Fresh install using external hard drive

[tonka2]

First time trying a fresh install after two years. So I need explicit instructions, please I know I have to go to Disk Utility to initiate the install, and I have my HD cloned on an external.

My questions: After install, can I just transfer my whole external unto SL, or would that cause a problem?

Or do I have to transfer one file at a time, like Apps, photos, etc? And if so, is it just a drag and drop unto the new drive?

How do I transfer bookmarks?

If your answer can be in a 1, 2, 3 type thing, I'd appreciate it, and thanks in advance

 

[CWallace]

You will not want to copy your entire external clone over since that might overwrite the 10.6 OS files with the cloned 10.5 ones.

If you have Time Machine, once you have installed 10.6 it can migrate all your data, applications and settings over.

Or you can just install 10.6 and boot it, then manually copy over your data, applications, preferences and such.

Also, just performing an in-place upgrade is fine, since 10.6 is a refinement to 10.5 so it will replace existing OS files with new ones and then clean-up after itself (to the point of recovering a few GB of free space) so you don't need to worry about "wasted space" with extraneous 10.5 files cluttering your HDD. That way you don't need to mess with rebuilding your settings and remembering all the Library files and preferences.

I did a clean install on one Mac and an in-place upgrade on my main Mac and I found the in-place upgrade was much smoother. It essentially worked just like it did before, only faster.

 

[tonka2]

You will not want to copy your entire external clone over since that might overwrite the 10.6 OS files with the cloned 10.5 ones.

If you have Time Machine, once you have installed 10.6 it can migrate all your data, applications and settings over.

Or you can just install 10.6 and boot it, then manually copy over your data, applications, preferences and such.

Also, just performing an in-place upgrade is fine, since 10.6 is a refinement to 10.5 so it will replace existing OS files with new ones and then clean-up after itself (to the point of recovering a few GB of free space) so you don't need to worry about "wasted space" with extraneous 10.5 files cluttering your HDD. That way you don't need to mess with rebuilding your settings and remembering all the Library files and preferences.

I did a clean install on one Mac and an in-place upgrade on my main Mac and I found the in-place upgrade was much smoother. It essentially worked just like it did before, only faster.

Thanks very much for your fast response which covered everything I asked, and I'm going to follow your advice and do an in-place upgrade .

 

[dborja]

...

I did a clean install on one Mac and an in-place upgrade on my main Mac and I found the in-place upgrade was much smoother. It essentially worked just like it did before, only faster.

With your clean install Mac, did it allow you to pick which applications to bring over?

Thanks

 

[shakenmartini]

With your clean install Mac, did it allow you to pick which applications to bring over?

Thanks

That is not a clean install.

A clean install is to install the OS on a formatted drive and manually install each application after that as it were a new machine.

The SL upgrade process is VERY good, so just use it. There really is no reason not to.

SL copies your old system to a sub-folder, installs SL, then copies your user folder to the new system using essentially migration assistant.

Unless you have some weird install or configurations, the best way to install SL is to upgrade in place.

 

[dborja]

That is not a clean install.

A clean install is to install the OS on a formatted drive and manually install each application after that as it were a new machine.

The SL upgrade process is VERY good, so just use it. There really is no reason not to.

SL copies your old system to a sub-folder, installs SL, then copies your user folder to the new system using essentially migration assistant.

Unless you have some weird install or configurations, the best way to install SL is to upgrade in place.

Sorry, you're right. I wasn't thinking of a truly clean install. What I was considering is a wipe of my hard drive, a fresh install of SL, then migrating my apps and data from either Time Machine or the Leopard image of my hard drive (created with SuperDuper).

The reason I am considering this is that there are some apps that I have deleted over time and some apps that I'm planning to delete with my upgrade to SL. I'm worried about files that belong to the deleted and soon-to-be-deleted applications in other directories that may hang around or, worse, still be executing as support utilities for applications that are no longer there. And, yes, there are some applications that I plan to do a fresh install.

 

[jeffy.dee-lux]

i'm pretty sure this is nothing to worry about, but am I right in assuming that doing a fresh install won't touch my Windows partition?