I was contacted today by my nieces husband who has the task of upgrading his Mac's (Mini & Lap Books) and my brother in-laws iMac to Leopard from Tiger and he asked me for advice, me being the defacto computer nerd in the family. Unfortunately he lives in NZ and I in Sydney. So I sent him the below information.

I did do a quick search of these forums for instructions to installing Leopard and found it scattered throughout, so I though I would put it in one place.

After doing some net research I have discovered a great site which describes in simple terms the 3 different methods to installing Leopard. This site also contains lots of other interesting items and instructions concerning Mac hardware and Apple software. I just copied and pasted the info from the below sites and sent it to New Zealand as a PDF. This method cut out all the sites advertising, plus it is always advisable to following written instructions when doing this sort of major computer stuff.

INSTALLING LEOPARD - the 3 different methods

Upgrade Method

Archive and Install Method

Erase and Install Method

I would like to add to these instructions:

1. Create a User Account different from your Administrator account.
2. After installing Leopard - Plug-in your modem and check for all software updates and install them.
3. Install iLife and check for all software updates and install them.
4. Install any other Apple software one at a time checking for software updates each time.
5. At this stage I would activate Time Machine and also;
6. Make a clone/copy of your hard disk using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper prior to installing any non-Apple software or doing any customisations.
7. Install any non-Apple application software (latest versions if available for Leopard).
8. Install any 3rd party Add-ons/Plug-ins (Flip4Mac, Perian etc) versions for Leopard.
9. Customise Leopard to the way you like it.
10. Activate Time Machine plus make another clone/copy of your hard drive again.

If anybody would like to add to or modify these instructions please do so as I hope I got it all correct.

Hmm.. I'm gonna be doin the upgrade myself.. probably within the fortnight
thanks so much for the advice!

Was wondering if I could trust Carbon Copy Cloner to accurately copy my HDD, I'll assume by your reccomendation its a solid program, yes?

okay.. this is my *noob* question... with my carbon copied HDD, will I install all my applications? Or can I simply transfer them.. so to speak

Firstly, Carbon Copy Cloner does a great job.

Regarding Fine Wine's instructions, he recommends making a clone after installing just the Apple OS & apps and another after installing 3rd party apps. While some may say this is overkill, if you have plenty of external storage it probably is best practice. I think it comes down to how many 3rd party apps and over what time period you will be installing them.

The first clone is a good idea in that it provides a base system that should just work unless you had some kind of hardware issue.

Given that you have no problems then backing up using Time Machine would be the next step. Once the machine is backed up in TM you can safely add new 3rd party programs and update your TM backup. If you have problems with a particular program it is easy to go back in time before it was installed.

Once you have everything how you like it and have done any testing for problems you can either update your original CCC backup or create a new CCC backup. Having two distinct CCC backups is slightly safer because it allows for situations where bugs are discovered later rather than sooner (it's good to be able to restore to a clean system if necessary). This choice is personal depending on how much storage you have.

^ fantastic feedback, thankyou so much - incredibly appreciated

Yes, thank you AUSMUG I could not have explained it better.

Coming from a 20 yr MS background and ALL the pitfalls there, I tend to be bit cautious. Though CCC and TM are absolute musts my motto has and still is:

BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP

Cheers

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to say hello! I noticed a few links coming in for this great site so wanted to stop by and take a look.

It was mentioned about the use of Carbon Copy Cloner, and SuperDuper to make clones of your start up drive after you complete an new OS X installation. Of course to do that, you need to first install the third party software. If you would like to make a clone of a pristine OS X installation without adding any third party software, you can do so using Apple's Disk Utility.

If you would like instructions they are available here:

Back Up Your Startup Disk

I've used Apples Disk Utility several tiems to copy a drive. Works well