Leopard installation has been hell, someone please help.

[marcel-v]

Ok, I've tried once already to install Leopard from an upgrade disc, having previously been using Tiger. The first installation didn't work, giving me an error message along the lines of 'couldn't find a previous installment of 10.4'.

Now I've backed up all my files and performed a clean install of Tiger, and this time "sucesfully" completed the Leopard upgrade, BUT NOW I cannot even get past the loading page, ie. Apple logo and the little swirly thing below it. The screen has been like that for 20 minutes and I've restarted a couple of times with the same outcome.

Can someone please help?

 

[marcel-v]

This is ridiculous, this loading screen has been going for about an hour now. Is there anything I can even do to try a re-install?

 

[Zawamura]

put in your Leopard DVD, format your had drive and make a complete reinstall of leopard only, you dont need to upgrade from Tiger.

 

[chas0001]

You don't need Tiger to be installed in order to 'Upgrade' to Leopard. Boot from the Leopard DVD, Use disk utility to wipe the hard drive and then do a fresh install of Leopard.

 

[marcel-v]

put in your Leopard DVD, format your had drive and make a complete reinstall of leopard only, you dont need to upgrade from Tiger.

But its an actual 'upgrade disc', I am unable to eject the disc before the loading starts as well. Are there any options? Like a Windows-like safe mode?

 

[Cerebrus' Maw]

But its an actual 'upgrade disc', I am unable to eject the disc before the loading starts as well. Are there any options? Like a Windows-like safe mode?

If you have a wired mouse, holding the button immediately after starting your machine should eject the disk. If not, try again holding the eject key on the keyboard. Both options work best wired.

There is a Safe Mode, but if you are only getting to the Spinning Gear, you might not "see" it.

Hold the Shift Key on startup, until you see the spinning gear. If it works, you will be taken to your login screen, with Safe Boot in red writing under Mac OS X.

Your best bet is to leave the disk in the Imac, boot up, and hold the Alt key, until you see two icons on the screen. One for Macintosh HD, the other for Leopard Install DVD. Double click the DVD and it should boot to it.
You can then try using Disk Utility to repair, or do a clean install. Your choice.

 

[chas0001]

I did not think that there was such a thing as an upgrade disc. If you have purchased Leopard the disc will allow you to either Upgrade from a previous version of OSX or do a fresh install of Leopard.

I am assuming there is nothing on your computers hard drive that you need!

Insert the leopard DVD into your computer.
Shutdown your computer.
Start it up while holding down the Left ALT key

A menu will appear. Double click on the 'MAC OS X Install DVD". The computer will now boot from the DVD.

When its booted select your Language.
Then click Continue
Highlight the hard drive that you want to install OS X on to
Click the OPTIONS Button
Choose ERASE and INSTALL (this will wipe out all data on the hard drive!!)
Then click continue.

Now just continue through the installer.... After installation the computer will automatically boot into Leopard.

 

[azhelkov]

I did not think that there was such a thing as an upgrade disc. If you have purchased Leopard the disc will allow you to either Upgrade from a previous version of OSX or do a fresh install of Leopard.

You are wrong. Apple sold a lot of computers after Leopard was released with drop-in disk, which is UPGRADE disk. It works only if Tiger was pre-installed at the time you inserted this DVD disk. Then you can choose clean install (Erase and Install) option, but in this case you using Disk Utility from installer disk. At least in my case if I erased HDD before installation, drop-in disk did not work with a message about Tiger requirement.

 

[applefan69]

You are wrong. Apple sold a lot of computers after Leopard was released with drop-in disk, which is UPGRADE disk. It works only if Tiger was pre-installed at the time you inserted this DVD disk. Then you can choose clean install (Erase and Install) option, but in this case you using Disk Utility from installer disk. At least in my case if I erased HDD before installation, drop-in disk did not work with a message about Tiger requirement.

ugh, yah apple kind of pulled a dick move when leopard first came out. All iMacs that were already shipped (so they were at stores) when leopard came out, of course didnt have leopard in them. So apple gave stores a bunch of upgrade disks for the stores to give to customers who bought a mac.

SAdly, these upgrade disks suck balls, because they require you have Tiger already installed, and thats pretty much why it's been hard for you.



I hate to say this to you.. cause it means you've still got another 4-5 hours of installing ahead of you. BUT, I think only thing you can do is:
1) Insert your Tiger disk
2) Do a clean install of Tiger
3) Insert Leopard
4) uprade to leopard and PRAY nothing goes wrong.

I think what went wrong, is your installation of Leopard must of gone wrong somewhere.... which is rare but DOES happen, is your upgrade disk scratched at all? Did you allow your computer to check and confirm that your uprade disk isn't corrupt/wrecked?

EDIT: A little advice for the future, whenever your buying a computer around the launch of a new OS. For the love of god ASK your salesperson if your going to get a real install disk, or an upgrade disk. Honestly if he/she were to tell me I'm only gonna get an upgrade disk... I would just say "ok, Im sorry but im not interested in thiss computer anymore" walk out, and I'd probably come back a couple weeks later. If you buy a computer by a company like apple, AFTER the launch of an OS I honestly feel like you should be entitled to a full copy of that new OS.

 

[chas0001]

You are wrong. Apple sold a lot of computers after Leopard was released with drop-in disk, which is UPGRADE disk. It works only if Tiger was pre-installed at the time you inserted this DVD disk. Then you can choose clean install (Erase and Install) option, but in this case you using Disk Utility from installer disk. At least in my case if I erased HDD before installation, drop-in disk did not work with a message about Tiger requirement.

I stand corrected. He did not mention that Leopard was one of the drop in discs.

I suppose the only option is to do what applefan69 says. Do a full install of Tiger and then do an erase install of Leopard. I did an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard and my computer started to get slower and slower. I then backed it up, did a clean install of Leopard and manually copied all the things I needed back. The computer is now really quick. I cannot believe the difference it makes.