[Tacohead]

Hello,

I have a 1st generation 24" iMac running OS 10.4.11 with a 250GB internal HD that's around 90% full. I just bought an Iomega UltraMax 500 GB Desktop Hard Drive FW 400/USB 2.0 and a copy of OS 10.5.4.

Before I upgrade I'd like to clone my HD and put the clone on the Iomega drive just in case the Leopard installation/upgrade has any issues.

After the installation/upgrade is complete I'd like to use the Iomega drive with Time Machine. Should I then just delete the clone on the Iomega drive so Time Machine has the entire drive to work with or keep it? Ultimately I wouldn't mind using a small portion of the Iomega drive to free up space on my internal HD for a Windows partition. Time Machine would still use most of the Iomega drive.

Finally, it seems my choice of cloning software is Retrospect Express (included with the Iomega drive), Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper. I already tried doing it with Disk Utility and it didn't work even though I've successfully verified and repaired both disks. Kept getting the same error message.

I'm new to all of this which is why I'm asking. I've never actually installed a new OS. I've always gotten new OSes with new Macs I've purchased so never had to do anything but use Migration Assistant.

If I understand correctly I could use Migration Assistant with a cloned startup disk after perfoming a clean install of Leopard and that would restore everything back onto my startup disk into Leopard?

However, I might just do a basic install. Either way cloning my startup drive first seems like the safe thing to do.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

-PN

[jgwdoc]

I've upgraded a few Tiger machines to Leopard and have had no problems using the "Upgrade" option during the installation, providing you don't have a lot of PPC stuff floating around in your machine (I presume from the date that it's an Intel machine). Just be aware that sometimes during the initial install it can take as long as 20min for the installer disc to verify that you have an HD suitable for Upgrade/Install, so if the installer gives you a gray screen at first, just wait it out. If for some reason you want a really clean install, then the Archive&Install Option will save all your settings and give you a new system installation without having to start from scratch. As to cloning, I've always used CCC with great results, and it has recently been improved in a number of useful ways (plus, it's free). Definitely clone your HD before upgrading, just in case disaster strikes (remember to use a firewire connection if you want it to be a bootable clone). As to dividing your external HD into storage on one side and TM on the other, I've done that for my kid by just partitioning the external HD and assigning one partition to TM, but TM is really a pig. It kind of depends how many previous back-ups you want nested on TM, which could easily use up your whole HD rather quickly. My only word of caution would be about MA, which occasionally messes up non-Apple programs when it moves them around. Also, if you're thinking about freeing up space on your internal HD for Windows, remember you need at least 50GB for Vista+games, and preferably a touch more.

[teflon]

yeesh! not used the return/enter key for a while then... Im looking forward to when you stop using the space bar too

I second not having any problems with just doing the upgrade option.
I will also echo the opinion that Archive & Install is probably the best option though, as it gives you a clean slate for the system itself, but preserves your files at the same time.

For the clone, I recommend using CCC, because its free and works flawlessly. As its only planned as a temporary back up, though, you might as well go the route of cloning to a disk image. You wont be able to boot from it, but its much simpler to get rid of when you dont want it any more, and if something does go wrong, just slap in the Leopard install DVD, choose disk utility from the menu bar, select your drive, go to the restore tab, and then go find that disk image, which will then be copied back across.
Migration Assistant also works with a disk image.

Onto Time Machine, which, I would recommend having a separate partition for, I wish Id done that to start off with. Some people also choose to run Time Machine to a sparse disk image, but Im not up on the details for that. Give it a decent amount of space though, and think about which folders you can exclude from the backup. For example, you dont really need to backup the system, as its very difficult to revert to, and if its gone wrong then youre better off starting again anyway. Or perhaps the desktop if its mainly used as a dumping ground for anything and everything before it then gets filed away or deleted. You dont necessarily want all those deleted files cluttering up your drive.

aside from all that, have fun!

[Tacohead]

teflon, on November 25th 2008, 04:51 PM, said:

I will also echo the opinion that Archive & Install is probably the best option though, as it gives you a clean slate for the system itself, but preserves your files at the same time.

