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Best way to upgrade to Snow Leopard

P

pestbest

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 28, 2009
20
0
Hi,

I'm just wondering what is the best way to upgrade to snow leopard. My Mac Book does not accept DVD but I have downloaded a copy of Snow Leopard Build 10A432 and really want to use it, I initially wanted to burn it to DVD and use it to install but forgot that my mac book won't accept it.

What I want to know is the cheapest, most efficient and reliable way to get Snow leopard up and running on my macbook.

By the way, I plan on buying Snow Leopard once it comes out but just want to test it out now.

Thanks for all your help.
 
pestbest said:
Hi,

I'm just wondering what is the best way to upgrade to snow leopard. My Mac Book does not accept DVD but I have downloaded a copy of Snow Leopard Build 10A432 and really want to use it, I initially wanted to burn it to DVD and use it to install but forgot that my mac book won't accept it.

What I want to know is the cheapest, most efficient and reliable way to get Snow leopard up and running on my macbook.

By the way, I plan on buying Snow Leopard once it comes out but just want to test it out now.

Thanks for all your help.
Click to expand...

As it appears that it'll be released this weekend i wouldn't bother. You'll end up installing it twice if you want software update to work reliably.

BTW all macbooks can read DVD's, are you refering to burning it? If so, without a superdrive to burn the DVD image your work is even more convoluted.

If you really must go down this path, mount the ISO image and copy the files to a spare hard drive or suitably large flash memory stick. Bless the drive and run the installer whilst booted in leopard. Should reboot and run the installation routine. No guarantees though.

M. :rolleyes:
 
MikeDTyke said:
As it appears that it'll be released this weekend i wouldn't bother. You'll end up installing it twice if you want software update to work reliably.

BTW all macbooks can read DVD's, are you refering to burning it? If so, without a superdrive to burn the DVD image your work is even more convoluted.

If you really must go down this path, mount the ISO image and copy the files to a spare hard drive or suitably large flash memory stick. Bless the drive and run the installer whilst booted in leopard. Should reboot and run the installation routine. No guarantees though.

M. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...


Are you sure my macbook accepts DVD? Everytime I insert a DVD into the superdrive, it immediately ejects itself out.

Anyway, will try your method? If that doesn't work, I think I will just wait for the actual release.
 
If you macbook isn't excepting DVD's, if it is still under warrantee I would take it into an apple store. Some macbooks can't burn DVD's but they are all supposed to be able to read them.
 
pestbest said:
Are you sure my macbook accepts DVD? Everytime I insert a DVD into the superdrive, it immediately ejects itself out.

Anyway, will try your method? If that doesn't work, I think I will just wait for the actual release.
Click to expand...

Get an external drive.
 
You can mount the disk image in Disk Utility, create a partition on an external HDD, and restore the disk image to the partition on the external HDD. Then you can boot directly from the external HDD as a regular disk (albeit a lot faster read speeds).
 
On this note, I'm considering getting the Mac Box Set instead of Snow Leopard. Why? Because the Mac Box Set has a "full install" disc, rather than just an upgrade disc. I'd like to wipe my machine and install SL from scratch.

Thoughts?
 
MikeDTyke said:
As it appears that it'll be released this weekend i wouldn't bother. You'll end up installing it twice if you want software update to work reliably.

BTW all macbooks can read DVD's, are you refering to burning it? If so, without a superdrive to burn the DVD image your work is even more convoluted.

If you really must go down this path, mount the ISO image and copy the files to a spare hard drive or suitably large flash memory stick. Bless the drive and run the installer whilst booted in leopard. Should reboot and run the installation routine. No guarantees though.

M. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

No confirmation that 10A432 is or is not the GM, so it's uncertain whether update will work.
 
ziggyonice said:
On this note, I'm considering getting the Mac Box Set instead of Snow Leopard. Why? Because the Mac Box Set has a "full install" disc, rather than just an upgrade disc. I'd like to wipe my machine and install SL from scratch.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Thats my plan as well. I just did the upgrade from Tiger, so I'm sure my disk has a bunch of older crap that can be gotten rid of. I'll backup my home folder and some Apps on my external, wipe my internal drive and do a fresh install. Now would probably be just as good a time as any to upgrade my internal hard drive too I guess.
 
ziggyonice said:
On this note, I'm considering getting the Mac Box Set instead of Snow Leopard. Why? Because the Mac Box Set has a "full install" disc, rather than just an upgrade disc. I'd like to wipe my machine and install SL from scratch.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I could be wrong here but cant you just bung the snow leopard upgrade disc and and choose to do a clean install from there?

From what I've read elsewhere it sounds like you have the choice just to upgrade over the top so you don't loose anything or do a clean install...

If that is the case then surely the box sets a waste unless you want to update ilife etc too?
 
neil1980 said:
I could be wrong here but cant you just bung the snow leopard upgrade disc and and choose to do a clean install from there?

From what I've read elsewhere it sounds like you have the choice just to upgrade over the top so you don't loose anything or do a clean install...

If that is the case then surely the box sets a waste unless you want to update ilife etc too?
Click to expand...


This is intriguing. I've just done the pre-order thang and am now wondering what to do.

Do I start afresh by reinstalling Leopard and then Snow Leopard or just do the upgrade?

From what you're saying there may be a secret option number 3 of fresh Snow Leopard install straight from the disk which would work for me.

As my lappy has been getting slower and slower over the months I guess what I really want to know is how clean will the OS be if I do a straight upgrade instead of a fresh install?

[/incoherentbabble]
 
neil1980 said:
I could be wrong here but cant you just bung the snow leopard upgrade disc and and choose to do a clean install from there?

From what I've read elsewhere it sounds like you have the choice just to upgrade over the top so you don't loose anything or do a clean install...

If that is the case then surely the box sets a waste unless you want to update ilife etc too?
Click to expand...


I know that my leopard upgrade disk had a work around where one could installed the entire OS, instead of having to have tiger already installed. Will snow leopard upgrade follow this path ?? Who knows?
 
ziggyonice said:
On this note, I'm considering getting the Mac Box Set instead of Snow Leopard. Why? Because the Mac Box Set has a "full install" disc, rather than just an upgrade disc. I'd like to wipe my machine and install SL from scratch.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

You can still do that. The installer just needs to see the Leopard installation before you begin. I think you may even be able to plug in an external drive with a leopard install for the validation and then install to your internal drive even if it never had leopard. haven't tried that though.
 
Hrududu said:
Thats my plan as well. I just did the upgrade from Tiger, so I'm sure my disk has a bunch of older crap that can be gotten rid of. I'll backup my home folder and some Apps on my external, wipe my internal drive and do a fresh install. Now would probably be just as good a time as any to upgrade my internal hard drive too I guess.
Click to expand...

The easiest upgrade path is to do an erase and install (you absolutely CAN do this from the upgrade dvd), and then restore from your latest time machine backup. I've restored systems from TM several times and it works great. This will also achieve the same results as a defrag application, since you'll be starting with a fresh hard disk.
 
My plan?

I have built a fresh install of Leopard on an external hard drive these past few weeks, whenever I have had a spare hour.

I will wipe the hard drive on my main machine using original Leopard install disc. Then I shall install snow leopard on top of that. Then I shall use Migration Assistant to suck everything from the external into place on my main machine.

Or I might user super duper to copy my new-build onto my main machine hard disc and then put snow leopard on top of that.

So, actually< i guess I'm just as confused as everyone else....
 
pestbest said:
Hi,

I'm just wondering what is the best way to upgrade to snow leopard. My Mac Book does not accept DVD but I have downloaded a copy of Snow Leopard Build 10A432 and really want to use it, I initially wanted to burn it to DVD and use it to install but forgot that my mac book won't accept it.

What I want to know is the cheapest, most efficient and reliable way to get Snow leopard up and running on my macbook.

By the way, I plan on buying Snow Leopard once it comes out but just want to test it out now.

Thanks for all your help.
Click to expand...


Buy it, then install it.

oh, and don't ask people to help you steal software, it's not cool.
 
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