Just a straight up question.

[Keats1]

31 Dec 15

I've looked for an answer to this question on the forums but have not found it exactly as I need it.

I have an I Mac running 10.6.8 Snow Leopard - very well I might add - and last year I tried to install Turbo Tax via a CD and it would not load because my OS was not a new enough version. I had to use my wifes P.C. Laptop to do my taxes. So here it is time for my taxes again and sure enough, the CD needs to be using a version 10.9 or newer to install and run.
I checked the Apple Apps Store and there is a free download of El Capitan available but when I checked the reviews, there area a lot of very poor ratings for this OS.
I don't want to do an upgrade to 10.11 and then regret it. If I do the upgrade and it is not very good, how can I go back to my Snow Leopard?
I did a full back up of my hard drive onto my G Tech external drive. It was done using Super Duper and not Time Machine. If neccessary, could I reformat my hard drive to eliminate E.C. and then reload everything that I have on my external hard drive so that I would be back to where I was prior to the E.C. install? I really don't know how I would do that. (Senior Citizen - need I say more ?)

So I suppose that my questions are:
If I up grade to E.C. and then decide it's not for me, can I revert to my prior version of 10.6.8 O.S.?
If I can do that, how exactly do I do it?
Should I up load all of the photos in I Photo to the cloud before I try anything? Just to be sure not to loose them.

I just don't want to do something that I can't reverse.

I would appreciate any and all advise from you in this matter.

Thank you.

Keats

Peoria, Az.

 

[hallux]

How much free space do you have on your drive and do you have a spare 16GB or larger flash drive that you can allow to be formatted (this part may be optional)? If so, you could always create a second, relatively small, partition on your drive, install El Capitan to it and use it to run the software you need. This would leave your current setup intact and you could just hold down option during boot to select which OS you wish to use for that boot.

 

[Weaselboy]

I did a full back up of my hard drive onto my G Tech external drive. It was done using Super Duper and not Time Machine. If neccessary, could I reformat my hard drive to eliminate E.C. and then reload everything that I have on my external hard drive so that I would be back to where I was prior to the E.C. install?

Yes... very easily with your SuperDuper clone. You would just attached the external disk and hold the option key as you power up. That brings up a boot manager where yo would select the external to boot from. Once that boots into Snow Leopard you would use Disk Utility to erase the internal drive. Then quit Disk Utility and use Superduper again to clone back from external to internal. That's it.

I would not put the photos in iCloud since you have them backed up on the external anyway.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP asks:
"I don't want to do an upgrade to 10.11 and then regret it. If I do the upgrade and it is not very good, how can I go back to my Snow Leopard?"

Since you have a SuperDuper clone of your internal, you can always "get back to where you once belonged" by:
1. Booting from cloned drive with OLD OS
2. Re-initialize the internal drive
3. RE-CLONE from backup BACK TO the internal drive.

There is another way that can work, too:
1. Again, you'll need an external drive
2. Install the NEW OS -to- the external drive (and NOT to your internal drive)
3. For purposes of experimentation, boot and run from the external drive for a while, to see how you like the new OS (while your internal drive remains untouched).

Actually, I suggest the second method.
I've used this to experiment with almost every OS release BEFORE I commit myself to it.

You didn't tell us WHAT MAC YOU HAVE and what year it was made.
That can be important when upgrading to the latest OS versions.

One thing I can predict:
If your current Mac has a platter-based hard drive, you may be left unsatisfied by the overall speed you get from El Capitan.
I predict that although the OS may "run" on your Mac, from your viewpoint as a user it may feel more like the OS is "walking" (not running!).

This is why I suggest that if you're generally satisfied with the way your Mac is performing now, you might consider installing El Capitan onto an external drive, and boot and run that way. You can then install TurboTax, get your taxes done, etc., without fiddlin' with the internal drive (at least for now)...

 

[Keats1]

Sunday A.M.
Thanks to all of you for the great replies.

Fisherrman, I am using an Apple IMac 21.5", 3.06GHz,Core i3, 4GB Ram, 500 GB HD, Super Drive Radon HD computer.
My external drive is a G Tech G-Drive Q500GB. Bought it in Nov 2010.
I bought the IMac in August of 2010. The MFG. # is MC508LL/A

I thought about using the External drive and doing an upgrade to it's OS and then going back to my internal drive to just run my everyday stuff with Snow Leopard.
To do that, I'd have to shut off the computer and restart it while holding down the "Option" button and then selecting the external drive as the location I wish to run the computer from. Is that correct?
Once I was up and running, I could then download the new OS from the Apple Store - El Captain - for free and use that for synching my I phone on the newer version of I Tunes (I can't get an upgrade of I Tunes while using Snow Leopard 10-6-8.)and installing and running Turbo Tax.
When I was done with that, then I could restart and go back to Snow Leopard.
If I have that right, please let me know.

I do have the original 10.6.3 disk that came with my I Mac as well as the original Applications disk. I suppose that if I messed everything up, I could do a clean install of that version. ?

