just wondering if there's any good in manually migrating my data and application from a backup onto tiger or using the auto tool?? does using the auto tool not rather cancel out the effect of doing a clean install?
By "auto migration," do you mean Archive and Install? A&I puts your old system in a separate folder and preserves your Home directory for the new OS installation. You're Home directory is incorporated into the new install, but everything else needs to be manually moved from the archive into the new installation folders. Mostly you just need to move apps over, but there are usually a few files in the system library to move as well (application support files, quicktime codecs if you have any, stuff like that)
I prefer to manually back up my Home folder and Applications folder, along with any custom support files from the system, and then reformat and do a clean install. However, I've used A&I on many systems with no problems whatsoever, and many users report on the internet that A&I works flawlessly. There is also a contingent that swears a Panther system installed on a clean disk is superior to a system installed using the A&I. I don't know which faction is right, so I play it safe and do the clean install.
No, we're talking about the new migration tool in Tiger. Do a clean install on a freshly-formatted hard drive, and it'll give you the option to copy settings, mail, music, and other stuff from your old installation on a FireWire hard drive.
It's intended to be used if you got a new Mac and want to copy all your stuff off your old Mac, connected via Firewire disk mode.
All I can say is it worked flawlessly for me. It does not require that you use another physical disk via FireWIre - it will also let you choose an existing partition on the same physical disk (e.g. your old Panther partition). So if you have a partition to clean-install Tiger on, it's very painless. And no worries about whether you forgot something or whether you got the correct version of something. It knows the difference between newly-installed Tiger apps and the same-named apps on your old partition.
The only thing it didn't copy was a kernel extension I had installed (USB Overdrive) in the main system Library. And it cheerfully told me that it could not copy that for some reason, so I just reinstalled that one thing from the .dmg file.
The best thing is that it will copy over your previous settings even though Tiger has already put blank settings in for all of its stuff.
Oh I see. Sounds cool, but I'd want to manually confirm that the installer moved the right files, and if I'm going to manually check, it's not much more work to just transfer the files manually.
Comments
I prefer to manually back up my Home folder and Applications folder, along with any custom support files from the system, and then reformat and do a clean install. However, I've used A&I on many systems with no problems whatsoever, and many users report on the internet that A&I works flawlessly. There is also a contingent that swears a Panther system installed on a clean disk is superior to a system installed using the A&I. I don't know which faction is right, so I play it safe and do the clean install.
Originally posted by Vulpine
No, we're talking about the new migration tool in Tiger. Do a clean install on a freshly-formatted hard drive, and it'll give you the option to copy settings, mail, music, and other stuff from your old installation on a FireWire hard drive.
It's intended to be used if you got a new Mac and want to copy all your stuff off your old Mac, connected via Firewire disk mode.
All I can say is it worked flawlessly for me. It does not require that you use another physical disk via FireWIre - it will also let you choose an existing partition on the same physical disk (e.g. your old Panther partition). So if you have a partition to clean-install Tiger on, it's very painless. And no worries about whether you forgot something or whether you got the correct version of something. It knows the difference between newly-installed Tiger apps and the same-named apps on your old partition.
The only thing it didn't copy was a kernel extension I had installed (USB Overdrive) in the main system Library. And it cheerfully told me that it could not copy that for some reason, so I just reinstalled that one thing from the .dmg file.
The best thing is that it will copy over your previous settings even though Tiger has already put blank settings in for all of its stuff.