Upgrading from Panther

[jamescwarren]

I am about to upgrade from 10.3.9 Panther to 10.4 on my Mac. I do not have an external hard drive and cannot afford to buy one but I was just wondering is it safe to upgrade my OS without one? But just out of intrest, if I did do an upgrade but did back up my system to a hard drive and it went wrong, how would I put it get my system back so it was like nothing happened? And most importantly, how do I back up with a hard drive? Any software needed?

 

[elfin buddy]

I am about to upgrade from 10.3.9 Panther to 10.4 on my Mac. I do not have an external hard drive and cannot afford to buy one but I was just wondering is it safe to upgrade my OS without one? But just out of intrest, if I did do an upgrade but did back up my system to a hard drive and it went wrong, how would I put it get my system back so it was like nothing happened? And most importantly, how do I back up with a hard drive? Any software needed?

Personally, I always prefer to wipe my hard drive clean before installing a major update (like you are about to do), but it's hardly necessary. Just pop in the install disk and tell it to replace your current copy of Mac OS X with the new one.

If you had an external hard drive, I'd definitely recommend backing up the entire system before upgrading. (at least burn all your personal files to a CD or something) In the best case scenario, if you had a FireWire hard drive, you could make a bootable backup of your entire system, which is basically a perfect copy of everything on your computer. With a bootable backup on an external FireWire drive, you could plug it into any Mac and boot the system from it; even a Mac with a dead internal hard drive.

A bootable backup with also make the transition a lot easier than any other way. For example, if you were to make the backup, wipe your hard drive, and install a fresh copy of OS X, then when you start up for the first time, your Mac will ask you if you have another Mac from which you want to transfer files and settings. Plug in your bootable external FireWire drive, say "Yes", and after an hour or so (depending on the size of the hard drive and the number of files on it), it will boot into your new operating system and will look exactly like it did before. All users should be there and I think even your desktop picture will remain the same.

So, to reiterate, it's nice to have an external FireWire drive to help with installing a new operating system, but it isn't necessary. Either way, make a backup of all your personal files in case something goes awry.

 

[elfin buddy]

And one more thing...

I should point out that I think only FireWire drives and other Macs (connected via FireWire) will benefit from the "migration" option available the first time you start up a Mac with a new operating system. As far as I know, USB2 drives are out of the question.

Can anyone else confirm this?

 

[Eniregnat]

Yes it is safe, and sometimes advantageous to upgrade instead of doing a virgin install. You should get yourself an external drive and make backups! At the very least, burn CDs or DVDs of your documents, media, and passwords. Remember to deauthorize your computer before you make a backup of your iTunes library. For me Tiger has been stable and reliable.

Carbon Copy Cloner is my choice, or you could make a disk image using the DiskUtility.

 

[Eniregnat]

I should point out that I think only FireWire drives and other Macs (connected via FireWire) will benefit from the "migration" option available the first time you start up a Mac with a new operating system. As far as I know, USB2 drives are out of the question.

Can anyone else confirm this?

Yes, you can only use bootable drives to migrate, clone, or install OS X on.
The last time I checked, Mac did not support USB booting, but expect that to change under the Intel flag.

 

[danny_w]

I also upgraded from 10.3.9 Panther to 10.4 Tiger and used the 'upgrade' option. I wish now that I had done a clean install or not done the upgrade at all, since Tiger (at least for me) does not seem to be nearly as stable and fst as Panther did. I now have a 15" powerbook which is going to replace my mini, and I have to decide again whether I want Panther or Tiger. My recommendation: If you are going to upgreade, make sure that you have backups of everything, and preferably a bootable clone of the system before the upgrade; this will make rolling back ever so much easier in the case that you decide to do so.

 

[student_trap]

just a permissions thought.

I am in the process of backing up, i backed up all of my photos by copying the iphoto folder to a DVD, and also my garageband files etc, however, when i tested to see if the DVD had copied correctly (by putting trying to open files from it with another user account, i am running into permissions trouble.

Is this normal? how can i get round it?

I am nervous of doing a clean install and then not being able to view/edit my files

 

[IJ Reilly]

just a permissions thought.

I am in the process of backing up, i backed up all of my photos by copying the iphoto folder to a DVD, and also my garageband files etc, however, when i tested to see if the DVD had copied correctly (by putting trying to open files from it with another user account, i am running into permissions trouble.

Is this normal? how can i get round it?

I am nervous of doing a clean install and then not being able to view/edit my files

First, you need to have copied your iPhoto Library folder. Is that what you did?

As for a clean install, I recommend against it. As you are discovering, you are far more likely to encounter frustrating issues like this one than if you just pushed the upgrade button. If you must start clean, a much better option is archive and install.