tiger to snow leopard upgrade - recover data

[GtotheK]

HI guys,
I've been scouring the forums looking for some answers i need upgrading directly from tiger to snow leopard. I have the snow leopard dvd and purchased ilife 09, but not the boxed set, i didn't want iwork. my question is backing up my data. tiger doesn't have time machine, so i was going to use superduper. i'm going to do a clean install, so my question is after the clean install of SL and ilife 09, how do i recover my data from superduper, like my iphoto photos and music from itunes? are there folders i drag and drop into itunes/iphoto? did i explain my situation clear enough? please advise. love this site and the info you guys all have. hope you can help me out

 

[cjmillsnun]

Yes there are folders you can drag and drop. They are Users/username/pictures and /users/username/music.

boot from Tiger (use your clone disk) and drag/drop them into the snow leopard folders...

However if I recall correctly (if your external drive is FireWire), you can use the migration assistant to copy over your data.

Another tip, keep the cloned drive for a month or 2. You can always boot from it if you have issues with Snow.

 

[xUKHCx]

Perfectly clear enough

There are folders that you can copy across no problem but it can be a bit of a pain to do it manually if you are unsure of what to copy. Thankfully OS X has got you covered, in the Utilities folder you will find a program called Migration Assistant (it is actually present in Tiger as well iirc). This will do all the work for you. Plug in your cloned drive, the one you created from SuperDuper, and run the program. In fact you are prompted at one point during the Snow Leopard install to use this program, you can skip it at the point and run it at any time later on but I figure you may as well get it set up right in the beginning.



edit: I have no idea why the screenshot has that black border, Snow Leopard bug. Migration assistant works with USB drives as well.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Migration assistant works with USB drives as well.

Cool, learnt something new today

 

[GtotheK]

OK thanks guys, I didn't realize i could use migration assistant. but just as a recap of the order do to things, let me know if this is right:

Backup with superduper
clean install SL and ilife 09
plug back in the external drive and use migration assistant?

my external backup drive is usb, not firewire, is that a problem?

 

[GtotheK]

?

will i be able to use migration assistant with my external hard drive that's USB, not firewire?

 

[Mumford]

will i be able to use migration assistant with my external hard drive that's USB, not firewire?

Yes.