9 replies to this topic

[Julie Falling]

Hey - My MBP (late 2008) has been behaving a little erratically, and I realized I had never done a clean install on it. I've updated the OS. I reinstalled Snow Leopard at one point, but restored from Time Machine. I think it's time to just do a clean install.

I'm about to make a clone on an external drive, and am also moving some stuff temporarily to my Mac mini.

What things should I be certain to do? To not do? It's obviously been too long since I've done this!

Thanks.

Edited by Julie Falling, 27 December 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[JonathanHuber]

Consider the hardware requirements. Will your computer run Mountain Lion well? I have an old laptop that technically can upgrade to Lion, but it's sticking with Snow Leopard due to limited RAM that makes Lion sluggish.

Make good backups and test the clone by booting to it (hold the option key when starting up); don't just assume that the drive works.

ML is download only from the app store, so if you want to do a clean install of ML, you'll need to get the installer file onto a DVD or flash drive. Macworld has some tips for that. http://www.macworld.com/article/1167857/how_to_make_a_bootable_mountain_lion_install_drive.html

[Julie Falling]

Jonathan -

Thanks for the reply. My machine has been running Mountain Lion since it came out without problems until recently. I think perhaps all the bits and pieces of "stuff" have just gunked up the machine. The RAM is maxed out at 8GB. It has a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. The HD is less than half full. It ought to be able to run ML smoothly, shouldn't it?

Checked the Apple site. It requires 2GB RAM, and says it will run on a MBP late 2007 or newer. Ought to be OK there.

Thanks for the tip about making sure the clone boots. I can also test it by going to System Prefs and choosing the copy of ML installed on the external disk, right? I have just run TimeMachine. I do the clone and see how it goes from there.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

Edited by Julie Falling, 06 January 2013 - 05:01 PM.

[Julie Falling]

Reporting back.  Clean install a breeze.  Getting all the apps reinstalled took some time (some were just pulled off the Mac mini and dropped and run just fine that way).  I had saved my Accordance Prefs and the Accordance folder out of User/Library/Application Support, so I was up and running Accordance without missing a beat.  

 

My late 2008 MBP is running much cooler and faster.  The problems and oddities have definitely cleared up.  I won't go 4 years between fresh installs again.  Lesson learned.

 

By the way, I am very happy with my new Mac mini.  The Fusion Drive really speeds things up.  Boots to password in 13 seconds, and to desktop in 35 seconds (though it would be faster if my password were shorter).  Great little machine.  I have it connected to a 5+ year old 20" Dell monitor and Mini Mac hasn't taken offense.

[WomanoftheHouse]

Hey Julie, you did what I really ought to be doing!  So how horrible was it?  I've got a 2T hdd internal and the poor thing is full (too many photographs!).  Whatever the newest, spankiest OS is, I haven't yet upgraded to.  I started with Snow Leopard, made one more step as an upgrade (not a clean install), and then just stopped at that point.  So any tips on how you did your clean install?  Is it very time-consuming?  I might as well do that (and clean up my photographs and hard drive, ugh) before I install Accordance...

[arcanemuse]

I've found through experimentation that I would love to go back to using Snow Leopard.  I got bumped to Lion right away as it had just come out when I bought this iMac.  It since got the bump to Mountain Lion since it only cost 20 dollars to do this and the Air.  I find things all the time that won't run without the old PowerMac support.  Rosetta died when Lion came out.  I am wondering if perhaps I should just go buy a Mac Mini with Snow Leopard on it.  I'd buy a brand new one tomorrow if they could give it to me with Snow Leopard on it but alas,  time has marched on.   Does anyone know if you can still buy a copy of Snow Leopard so I could put it on a new Mac Mini if I wanted to?

