Question about upgrading from Lion to ML

[Dirtyharry50]

I've held off on upgrading my iMac puchased in May of this year until there was at least one point release. I'm hopeful that by now, at 10.8.2 it should be a smooth transition. I'm aware I need to ensure I've updated all apps I can and run the system updater before doing this. So I will take care of that. I have been running time machine, backing up to a 2 TB external USB drive since I first began using the system. So hopefully all my data is safe.

My question is, when the OS upgrade installs does it blow away the existing install completely, along with all data and apps and rely on Time Machine to restore them after it completes?

I'm a little nervous doing this for the first time although I do have high hopes that Apple does it well. Of course, I am coming from years of Windows and before that MS-DOS upgrades and well, let's just say things did not always go so well. ;-)

 

[Weaselboy]

My question is, when the OS upgrade installs does it blow away the existing install completely, along with all data and apps and rely on Time Machine to restore them after it completes?

No... a normal install does not delete any apps or data. Everything will be in place after the upgrade. You should still of course backup before the upgrade anyway just in case there are other complications.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

No... a normal install does not delete any apps or data. Everything will be in place after the upgrade. You should still of course backup before the upgrade anyway just in case there are other complications.

Awesome! Thanks very much.

I think I'll take the plunge later on today.

 

[drsox]

Awesome! Thanks very much.

I think I'll take the plunge later on today.

Suggest you do a complete install rather than an upgrade. I had problems with an upgrade (esp to 10.8.2) with sleep problems. I later reinstalled to 10.8.0 and so far, no problems, apart from increased Power usage. Personally I'm waiting for 10.8.5 before I make any more changes !

With a complete reinstall you can still migrate all the apps and data from a backup/alternate USB boot drive using Migration Assistant. That's what I did from a USB drive.

 

[Mal]

Suggest you do a complete install rather than an upgrade. I had problems with an upgrade (esp to 10.8.2) with sleep problems. I later reinstalled to 10.8.0 and so far, no problems, apart from increased Power usage. Personally I'm waiting for 10.8.5 before I make any more changes !

With a complete reinstall you can still migrate all the apps and data from a backup/alternate USB boot drive using Migration Assistant. That's what I did from a USB drive.

That's rarely necessary, so it's always best to just do the easy upgrade first and then go back and do that if necessary.

jW

 

[drsox]

That's rarely necessary, so it's always best to just do the easy upgrade first and then go back and do that if necessary.

jW

In my case I wanted to go back before 10.8.2, so it was easier to go back to an empty drive and start again. Fortunately I had the original 10.8.0 downloaded app. I have seen other forum posts also describing more success with 10.8.2 from a new install vs an upgrade.

Is Apple in general better at upgrades than other Unix folks ? I remember with Ubuntu that upgrades were iffy while new installs were generally trouble free.

 

[fhall1]

Last weekend I went from 10.7.4 to 10.8.0 on my mid-2009 iMac. Before I did the upgrade I cloned my 10.7.4 boot drive to an external FW drive, booted off it to make sure it worked, verified and fixed disk permissions on my internal drive, and verified my internal drive using disk utility. I then installed 10.8.0, then ran App Store/updates to install the 10.8.2 update.

Prior to all this I deleted old apps/pref panes I wouldn't need any more and updated everything I could think of to versions compatible with 10.8.

Knock on wood - everything's been working great so far.

 

[drsox]

Last weekend I went from 10.7.4 to 10.8.0 on my mid-2009 iMac. Before I did the upgrade I cloned my 10.7.4 boot drive to an external FW drive, booted off it to make sure it worked, verified and fixed disk permissions on my internal drive, and verified my internal drive using disk utility. I then installed 10.8.0, then ran App Store/updates to install the 10.8.2 update.

Prior to all this I deleted old apps/pref panes I wouldn't need any more and updated everything I could think of to versions compatible with 10.8.

Knock on wood - everything's been working great so far.

I did exactly the same without the final upgrade. Also so far so good - except increased power usage on my 2011 MBA.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

I did the in place upgrade and it worked flawlessly. Everything was perfect. No issues whatsoever. I am very impressed and pleased.