Snow Leopard Clean Install Absolutely Flawless

[docprego]

I debated with myslef back and forth, clean install or upgrade? I was a bit nervous about wiping my hard drive and then letting Time Machine restore all my files, I should have made a secondary backup in another way but I did not. I risked it and rebooted into the SL installer program. From there I went to Disk Utility and wiped the hard drive clean (my TM backup better work now!).

Then I installed Snow Leopard, I would estimate it took roughly 40 minutes. From there I followed the installer steps which asked me if I had a backup to restore from, a Time Machine backup was one of the options. I selected that and waited, and waited, and waited. The TM restore took about an hour and a half, not too bad. Once everything was finished and I rebooted my system was running Snow Leopard and ALL of my previous apps, photos, movies, and other files were intact, exactly where i had them under Leopard.

This was the first time I have purchased and upgraded a Mac OS, I was running Leopard on all my Macs from the beginning. I never imagined it would be so easy or work so well. I really though I would have to reinstall all the apps I wanted to use and I was sure some of my data would be lost.

I am very happy to report that while Snow Leopard doesn't look any different than Leopard on the surface, there are numerous really nice little touches that abound once you start using the OS. My favorite is dock expose, I use it constantly now and it is just a brilliant extension of an already great idea. My system truly feels snappier, apps are loading much quicker. In particular I used to wait for 8-10 bounces for Firefox to start, now its down to 2-3. Maybe the clean install is the reason, maybe Snow Leopard is, it's probably some combination of the two. Overall I have encountered not one single problem, this has truly been a flawless upgrade for me.

I am extremely pleased with this upgrade. I got it on sale at Best Buy for $25.00, I just checked their site and the sale is still on. It rang up at $29.99 in store but I told the cashier about the sale and she adjusted it immediately. For $25.00 what is there to think about?

P.S. I noticed something in Snow Leopard and I was wondering if it is a new feature or if I simply never noticed it before. I selected the "Cosmos" screen saver and when it comes on the images displayed on my iMac and on my external ACD are different. Have screen savers always behaved this way? I was expecting to see the same image on both monitors.

 

[celmer]

Why?

I'm confused - why did you go thru the trouble of clean installing if you went back and restored everything... didn't this defeat the purpose? I upgraded at the time b/c i didn't have time to do a clean install but I'm thinking of doing it this weekend; I'm kind of anal and re-install my OS about every 6 months. But I just migrate manually a couple folders (Documents, Aperture Library, Mail, and iTunes) to an external and then replace them when the OS is finished reinstalling and then re-install my apps. Does TimeMachine just restore important (like said) files? I was under the impression it would replace everything...

 

[Surely]

Yes, can anyone confirm if this is the proper method of doing a clean install?

I did a regular upgrade, and am trying to decide whether I should do a clean install this weekend. My only backup is my most recent Time Machine backup, which I did prior to installing SL.

 

[Richard1028]

Yes, can anyone confirm if this is the proper method of doing a clean install?

No. The OP's procedure is not a clean install and I can't understand why folks have such a hard understanding what 'clean' means.

It means... you start from scratch; formatting your drive and installing SL only - just like your mac arrived from Apple. Then you re-install your applications from their source. (Yeah, you'll have to download any updates later). Then transfer any document backups to the drive.

Is all this necessary? For me it wasn't as I just installed SL on top of Leopard but for those with all the 3rd party geek crap on their systems or they've been applying Terminal hacks galore then yes, I'd say it's the safe bet.

I did a regular upgrade, and am trying to decide whether I should do a clean install this weekend.

Why? Are you having problems?

 

[Surely]

^^^^ What a quote mess!

The only problems I've noticed so far are:

• That Spaces won't activate with its assigned keyboard shortcut (F6). It's pretty annoying, as I use it constantly. Check out this thread for details. So far, no on has offered any solutions.
• My Airport Radar widget doesn't work anymore. It's telling me to "Please install AirPort Radar in your Widgets folder and reload". It's already in my Widgets folder.
• When selecting a Top Site, I get this weird transition screen while the page loads. The pattern is always different (I guess depending on the loading page). See below:

 

[jmann]

It's so refreshing to see a SL install praise thread. It's a nice change from the whiny one. Thanks for posting.

 

[Surely]

It's so refreshing to see a SL install praise thread. It's a nice change from the whiny one. Thanks for posting.

I wouldn't call it a "praise thread". It's really only the OP's comment that is praising his install process. Did he even do a clean install properly?

Any ideas on my issues?

 

[patrixl]

I think what he meant wasn't that he restored from TM, but rather used the Migration assistant to restore his data/apps from TM??

If he really did a restore, then yeah I suppose he's back on Leopard lol

 

[celmer]

Why? Are you having problems?

Actually my start up speed has decreased considerably; the time has almost tripled to start up. My shut down is awesome - literally like three seconds. I don't know if it's the nature of 10.6, but I can't help feeling like a clean install would fix my issues...

Also, anyone know if the 'upgrade' disc has a full version? I think I read in the ars technica review that it is... any thoughts on if a clean install requires to install leopard first?

 

[Surely]

^^^ I didn't say that! Thanks a lot, Richard.

From what I understand, the $29 upgrade disc has the full version.

