Tiger
Mac
Apple
Very much off-topic here, so if you're a PC user, do skip this post and read about nasty brain injuries and such elsewhere in the blog -- but if (like me) you are hooked on your Mac, and (like me) completely dependent on it, if (like me) you have your whole life organized by iCal and (like me) make all your presentations with Keynote, you'll appreciate the gravity of this topic. And, if (like me) you don't actually know what you're doing, you'll need some really simple instructions.
Here's a how-to-upgrade-to-Tiger-and-suffer-only-minor-stress-related-brain-injury guide, courtesy of The Broken Brain
1. Spend hours and hours surfing the web in search of foolproof instructions.
2. Spend more hours wondering whether it's worth the risk.
3. Waste another couple of hours wondering if you're actually going to do it. Wasted hours, because resistance if futile. Of course you are.
Alternatively, you can skip the above mentioned steps, because I've already done all of that for you.
I have a G4 12" iBook, and a LaCie 160 GB external firewire hard drive, and I wanted an "erase and install" because that's supposedly the way to get the best results, and because the Tiger installation program will give you the option of restoring all your programs, users, settings, documents, etc from your backed-up system after the install, and after the installation and restoration, my Mac looks and feels exactly the same except that it runs Tiger now with all its new features. So this is what I did:
Before you start, you may want to check some other pages written by guys who know what they're talking about:
No such thing as clean install?
TUAW on upgrading
WARNING: Do make sure your backup works, make several, do whatever you need to do but make sure your important files are definitely backed up, bombproof like, totally securely backed up, on DVD, CD, written down, engraved in stone, whatever. Because after a clean install everything will be lost from your machine's internal hard drive. Also - I can't guarantee this works for you. I can only say it worked for me.
1. Make a backup of your system first, start by downloading Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. If you don't have a firewire external hard drive, go buy one. If you can't afford one, ask a friend over for a beer and exploit the situation by using his/her Mac as an external drive, connected by firewire. Then make a partition which is at least the size of your internal hard drive. Name that partition "Panther" for clarity.
3. Format the partition using MacOS Disk Utility (Applications->Utilities). Select the "Panther" volume, and choose "Erase". Choose the option "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
4. Now, select the "Panther" volume on your external hard disk, and CTRL-click it, then select "Get Info". Look at the bottom. Make sure the box called "Ignore Ownership on This Volume" is NOT CHECKED. If it is, uncheck it of course.
5. Use Disk Utility to "Repair Permissions" on your internal hard drive.
6. Safe-boot your Mac (restart and hold SHIFT key). After that's done, do a normal restart.
7. Start Carbon Copy Cloner and make a clone of your system to the external hard drive volume "Panther". Follow the Carbon Copy Cloner instructions, and make sure you check the "Make bootable" option.
8. When that's finished, boot your system from the external drive. You can achieve this by holding the "alt" key while restarting and then selecting the appropriate volume.
9. If your machine looks and feels completely normal when booted from the external drive, you have succeeded.
10. Restart normally, boot from internal drive.
11. Insert Tiger installation DVD. Choose the Erase and Install option.
12. After that's done, choose the Restore From Another Mac option. You have another Mac - that's the backup of your Panther on your external drive. Choose restore from there and let the setup program work its magic. Takes a long time so go out and look at the sunrise because "you never saw the morning 'till you stayed up all night" (Tom Waits).
13. Once it's finished, that's it! You should have a Mac that looks and feels just like your own Mac, files, programs, users, Network preferences and all, just running Mac OS X 10.4
14. Go to "about this Mac" to admire the version number. Then hit "software update" and upgrade to 10.4.1.
Good luck,
Stuart
2 comments:
Hey. good advice. I wrote a post about Tiger here.
Hmm, I think it's just from the partition where you've got the backup of your system. Just select the appropriate disk volume, which I suggested you name "Panther"
Cheers,
Stuart
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