[Julie Falling]

WOTH - The clean install wasn't bad.  I had aTimeMachine backup to fall back on if I got into trouble.  Used Disk Utility to create a clone on another disk. But I did a lot of house cleaning first.  Rid the HD of old apps, old documents, drivers, etc..  Then erased the HD using Disk Utility and reinstalled ML.  (For you that would be a new install of Mountain Lion.)  I was able to just drag and drop some apps back into the Application folder.  Some required reinstalling from download or disk.  With iCloud, all my Safari bookmarks, Contacts, were preserved.  One thing you must do, however.  If there is old Mail sitting in your Mailbox that you want to keep, save them as text files somewhere.  You will lose those.  All in all, the prep took a day (the machine did most of the work).  Erase, reinstall, and moving most of the stuff took less than a day.  The "mop-up" - finding things that were missing or not working quite right, happened over several days, but didn't present any real problems, just hassle.  

 

You need to get those pictures onto an external drive, and start burning some DVDs of them.  

 

I didn't use TimeMachine to restore, because it would have carried with it all the garbage I was trying to get rid of.  I used the clone as my source, moving only what I needed.  I held onto the clone for several weeks until I was sure I had everything.  Then I erased my TimeMachine back-up and started fresh with that, too.  I use two disks for TimeMachine alternately, with one in use, and the other stored in a safe place where it would be more protected from theft or fire.  My husband does the same thing.  

Edited by Julie Falling, 24 January 2013 - 08:09 AM.

[Julie Falling]

Rick - Did a search on Amazon, and Snow Leopard is still for sale.  You can probably find it on eBay, too, and it might be cheaper.

 

I have some old sewing software that runs in OS 9 (I said it was old) or in Classic.  So we have kept an old iBook that is running Tiger.  I think Tiger was the last OS that would run Classic.  Anyway, works great, and the iBook and Pfaff have no problems communicating.

[WomanoftheHouse]

Julie-Thanks for the info!  This definitely sounds like what I need to do, but it sounds like a multi-day project, whew!  And yes, I keep multiple levels of back-up.  I've only been doing photography seriously for about a year.  Now with hindsite (and a full 2T hd, lol), I'm having to go back and rearrange.  I think I'm going to have to get a 4T ehd (if I can afford it, haven't priced them yet).  And you know I don't think I've done the iCloud syncing for all my stuff.  I did for some, and I kind of distrusted it, wasn't sure if it was slowing my machine down.  I screwed up something on my address book, going back and forth between iClouding and not iClouding it, and now everything in it is double, hehe.  So thanks for the info and the inspiration, and I'll get a move on it.  You'll be humored to know after my report this morning, dh decided we should take the plunge on Accordance.  So now I have motivation to get my machine all cleaned out and ready!  Actually my next task is to figure out licensing and whether I can run it on his computer and mine, blah blah.

 

Rick-I run Snow Leopard still because, as you say, I need it for some software.  My ds uses Earobics, special software for auditory processing and speech issues, and it needs Rosetta.  I have SL on my ehd (external hard drive), and I can boot to that hard drive.  You reboot while holding OPTION and it takes you to a mention that allows you to chose the boot drive.  From there I select my ehd.  And you know, it was one of those crazy fortuitous/providential things.  I'd like to say I did like Julie and cloned and installed it, but it was actually already on the ehd when I bought my imac.  I had that 1T hd taken out and turned into an ehd for backup and had the company install a 2T internal hd and a small SSD.  (This was back two years ago, when you could still do that.)  And Julie, if you see the Geekbench scores on the new mac mini with fusion, it's scoring right up there with the maxed out 21.5" imac (11-12K), meaning it's a little beast!  I thought about getting one for my dh to use with his old monitor, but I decided instead to spend the extra and get him the new retina display.  

 

So anyways, I wouldn't want to give up the ability to swipe to new desktop spaces in the newer OS.  With Accordance that's extra sweet, because you can open up a workspace on each screen and just swipe, swipe between them.  Just amazing.  Then for the things where I need to use Snow Leopard (mainly just one program), I reboot to my ehd, use it, and then reboot back to my regular stuff.  Works for me.

Edited by WomanoftheHouse, 24 January 2013 - 09:16 AM.

[D. Voth]

If someone wants to buy Snow Leopard it is being sold by Apple at this time as well. I did a search on the online store and it is $19.99