But then don't you have to drag everything out of the archive folder to their correct locations? Probably not a big deal I'd imagine but the "Upgrade" option seems so much easier and appears to work well for most people.

teflon, on November 25th 2008, 04:51 PM, said:

For the clone, I recommend using CCC, because its free and works flawlessly. As its only planned as a temporary back up, though, you might as well go the route of cloning to a disk image. You wont be able to boot from it, but its much simpler to get rid of when you dont want it any more, and if something does go wrong, just slap in the Leopard install DVD, choose disk utility from the menu bar, select your drive, go to the restore tab, and then go find that disk image, which will then be copied back across.
Migration Assistant also works with a disk image.

Just out of curiosity why would a disk image be much simpler to get rid of? Couldn't I just erase the external drive with Disk Utility regardless of what I chose to put on it as a temporary backup?

teflon, on November 25th 2008, 04:51 PM, said:

Onto Time Machine, which, I would recommend having a separate partition for, I wish Id done that to start off with. Some people also choose to run Time Machine to a sparse disk image, but Im not up on the details for that. Give it a decent amount of space though, and think about which folders you can exclude from the backup. For example, you dont really need to backup the system, as its very difficult to revert to, and if its gone wrong then youre better off starting again anyway. Or perhaps the desktop if its mainly used as a dumping ground for anything and everything before it then gets filed away or deleted. You dont necessarily want all those deleted files cluttering up your drive.

aside from all that, have fun!

Thanks for suggestions.

-PN

jgwdoc, on November 25th 2008, 04:36 PM, said:

I've upgraded a few Tiger machines to Leopard and have had no problems using the "Upgrade" option during the installation, providing you don't have a lot of PPC stuff floating around in your machine (I presume from the date that it's an Intel machine). Just be aware that sometimes during the initial install it can take as long as 20min for the installer disc to verify that you have an HD suitable for Upgrade/Install, so if the installer gives you a gray screen at first, just wait it out. If for some reason you want a really clean install, then the Archive&Install Option will save all your settings and give you a new system installation without having to start from scratch. As to cloning, I've always used CCC with great results, and it has recently been improved in a number of useful ways (plus, it's free). Definitely clone your HD before upgrading, just in case disaster strikes (remember to use a firewire connection if you want it to be a bootable clone). As to dividing your external HD into storage on one side and TM on the other, I've done that for my kid by just partitioning the external HD and assigning one partition to TM, but TM is really a pig. It kind of depends how many previous back-ups you want nested on TM, which could easily use up your whole HD rather quickly. My only word of caution would be about MA, which occasionally messes up non-Apple programs when it moves them around. Also, if you're thinking about freeing up space on your internal HD for Windows, remember you need at least 50GB for Vista+games, and preferably a touch more.

Thanks for the advice.

-PN

[teflon]

Tacohead, on November 26th 2008, 12:57 AM, said:

But then don't you have to drag everything out of the archive folder to their correct locations? Probably not a big deal I'd imagine but the "Upgrade" option seems so much easier and appears to work well for most people.

no no, Archive & Install only affects the system files. So the two folders 'System' and 'Library' (and a few hidden ones) on the root of your HDD. The Applications folder is untouched, aside from Apple's apps which are being updated, and anything in your user's Home folder is also left alone until you next log in. At which point, any preferences you already have (such as the choice between colours and graphite, or network settings) are loaded/overwritten automatically.
The Archive is only there as a backup, and then is only really useful if you need to revert.

Upgrade does work fine 99.9% of the time, but I always find that it feels slightly slower (almost definitely a placebo effect, so dont worry). A&I is more akin to the complete wiping of the slate that an Erase & Install does, as the system is 100% new and fresh, instead of the DVD updating all those system files which are changed from 10.4 to 10.5.

Most people will advocate an A&I, just as some people will always download the full combo updater instead of trusting the delta, as the delta sometimes messes things up a bit.

Quote

Just out of curiosity why would a disk image be much simpler to get rid of? Couldn't I just erase the external drive with Disk Utility regardless of what I chose to put on it as a temporary backup?

well yes, but this way you can keep it for a few weeks and have time machine set up and running along side it without creating a mess (my computer is very organised, and it pains me a bit when other people's arent. I like an empty desktop in particular). Also, instead of having to reformat it in order to get that clean slate, the disk image is just a single file with no need to look for hidden folders etc. etc.

Of course, pick whichever route makes the most sense to you. If youd like a clean slate straight away, or are going to have a dedicated set of partitions for Time Machine and everything else, then you can happily not bother with this.

