Clean Install of OS X

[toneski]

I am going to fit two new 500GB Seagate 7200.11 drives internally into my G5 Dual 2.7GHZ Powermac. I have made a clone of my Protools hard drive using Superduper onto a firewire drive and I am planning to use the firewire drive to clone the new 500GB internal drive into the original Protools drive. I was thinking that this might be a good time to do a fresh install of OS X Tiger onto the new cloned drive. Is this a good idea? I understand that using my original OS X Tiger install discs I can do a clean install of the operating system and this will leave all my applications and preferences untouched. Is this correct? Will this also leave things like the ilok drivers and any other application specific OS X drivers and application support software / plugins untouched. After doing the fresh OS install should I then download the combo installer for OS 10.4.9 and update the OS? Can anybody advice me the best way to do a fresh install of the operating system and any pitfalls to be aware of?. Many thanks to all in advance.

[toneski]

Bump

[25ghosts]

Clean install of OS X= A lot of re-installation of audio applications. Unless you know your way around UNIX and the Terminal.

A clean install is a good thing. But it takes time. You can copy your user folder files into the new user etc. but there are MANY things that does NOT get installed into the user area of OSX. If you dont know UNIX then I suggest that you re install everything after clean installing OS X

[Oliver M]

I am going to fit two new 500GB Seagate 7200.11 drives internally into my G5 Dual 2.7GHZ Powermac. I have made a clone of my Protools hard drive using Superduper onto a firewire drive and I am planning to use the firewire drive to clone the new 500GB internal drive into the original Protools drive. I was thinking that this might be a good time to do a fresh install of OS X Tiger onto the new cloned drive. Is this a good idea? I understand that using my original OS X Tiger install discs I can do a clean install of the operating system and this will leave all my applications and preferences untouched. Is this correct? Will this also leave things like the ilok drivers and any other application specific OS X drivers and application support software / plugins untouched. After doing the fresh OS install should I then download the combo installer for OS 10.4.9 and update the OS? Can anybody advice me the best way to do a fresh install of the operating system and any pitfalls to be aware of?. Many thanks to all in advance.

There is nothing but a clean install from scratch, OS and apps that is.

Even if you are a UNIX hacker wizard doesn't mean you will capture all you need when copying settings and apps from one drive to another.
Since you got new drives anyway its best to install everything again and THEN make a clone of this clean install, after you made all modifications to the system prefs, settings, apps etc. This way you have a startup clone you can go back to in case something fails.
Thats how I do it and this method proved to work best for me.

Install 10.4 and then use the Apple combo updater to 10.4.9. Avoid using Apple's software update option that will pop up once you are online with 10.4.x.

And while you are at the process of installing and updating all your apps and plugs, create a folder called 'Essentials' or similar on an external drive and put a copy of everything you needed during your install process into this folder (installers, updates etc.) so that you know what you may need next time. Update this folder regulary and keep backups. This way you will be set for the next update/install marathon scenario. ;-)

Good luck,

Oliver

[25ghosts]

Even if you are a UNIX hacker wizard doesn't mean you will capture all you need when copying settings and apps from one drive to another

I aint no hacker Wizard but I do THIS all the TIME. So, that comment of yours is definitely not true

With the rest I agree

[toneski]

Many thanks 25Ghosts and Oliver. I think the best option for me is going to be clean install of OS X to 10.4.9 and reinstalling all my apps, a few days work I think to get it all running smoothly, now where is that bottle of whisky?

[audiobob]

First Apple doesn't call it a "clean" install anymore. I know what you mean but it's really called "erase and install". Check this site for good info.

http://www.index-site.com/cleaninstall.html

You may want to do an "erase and install", update the OS to where you want it to be and then use the Migration Assistant, in the utilities folder, to copy over all your apps, settings and such from the firewire drive. Worked for me.

You could also do an Archive and Install when installing OSX. It will put a fresh system down but leave apps and settings. There may be a few other things to reinstall but it's not like starting from scratch. It will put all the files it replaced in a folder called "Previous System". If you loose something it may be in there.



hth

[toneski]

Many thanks alucard. Have had a read through the info from the link you provided. I stand corrected. Will take all of the info into consideration before starting work and opening the bottle of whisky! Thanks again

[Oliver M]

I aint no hacker Wizard but I do THIS all the TIME. So, that comment of yours is definitely not true

Of course it is cause no one's perfect. You will miss a few things if you handle it with UNIX commands in the terminal only. Trust me, been there done that! A clean install of everything you wanna use is the ONLY safe way to go.


Oliver