What Are My Options When Installing Leopard?

Get the Most from Leopard
Before Leopard comes out, I've made a little checklist of things to buy before Leopard if you really want to get everything out of it. Of course, none of these are requirements, and some may not be wise purchases depending on your situation:

• A Core 2 Duo Intel Mac- If you were already looking for an upgrade, the new Macs will come with Leopard, and you need an Intel Mac to take advantage of iChat's cool backdrop effect, and to generally run Leopard better.
• An external hard drive that is at the very least 1.5 times the size of your internal hard drive. For instance, my iMac has a 250 GB Hard Drive, and I have a 320 GB External hooked up. Get a Firewire external drive if you can afford it. They are a bit more expensive, but they are a lot faster. What to get this for? Time Machine, of course. It can automatically backup all the files you choose to your external drive. The best part is you can flip through them later with a cool space effect.
• 1 GB or more RAM - If you only have 512 MB of RAM, or worse 256 MB, then you need an upgrade. My advice would be to get as much RAM as your computer can hold and/or you can afford, so that you won't have to keep replacing RAM over and over again as you need more and more. The requirement for Leopard is only 512 MB, but if you plan to do anything with Leopard, with anything under 1 GB, it'll be jumpy and slow.
• An external iSight or other webcam if your computer doesn't have one built in. If you use iChat now, I can bet you'll want to take advantage of some of the video features in iChat with Leopard. Try to find a Mac-compatible third party webcam, though... iSights aren't even made by Apple anymore and go on eBay for upwards of $120.

Installation Options
Now to the good part- which type of install? There are three types of installations you can choose from when installing Leopard: Erase and Install, Archive and Install, and Upgrade and Install.

Before any install, you should back up all of your files to an external drive or another computer. If that is not possible, then the Erase and Install is not for you, as it will delete everything on your hard drive and then install a fresh version of Leopard. On the other hand, if you have a backup of your files and you want your system to be squeaky clean (and possibly run a tad faster, too), you might want to do an Erase and Install.

Archive and Install and Upgrade Install do the exact same thing, with one little difference. Both of them will keep all of your files and settings and install Leopard right overtop of Tiger (this does NOT mean you shouldn't back up your files if possible; you never know what might go wrong.) The one difference is that Archive and Install saves all of your old System Files from Tiger in a folder marked "Previous System" in case something should go wrong with Leopard and you need your old system files back. I would recommend an Upgrade and Install to everyone with their files backed up, and an Archive and Install (a tiny bit safer) to anyone with no backups.

As for actually installing it, none of these different install methods are any harder or slower than any other. All you have to do is pop in the Leopard disc, choose what type of install you'd like, and wait about an hour for it to install.

As a side note, I have seen a few people trying to sell perfectly good and up to date Macs so that they can buy a new one with Leopard pre-installed. If you are one of these people, listen to me now: The install from the factory is exactly the same thing as the "Erase and Install" that you do yourself from the Leopard disc. Plus, you will most likely end up losing more money and time trying to sell your Mac and get a new one than you would if you ponied up $129 (or $109 if you pre-order from Amazon) for Leopard.

Post modified from an original post at totallytechblog.com. Adam Fisher-Cox is an avid Mac User. Find him online at adamfishercox.com.

Have you learned anything from past upgrades? Share your tips in the Comments section below!

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Your Comments:

thanks Juan, that's a quick reply

just wondering if this works for the files NOT "keep music folder organized by itunes"?

coz i arrange my mp3 folders in my own way... if i do the backup method you've suggested, will it become the way how itunes organize the files?

thanks a lot!

 ryo
 10/25/2007  at  04:17 AM

That i don't know for sure. But i can recommend you to test it like i did. It took me a few dvds to backup 25GB of my library but it was worth it because now i know for sure that i'll have everything just the way i like when i restore it after a clean leopard installation.

I encourage you to do the same and then let us know how it worked out, it's an interesting test to do and you'll have a physical backup also which is not bad at all if you appreciate your iTunes Library as much as i do

Keep us updated with that!

 Juan González
 10/25/2007  at  04:40 AM

@Stuart: thats the plan long term. In the short term, I can get away with a macbook as the external case

After this, I'm going to have _3_ external backup drives..... (sigh).

 Nic Wise
 10/26/2007  at  01:01 AM

Perhaps a very stupid question but here it comes anyway

What abou previously installed third-party programs you paid for (like "missing sync") when doing an "erase and install"??

Thank you in advance for answering!

A new Apple-fan from Belgium, Europe

 Pascal Van Bleyenbergh
 10/26/2007  at  05:38 PM

Reintsall them or back them up.

 Adam F
 10/26/2007  at  05:40 PM

Yes...
but what if you've paid for them and you don't find your data.

I was wondering if backing up means you can just re-install the programs from an external hard disk by copy/paste, or what?

BTW Thx for the quick response!

 Pascal Van Bleyenbergh
 10/26/2007  at  05:43 PM

Backing up means you copy all the files to some sort of other disk, whether it is a flash drive, external disk, or DVD or CD. Basically just making a backup copy.

 Adam F
 10/26/2007  at  05:45 PM

Okay, here's a question: If I installed the BootCamp beta on Tiger, will I have to repartition/reinstall if I upgrade to Leopard, or will I just be able to update the drivers via CD like when I upgraded to the latest beta version?

 Josh
 10/26/2007  at  08:38 PM

Hi
I just got my brand new iMac on October 17. I am still trying to get the best out of Tiger. Now I am not a power user- repeat Not a power user. I purchased iWork also and can honestly say that it is well worth the $80. Now I got also the opportunity to purchase an up to date upgrade to Leopard. Now I am confused as to what installation option I should choose. I have about 775 mg of data that I can easily back up to a USB key if need be. Being originally from Windows I am thinking a clean install. Is this advisable? If the system creates a folder dubbed previous system will I be able to erase that folder eventually? I have a 320 gbs drive. Big but not that big. I would appreciate some strategy input

Thanks

Claude

 Claude
 10/27/2007  at  12:48 PM

Here's a great rundown of doing an install:

http://daringfireball.net/2007/10/murphys_law

It should answer a lot of questions like Claude's.

 Chris K
 10/27/2007  at  01:05 PM

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