 

[docprego]

I'm confused - why did you go thru the trouble of clean installing if you went back and restored everything... didn't this defeat the purpose? I upgraded at the time b/c i didn't have time to do a clean install but I'm thinking of doing it this weekend; I'm kind of anal and re-install my OS about every 6 months. But I just migrate manually a couple folders (Documents, Aperture Library, Mail, and iTunes) to an external and then replace them when the OS is finished reinstalling and then re-install my apps. Does TimeMachine just restore important (like said) files? I was under the impression it would replace everything...

I didn't restore everything. I simply used my TM backup to replace my data and apps. SL was installed on a freshly formatted drive.

Yes, can anyone confirm if this is the proper method of doing a clean install?

No. The OP's procedure is not a clean install and I can't understand why folks have such a hard understanding what 'clean' means.

It means... you start from scratch; formatting your drive and installing SL only - just like your mac arrived from Apple. Then you re-install your applications from their source. (Yeah, you'll have to download any updates later). Then transfer any document backups to the drive.

Is all this necessary? For me it wasn't as I just installed SL on top of Leopard but for those with all the 3rd party geek crap on their systems or they've been applying Terminal hacks galore then yes, I'd say it's the safe bet.

Why? Are you having problems?

Granted I did not install my apps from the source, but I did install SL from scratch. Every single one of my apps works exactly as it did under Leopard.

It's so refreshing to see a SL install praise thread. It's a nice change from the whiny one. Thanks for posting.

You're welcome. My iMac is still running perfectly, I have nothing but praise still for SL.

I wouldn't call it a "praise thread". It's really only the OP's comment that is praising his install process. Did he even do a clean install properly?

Any ideas on my issues?

I think I did do a correct clean install. If restoring apps and data from a TM backup negates that, then that's another story.

I think what he meant wasn't that he restored from TM, but rather used the Migration assistant to restore his data/apps from TM??

If he really did a restore, then yeah I suppose he's back on Leopard lol

I'm definitely running SL, so no restore was done.

^^^ I didn't say that! Thanks a lot, Richard.

From what I understand, the $29 upgrade disc has the full version.

This is true, it installed on my machine on a freshly formatted drive and it never asked for my Leopard disc.

 

[Richard1028]

Granted I did not install my apps from the source, but I did install SL from scratch.

But when you ported over your apps from TM, it also transferred the older preference settings for each one as well.

Hence the misconception about a virgin install.

Every single one of my apps works exactly as it did under Leopard.

That's all that matters in the end.

 

[littleasian]

i also clean-installed SL, but unlike the OP I manually copied over my needed files (music/movies/documents) over onto an external and installed it. Booting from the upgrade disc (holding down c while powering on), I used disk utility to wipe my hd clear and reinstalled SL.

installation took only 25 minutes, after which i plugged my external back in and manually dragged everything back. i estimate i took about 1.5 hrs in wiping/reinstalling everything, but the instalation has been flawless so far.

i was having problems with my upgrade installation of SL so thats why i decided to clean install. The OP's installation isn't really a clean install because TM reinstalls all of your old preferences and correspondingly, all the junk that used to be on your computer.

 

[dacreativeguy]

I think what he meant wasn't that he restored from TM, but rather used the Migration assistant to restore his data/apps from TM??

If he really did a restore, then yeah I suppose he's back on Leopard lol

Not true. Time Machine backups do not include the OS files. You'll get the same results whether you use restore from backup from the Utilities menu in the installer or by migration assistant during the setup assistant after installing the OS from DVD.

 

[ntrigue]

I did a truly clean install and had wonderful results.

My definition of clean is dropping music files (.mp3 .aac) onto iTunes, dragging files from external to Documents, dropping photos on iPhoto.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Did a clean install using the drag and drop method for my data.

What can I say. I LOVE Snow Leopard.

 

[patrixl]

Not true. Time Machine backups do not include the OS files. You'll get the same results whether you use restore from backup from the Utilities menu in the installer or by migration assistant during the setup assistant after installing the OS from DVD.

That's strange, my time machine backups include the OS files. Everything is there except stuff I specifically exclude. That's the goal of Time Machine, a full backup of everything on your system.

Patrix.

 

[Drag'nGT]

• When selecting a Top Site, I get this weird transition screen while the page loads. The pattern is always different (I guess depending on the loading page).

I get that too. It happens 2 outta every 3 times, it's annoying.

 

[Ruftara]

Flawlwee Clean Snow Leopard Install

I just upgraded to Snow Leopard so that I could eventually get Lion. My experience with SL has not been good. First, the Installer would not let me use my hard drive as the source for the installation saying it was used as a backup for Time Machine which it was two years ago when I also had an iBook so I used each machine to back up the other. However, I tried to figure out how to get rid of the files that caused SL to give the message but was unable to identify the proper files. So I went for a Clean Install of the operating system. Great.

But when I went to restore my applications from the Time machine back up I ran into lots of problems. All my purchased software required the activation code which I had on a file that is buried somewhere in the back up and I cannot remember the name. I seem to have lost all my addresses but I can those from my iPad, same with iTunes data and iPhotos. I cannot seem to restore my mail data at all. Many of the applications did not restore -- not sure why but now I am slowly adding when I realise they are not there. I find the whole process frustrating.

Do you think I should restart and try to upgrade again with a clean install and see if I have better luck with the restoration process. You see I think I missed out something on the actual install. I do not remember seeing anything about migration of restoration from Time Machine. Can anyone advise me on what to do?