-
Snow Leopard 101: For Smart People Only
Please, be advised, it’s imperative that only smart people do the following… If you’re really stupid, just ignorant, or even just a really bad gambler, you are advised not to do the following.
If you are smart, you will be certain to clone your system drive and you won’t spend your time worrying in advance of “upgrading,” nor bellyaching afterward, because you will be absolutely certain that your ass is completely covered in every situation in case things don’t go as well as expected.
And, also if your smart, you’ll do a ground-up installation of both the new OS and FCS3. A ground-up installation is really the only way that you can be assured that no legacy code will affect the performance of your professional editing system.
Good luck to all, even to those among you who aren’t smart enough to heed this advice. And, rest assured, as usual we’ll all be waiting to help those of you will inevitably not follow this sound advice, however, do keep in mind, we will all be giggling and snickering at you.
Good luck,
DavidDavid Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
-
80 Replies
-
[David Roth Weiss] “however, do keep in mind, we will all be giggling and snickering at you. “
I prefer the complete laugh out loud, roll on the floor laughing at the people who “saved time by not doing a clean erase” but I can’t figure out why such and such isn’t working.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
Just so as to minimise the amount of derision you will be pouring on me and others: could you detail how to do a clean ground up install of the OS without losing plugins and other apps? Thank you
An editor who wants to be smart -
What is the best and least expensive way to properly clone the system drive. I think Walter mentioned that time machine breaks compressor (not sure though).
Thanks,
Mike
-
[Eugene Reynolds] “could you detail how to do a clean ground up install of the OS without losing plugins and other apps? “
A legitimate question Eugene, and I’m sure the answer is going to sound painful, but honestly, a ground-up installation means that you should also reinstall all apps and all plugins from the ground-up as well. Just bite the bullet, and you’ll be happy you did. Remember, you can always boot to your clone if there’s something you really need while you’re in transition.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
-
RE: “What is the best and least expensive way to properly clone the system drive. I think Walter mentioned that time machine breaks compressor (not sure though).”
Use Apple Disk Utility System Restore to clone one volume to another volume. Slow, but thorough, and guaranteed to work with each version of OS X. If Disk Utility needs an update, Apple includes it with the version of OS X you are running. Make sure you Repair Permissions and Restart before starting the clone, and not start any other applications or use your computer while the clone is being made. Also, be sure to check that the clone you just made will boot your computer.
That being said, there are other free backup tools that will make bootable backups: Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper, and SilverKeeper for example.
Best to make a clone to a spare disk and hide it while exploring the latest and greatest updates and upgrades.
One last thought – make two backups. One to hide for awhile, and another to use as the volume you actually upgrade before modifying your primary boot drive.
Mike
LaCie -
[Eugene Reynolds] “Just so as to minimise the amount of derision you will be pouring on me and others: could you detail how to do a clean ground up install of the OS without losing plugins and other apps? Thank you
An editor who wants to be smart”Well, you should have the original discs / downloads etc… and you re-install them from scratch. That’s what we do here. Studio 3, Adobe CS4, Automatic Duck, Red Giant plugs, Nattress plugs, you name it, we still have the original discs and downloads. Install everything from scratch.
If you don’t have those, you’re probably SOL. If you “borrowed” anything from anywhere else, well then you’re really SOL.
We also clone our original drive before starting so we can retrieve all our presets and such for each app, but very few applications will run normal if you just drag them over.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
[Mike Allen] “What is the best and least expensive way to properly clone the system drive. I think Walter mentioned that time machine breaks compressor (not sure though). “
Good that you’re asking now Mike…
Time Machine is great for restoring individual files etc., and some have even beed able to restore their ProApps stuff, but like Walter, many have encountered issues, so it’s not nearly as safe as a bootable clone.
There are really two favorite, and free, cloning apps that most of us use: Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. Both work really well — I’ve used both myself and like them equally.
I find that the key is to use an inexpensive firewire or USB drive tha you can just keep on standby at all times on the shelf. You need to erase it first, then just let either of the two cloning apps go to town. You just set them to make a bootable clone and they do it automatically.
BTW, before installing your new software, be sure to test your clone make certain it is indeed bootable by booting to it via Startup Disk in System Preferences. I’ve had 99.9% success, but that once I screwed-up and that cost me a lot of time.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
-
Also, make sure all of the PCI cards and plug ins that are in your setup have Snow Leopard support.
This includes capture cards, raid cards, fiber channel cards, SAS, SATA, anything that requires that you install a driver. This is very important. You also have to make sure the FCP is going to be Snow Leopard compatible before you install it.
Look before you leap. I use SuperDuper.
Jeremy
-
[walter biscardi] “I prefer the complete laugh out loud, roll on the floor laughing at the people who “saved time by not doing a clean erase” but I can’t figure out why such and such isn’t working. “
Well it’s inevitable that there will be lots of snickering, giggling, and laughing. I’m thinking we should we start a pool to see who can guess just how many people won’t be smart enough to take the advice.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
-
Biscardi: Please, be advised, it’s imperative that only smart people do the following… If you’re really stupid, just ignorant, or even just a really bad gambler, you are advised not to do the following.
……..
Aw crap.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up