installing snow leopard no backup

[Patth9]

I am about to help a friend upgrade his intel iMac from tiger to snow leopard. He does not have a backup HD for his imac.

I'm understanding that I should install SL using a "clean install". I have a TB backup drive "My Passport" on my mac mini/Mountain Lion with an empty 168 GB partition .

1. Can I just copy his Tiger over to my backup partition by dropping the Macintosh HD icon onto the empty partition?

If this is possible, and Snow Leopard has been installed on his iMac, will I have the option to transfer his Tiger applications and data onto his Snow Leopard using the Snow Leopard DVD? (Apple Store DVD)

2nd option: Could I simply install Snow Leopard over the top of Tiger? If this is possible, will this leave all the applications and data in place?

I know how to make a partition on a hard drive, would this be another option?

Needless to say, I'm a little rusty...

Thank you
Patt

PS can you tell me what the (no prefix) option is for on this thread.

I believe this is his

Hardward Overview:


Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM51.0090.B09 SMC Version (system): 1.9f4

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Installing Snow Leopard just over Tiger would be the easiest way. Nothing will get lost.

But I would recommend to do a Backup on an external drive by cloning his Tiger Partition.

That version of Carbon Copy Cloner should work with Tiger:

https://70dd08a0984b0022574d-8064f6cbda3d6f2abd1c53b8bc16b17e.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/ccc-3.4.7.dmg

https://bombich.com/download

After installing Snow Leopard from the DVD, what will be 10.6 or 10.6.3, you can faster update to the latest version by downloading this:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399

 

[Fishrrman]

What your friend really needs.... .... is some kind of backup drive.

The best course of action would be to create a bootable cloned backup using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper BEFORE trying to upgrade.

Having one will make it easy to "get back to where you once belonged" if things go wrong on you.

Since his iMac is getting older (and that includes the internal drive inside), he needs a backup in any case. If that drive quits, and if there's anything important on it, those files will be gone!

At the very least get a USB flash drive and make a copy of his home folder.

 

[MacUser2525]

What your friend really needs.... .... is some kind of backup drive.

The best course of action would be to create a bootable cloned backup using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper BEFORE trying to upgrade.

Indeed backups are it another option is Disk Utility and its restore feature. OP take your spare drive open DU Select the restore choose the internal drive as source external partition as destination let it do its thing leave connected reboot to confirm it worked by holding Option key and choosing it to boot from. Install the SL on the internal wiping it and let migration assistant take care of moving the user, programs and settings back to new install from external drive backup.

 

[Patth9]

Erdbeertorte and Fishrrman, thank you both very much.

I agree that it is necessary for one to have a backup, however, it has taken me 4 years to convince these folks that their is nothing wrong with there Mac, it just needs an OS (operating system)update, that tiger no long will do the job. The only thing of importance on their iMac are their pictures and most of them are backed up on a flash-drive. I've told them that they can't boot from a flash-drive, but ...? I've even suggested that if nothing else, they can store the photos on a CD/DVD.

Perhaps, you will kindly answer another questions for me?

I've been told by my friend that when I email a PDF file to their Hot Mail address it will not open, and the same is true for a jpeg. Why would this be?

 

[Erdbeertorte]

I've been told by my friend that when I email a PDF file to their Hot Mail address it will not open, and the same is true for a jpeg. Why would this be?

Where does he try to open them? In an email client or directly in a browser? With or without saving the attachment before?

I hope he is not using Safari anymore. Even the version in Snow Leopard is nearly unusable or just much too slow for many websites.

Or maybe Tiger is just too old to open your files without a recent version of a third party PDF reader and image viewer.
But I don't know Tiger. That was long before my Apple time.

Is it at least updated to the latest version 10.4.11?

 

[Patth9]

Where does he try to open them? In an email client or directly in a browser? With or without saving the attachment before?

I hope he is not using Safari anymore. Even the version in Snow Leopard is nearly unusable or just much too slow for many websites.

Or maybe Tiger is just too old to open your files without a recent version of a third party PDF reader and image viewer.
But I don't know Tiger. That was long before my Apple time.

Is it at least updated to the latest version 10.4.11?

[doublepost=1453007382][/doublepost]All very good questions, Erdbeertorte. He is using Firefox and I don't know if he even knows that he needs to click the downloaded window. I will copy paste you questions and have them on hand when I install SL, as soon as the snow stops and the streets are clear. Thank you very much for your guidance.

Patt