[jgwdoc]

teflon, on November 25th 2008, 04:51 PM, said:

yeesh! not used the return/enter key for a while then... Im looking forward to when you stop using the space bar too

I would answer (with a smile) that I prefer paragraphs to thought bullets. Hell, Faulkner had paragraphs like that that ran 3 pages.

[Janichsan]

teflon, on November 26th 2008, 12:51 AM, said:

Onto Time Machine, which, I would recommend having a separate partition for, ...

teflon, on November 26th 2008, 03:00 AM, said:

... a dedicated set of partitions for Time Machine...

At this point I think it's appropriate to mention that it is much wiser to have your backups on a dedicated hard drive, not only a dedicated partition - except maybe when the dedicated partition is on a dedicated hard drive. This way, an unfortunately not improbable hardware failure cannot destroy your precious backup along with the original data.

[teflon]

sorry, to clarify, the partitions are on the external, i thought that went without saying.

[the Battle Cat]

teflon, on November 26th 2008, 04:00 AM, said:

i thought that went without saying.

Apparently it did.

[teflon]

this rhymes better without being censored for a curse filter:
If wit were popsnizzle, youd be a dung heap.

[Tacohead]

teflon, on November 25th 2008, 07:00 PM, said:

no no, Archive & Install only affects the system files. So the two folders 'System' and 'Library' (and a few hidden ones) on the root of your HDD. The Applications folder is untouched, aside from Apple's apps which are being updated, and anything in your user's Home folder is also left alone until you next log in. At which point, any preferences you already have (such as the choice between colours and graphite, or network settings) are loaded/overwritten automatically.
The Archive is only there as a backup, and then is only really useful if you need to revert.

Upgrade does work fine 99.9% of the time, but I always find that it feels slightly slower (almost definitely a placebo effect, so dont worry). A&I is more akin to the complete wiping of the slate that an Erase & Install does, as the system is 100% new and fresh, instead of the DVD updating all those system files which are changed from 10.4 to 10.5.

Most people will advocate an A&I, just as some people will always download the full combo updater instead of trusting the delta, as the delta sometimes messes things up a bit.
well yes, but this way you can keep it for a few weeks and have time machine set up and running along side it without creating a mess (my computer is very organised, and it pains me a bit when other people's arent. I like an empty desktop in particular). Also, instead of having to reformat it in order to get that clean slate, the disk image is just a single file with no need to look for hidden folders etc. etc.

Of course, pick whichever route makes the most sense to you. If youd like a clean slate straight away, or are going to have a dedicated set of partitions for Time Machine and everything else, then you can happily not bother with this.

I'll probably make a seperate 50 gig partition on my Iomega external drive to free up space for a potential Windows partition on my internal drive. If I use Bootcamp will it erase my entire internet drive just to make a small Windows partition? Or do I just have to make sure my internal drive has enough free space and the Windows partition would just be created on that?

I successfully used CCC To clone my internal drive (startup disk) onto my external drive. Unfortunately the external drive doesn't seem to boot but everything looks like it's on there and applications run off of it and so on. I can select is as the boot disk on startup but it just kind of hangs shortly after that. I don't know why it won't boot but since everything is on there I feel confident that I have a good (very) temporary backup.

I'm probably going to use the "Upgrade" option. It's clearly the easiest and I want to spend as little time as possible getting everything working. I realize a clean install is the most efficient method but I have much I need to do so need to get up and running quickly. I recently went through my home and application folders and cleared out tons of junk in preparation for this so I think the "Upgrade" option will work fine.

Thanks for the suggestions.

-PN

[Janichsan]

Tacohead, on November 26th 2008, 06:51 PM, said:

If I use Bootcamp will it erase my entire internet drive just to make a small Windows partition? Or do I just have to make sure my internal drive has enough free space and the Windows partition would just be created on that?

The latter. The Bootcamp assistant can repartition your drive without erasing it.

[Tacohead]

Janichsan, on November 26th 2008, 10:57 AM, said:

The latter. The Bootcamp assistant can repartition your drive without erasing it.

Great. Thanks!

-PN

[the Battle Cat]

teflon, on November 26th 2008, 07:14 AM, said:

this rhymes better without being censored for a curse filter:
If wit were popsnizzle, youd be a dung heap.

This is the kindest, most considerate way that anybody has ever called me a popsnizzlehead!