Moving my photos to the cloud is just my idea of not risking loosing them in case I do something wrong.

As for creating a small partition. I assume that you mean on the G Tech drive. I have a capacity of 499.76 GB and I have 87.76 GB available and I'm using 412.0 GB on it now.
That's very similar to the I Mac H.D.
It has 499.76 GB and has 86.29GB available and is using 413.47 GB now. Apparently the cloning of my I Mac hard drive to the external hard drive went well and I got everything transferred over to it.

I'm going to try the upgrade to the G Tech drive and see how that works. Worse case, I'll still have my 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on my I Mac to go back to and All I'd have to do is a Format of the G Tech to get back to new on it.

Again,
Thank you all for the great tips.

Keats
Peoria, Az.

 

[Keats1]

I thought about using the External drive and doing an upgrade to it's OS and then going back to my internal drive to just run my everyday stuff with Snow Leopard.
To do that, I'd have to shut off the computer and restart it while holding down the "Option" button and then selecting the external drive as the location I wish to run the computer from. Is that correct?
Once I was up and running, I could then download the new OS from the Apple Store - El Captain - for free and use that for synching my I phone on the newer version of I Tunes (I can't get an upgrade of I Tunes while using Snow Leopard 10-6-8.)and installing and running Turbo Tax.
When I was done with that, then I could restart and go back to Snow Leopard.
If I have that right, please let me know.

Am I right?? Anybody ?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Prediction:
Since your iMac has a platter-based hard drive inside, you may not care for the level of performance you get from upgrading to El Capitan.
I realize the the "perception of performance" is a personal matter, but although El Capitan may run on the 2010 iMac, it may seem more like it's "just walking", and not "running", if you get my drift.
Apple's latest OS's seem to run best on platforms that are based on SSD's or fusion drives.

Does the 2010 iMac have thunderbolt?
As an alternative, you could boot and run El Capitan via an external thunderbolt drive and it would run quite well.
BUT -- thunderbolt drives tend to be expensive. If you choose to buy one, I'd recommend keeping the drive capacity small (128gb or 240gb) to save $$$.

Another alternative:
Buy something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00ZTRY532?tag=delt-20
You could get the 128gb drive for around $70.
Then, just plug it into the USB port and use it that way.

Note:
I realize that the 2010 iMac only has USB2 instead of USB3, and that you won't get all the speed that an SSD is capable of delivering.
That said, I predict you'll get reasonable bootup speeds, and once-up-and-running, the level of performance will be very good.
And -- at some point in the future, when you move up to a Mac that does have USB3 capabilities, you can "take the drive along with you".

"Switch booting" from either an internal or external drive is EASY.
Nothing to it.
One proviso: Since El Capitan uses "CORE storage", which Snow Leopard doesn't understand, you'll probably have to use this routine to get from EC back to SL:
- Log out first (instead of shutting down)
- From the log in window, choose Shut Down and wait til power goes off
- Reboot and hold down option key, select SL drive, hit enter.
Just something to keep in mind.

 

[Keats1]

OP:

Prediction:
Since your iMac has a platter-based hard drive inside, you may not care for the level of performance you get from upgrading to El Capitan.
I realize the the "perception of performance" is a personal matter, but although El Capitan may run on the 2010 iMac, it may seem more like it's "just walking", and not "running", if you get my drift.
Apple's latest OS's seem to run best on platforms that are based on SSD's or fusion drives.

Does the 2010 iMac have thunderbolt?
As an alternative, you could boot and run El Capitan via an external thunderbolt drive and it would run quite well.
BUT -- thunderbolt drives tend to be expensive. If you choose to buy one, I'd recommend keeping the drive capacity small (128gb or 240gb) to save $$$.

Another alternative:
Buy something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00ZTRY532?tag=delt-20
You could get the 128gb drive for around $70.
Then, just plug it into the USB port and use it that way.

Note:
I realize that the 2010 iMac only has USB2 instead of USB3, and that you won't get all the speed that an SSD is capable of delivering.
That said, I predict you'll get reasonable bootup speeds, and once-up-and-running, the level of performance will be very good.
And -- at some point in the future, when you move up to a Mac that does have USB3 capabilities, you can "take the drive along with you".

"Switch booting" from either an internal or external drive is EASY.
Nothing to it.
One proviso: Since El Capitan uses "CORE storage", which Snow Leopard doesn't understand, you'll probably have to use this routine to get from EC back to SL:
- Log out first (instead of shutting down)
- From the log in window, choose Shut Down and wait til power goes off
- Reboot and hold down option key, select SL drive, hit enter.
Just something to keep in mind.

_________________________________________________________________________
Thank you very much.
It looks like I'm just going to have to talk to the wife about a new or refurbished Mac Book Pro to use and keep the I Mac for more mundane chores. I did not realize that there had been so many changes and that my beloved IMac was getting too old.
Oh well,
You advise is much appreciated and it makes a lot of sense.

Again,
Thank you.

Keats
Peoria, Az