Fresh install or Upgrade?

[jav6454]

Just upgrade. I did a fresh install 2 weeks ago.

 

[dmmcintyre3]

ONLY DO A CLEAN INSTALL!!!

Check back to October/07 to see what happened when Leopard was released. Those who did upgrades got the blue screen! The clean install is the best way to go for OS upgrades.

Why am I getting HTML in my quote boxes? Or signature? I did a upgrade install from a clean tiger install and ended up with no administrator accounts on my PB. The blue screen did not happen to anybody who had their system hacks up to date.

 

[chrisandersen]

Upgrade and roll the dice and see what happens.

 

[Eminemdrdre00]

Does Time Machine backup all my Mail.app accounts/settings?

 

[tekio]

I'll be doing a fresh install since I don't have a leopard install to upgrade.

 

[guitarmaster18]

I always do an archive and install, but SL doesn't have that option anymore. Fortunately I've heard that if you install SL on top of a current SL installation (installing on a disk that already has SL) then it does an archive and install. So what i'll do is upgrade my current disk, then when that's finished I'll run the installer again on the same disk, and it should archive and install.

 

[tivoboy]

my process

My process has always been.

If you system is running fine now, running great, very few spinning beach balls, then just do an upgrade.

If you system has any problems hanging, crashing at times, kernel panics, or lots of beach balls, then a FRESH INSTALL is probably going to help more than just doing the upgrade.

 

[david279]

Just finished a upgrade on my Imac 5,1 and everything is fine. Upgrading my Unibody macbook as i speak. Very smooth process.

 

[8CoreWhore]

I know this has been answered 100x over, but I just feel better asking since I haven't used OSX for very long (well since Dec, but never through a full OS reinstall/upgrade) and would just like to ease my conscious.

I plan to do a full installation (erase). So I can simply backup my machine using TM? Backup all the .DMG/etc files that I have saved (which should be in TM anyhow) as well?

Then choose the option to erase. When SL is running navigate to my TM folders (1TB external HDD) and restore my iPhoto/iTunes media folders to the newly created ones (after I reinstall iTunes/etc) and it will be fine? I wont have any permission issues like I do accessing another partition's saved info?


Other applications aren't a big deal for me as I have all the discs and stuff and I dont have many addons so it's not a major deal to re-load them.

My main concern is my saved content for iTunes and iPhoto. I have about 40gigs worth of photos in iPhoto (i have a 3yr old so my wife and I are ALWAYS snapping photos of her with the Digital Rebel for memories) and about 60gb of music. I could "deal" with losing the music ... but not the photo memories. I'd seriously freak out.

So that will work?

Otherwise I'm just gonig with the upgrade option, but I always like fresh installs personally.

All I'll say is get at least TWO more copies of those photos or your wife will kill you if something happens to them. HD's are cheap. Get two. Drag and drop the photos and music to both. Put one away, put the other at a relatives house in case of fire or theft, etc.