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nervous about updating to SL w/o backup...

D

dustyfanz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 28, 2009
13
0
Hey folks,
I am really wanting to update to Snow Leopard but I don't have a external hard drive to back-up to, here with me. I have read so many people saying that they have had a flawless upgrade but some others have had issues and that worries me. I'm wondering what your opinions are of installing SL without backing up my HD? I would like to clean out some of the "crap" that is on my HD but I also have a lot of stuff from when I was in school that I may like to look back at that can't be redownloaded or anything if lost.

Are the chances of my hard drive crashing with this specific update small enough for me to just go ahead and do it? Or should I really wait until I can backup everything to an external. Everybody's opinion counts, so please give me yours.

Thanks
Dustin
 
If you're nervous then don't do it.

Just upgrading should leave all your files intact, but anything can happen. There always is a small percentage something will go wrong. Better to be safe than sorry.
 
Back it up. You really reduce your risk by doing so.

How big is your hard drive? How much do you need to back up? Wal-Mart has some pretty inexpensive drives right now. I wouldn't want to risk it, but that's just me.
 
Never backed up my date and i've only gone through upgrading to snow leopard and leopard. No problem
 
I think I'm gonna put as much of my crucial documents (resumes, etc) on a flash drive and go for it. If I lose it all for some reason then....I guess it was meant to be and I will acquire the task of starting over. May even be for the better. Theres probably a lot of garbage on there slowing it down.
 
You guys could always break down and fork over $10 for a spindle of blank DVD's you know. That SuperDrive is taking up space inside your macs for a reason. :D
 
ahhhhh install troubles!!

ok so I've tried to install SL twice now and it wont work. It goes through the first 10 minutes or so, then it says, download will continue after computer restarts. It spits the disc out and reboots my machine. It reboots like normal and asks for my password. When I log in, nothing else happens. It just starts up like normal and says that I am still running 5.8. So frustrating.

Please help if you've had this issue or you know of something I can do to resolve.

Thank you so much
 
Just curious but why do you not have a backup drive period? Id be nervous about not having a backup, not just while upgrading OS's...
 
Richard1028 said:
You guys could always break down and fork over $10 for a spindle of blank DVD's you know. That SuperDrive is taking up space inside your macs for a reason. :D
Click to expand...

I didn't even think of this. I guess we should have asked how much is needed to backup.

It all could have been saved on a 2gb usb drive, a few DVDs, or maybe a hard drive is needed. I know that with iPhoto, you have to transfer the entire file, not individual photos. This can cause problems, depending on the size of the database.
 
OP - if your hard drive failed tomorrow, and you had to pay to get thr files back - how much would they be worth?
Would you be hassled if you couldn't get any back?
If you lost all your media, contacts, programs, license keys, photos movies etc.

Then consider cost of a 320GB or 500GB external drive.
If you don't backup and know you should, you effectively lose the right to whine when you lose all files. And it is when. Drives have a shelf life of a few years.
 
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