgrade doesn't necessarily touch is the system configuration like /etc /var and the like.

things like jobs that used to be in crontab, but now are in Tiger's new deamon start system could be problems.

Cool, this is the kind of stuff I was wondering about. I run FAH from crontab, and your right, there is always "crud" from installing junk to see how it works, if it works, etc. So, archive and install, even if you do preserve your settings, does not copy all of the existing settings. Would you advise doing with mkrishnan is going to do, archive and install without preserving settings, then?

 

[stcanard]

Cool, this is the kind of stuff I was wondering about. I run FAH from crontab, and your right, there is always "crud" from installing junk to see how it works, if it works, etc. So, archive and install, even if you do preserve your settings, does not copy all of the existing settings. Would you advise doing with mkrishnan is going to do, archive and install without preserving settings, then?

Copying the user settings is one I've personally never bothered with, I'm just too lazy. My personal opinion is that anything from your ~/Library that's a problem will show up in userland issues, at which point I'll just go to the console log to troubleshoot them. The build up of files in ~/Library does bug me, but I try my best not to think about it

 

[Huff]

Upgrade plus Final Cut

Ok, this will be my first Mac upgrade (switched 7 months ago) and I'm trying to figure the best way to make this go smoothly. My main concern is a Final Cut project that consists of approximately 90 gigs of video. I have space to back up everything else important (pics, music, ect) that is on my iMac, but not all the video. What is the best option to get Tiger up and running without loosing the work I have done in FC? Thanks!

 

[kaltsasa]

Is it common to simply upgrade one version of OS X to the next? I'm from a very strong Windows background, where formatting is all but required for installing (or reinstalling) a new OS.

I was planning to format my Powerbook and install Tiger from scratch. I may be reconsidering that, though.

Insight, anyone?

I've gone from 10.2 to 10.3 to 10.4 now on an Ibook with out a whiff of an issue. Seems to me the upgrades usually go off with out a hitch. On my Windows box I wouldn't dream of upgrading, format and install. One of the many ways the Mac is superior, time saved on upgrading.