Upgrading an existing Partition from Mavericks to Yosemite...

[Matt Bleistein]

Hi,

I have a 2012 Mac Pro running Lion (10.7.5) as my primary OS - mainly so I can continue to use FCP7. I've taken a separate installed 2TB internal drive, made a partition on that drive, and loaded Mavericks on it so I can go back and forth between Lion and Mavericks. I would now like to upgrade this 'Mavericks' partition to Yosemite so that I can run the latest Adobe CC and AVID offerings from that partition - is it possible? Is it advisable? My trepidation comes from the fear that upgrading the second drive will 'somehow' disrupt Lion which I still use on a day to day basis - so far things with Mavericks on the other drive are just fine, but one never knows. Figured this would be the best place to ask about it.


Thank you very much in advance,

Matt.

 

[ricede]

If you installed Mavericks on the ext HD then theres no reason why you shouldn't be able to update it. Just guide the Yosemite installer towards it as the place to install.

As for your fear of ...." upgrading the second drive will 'somehow' disrupt Lion "..... theres no reason why it should affect the Lion partition at all.

I think if i was going down that line i would bypass Yosemite & go straight to El Capitan, which is basically a "tweaked" Yosemite and they say works very well. Thats providing that Adobe CC and AVID are updated to run on it.

 

[DeltaMac]

You have a MacPro, with multiple drives. If you are concerned at all about disturbing your Lion work drive, then it only takes a few seconds to pull that drive out. Update your secondary drive to Yosemite (El Capitan will likely be better, plus if you have not already "purchased" Yosemite through the App Store, you will find it a challenge to get the Yosemite installer (unless you already have it). El Capitan will be easier to get...
Anyway, just pop out the Lion drive. When you are done upgrading your Mavericks drive, and your new system is working OK, then slide your Lion system drive back in place.
easy-peasy

 

[ricede]

If you are concerned at all about disturbing your Lion work drive, then it only takes a few seconds to pull that drive out.

If Lion is your primary drive & you are downloading the El Capitan installer on to it - then you will need to copy the Installer into the Applications folder of the the Mavericks drive - before you remove the Lion Drive.

The alternative is to boot to the Mavericks drive - pull the Lion HD & then download the El Capitan installer straight into Mavericks application folder.

 

[DeltaMac]

That's one way to upgrade.
The other, I think better, method is to download the El Capitan installer, then Quit the installer app without installing.
Make a bootable partition, on another hard drive, or on a USB flash drive.
Apple has posted a method to do that, or you can also use the good utility DiskMakerX, which makes the task easy (and you won't need to use the terminal, as Apple gives you steps to do just that!) An 8GB flash drive is an ideal size, and gives you something that you can always use without needing to wait for the installer files to download first.

 

[Matt Bleistein]

Thank you very much for the replies, I really appreciate it. I'll give it a go and see what's what.


Matt.

 

[Ebenezum]

Since you have a Mac Pro with 4 hard drive bays why not install a empty drive for experiment with El Capitan? Instal El Capitan into it and import your data from Mavericks.

If something goes wrong you can just boot from Mavericks and continue working as usual. If you update Mavericks into El Capitan and something goes wrong you have only Lion to fall back to...

I don't recommend installing just released OS into production Mac, its much safer to wait until 10.11.3 or 10.11.4 is released...

Furthermore if your software is using OpenCL I recommend avoiding Yosemite because it has bugs that are unresolved...