upgrading 6.4 to 6.7

[terryd]

hi folks
relatively new at this... and again thank you for all of the great help you've given me in the past
i'm running 6.4 002r on an inspiron 9200 with 2gig ram
i recently received a new version of 6.7 - should i upgrade to IT "OR" 7.0?
either way... what do i need to do to make this happen?
do i need to back-up anything AND how to do i do that? - i DO have an external drive and "built in" cd burner.

i don't want to upgrade and then find out when i boot up a new/previous session that i have to spend hours/days/weeks (re)tweaking my system or files are no longer present.

thanks again everyone
t

[spkguitar]

i recently received a new version of 6.7

First, how did you "receive" it? AFIK, 6.7 isn't even available anymore. 6.9 and 7.0 are the only upgrades from 6.4 available currently, and both are the same price, so I would recommend 7.0

I always recommend a full system backup before any major upgrade, especially if your system is running well right now. I've been using Acronis True Image (thanks to a suggestion by bigbubbaj) to image my drives lately, but I used to use Ghost with relative success. There are also a few open source solutions, but I've never used them, and can't vouch for their reliability.
Disk imaging allows you to take a "snapshot" of the hard drive as it is right now (i.e. working), and allows you to return to that working version in as little as 15 minutes if something goes wrong. Both True Image and Ghost allow you to save the backups to CD, DVD, or hard drive. (not sure about the open source options)

FWIW, I have no problems opening sessions in 7.0 that were saved on sessions all the way back to 5.1

[albee1952]

Excellent advice above. A good alternative is to simply remove your system drive and installa new one and do a fresh load of everything. That way if you have any troubles, you can simply swap to the old drive and be up in minutes. A drive copy utility could also be used to clone your old drive to the new one for a good starting point. 40-80 gig drives are cheap and more than you need for a system drive.

[kpMiamiHurricanes]

This is it in a nut shell! I had Windows Me, then upgraded to XP had both versions of protools shipped. Then downloaded update to 5.1 to have 32 tracks and MP3 option. Fast forward to 2006. My computer crashes, I lose everthing including Protools, which brings me back to 5.1, but my version is for windows Me. I tried to load the Me version, then download the upgrade from protools like before, only to find out that Windows XP will not allow a windows me protools to load up, hence the problem. What do I do. I have my original manuals, and codes.