Mac software upgrades - please help with some advice.

[cathydisneynut]

We have 2 Macs, the first is a Power G4, and the second an Intel G5. Both updated to Leopard. DH installed 10.5.7 on the G5, and the hard drive failed immediately. We got that replaced, and the machine is now running fine. My question is, do I install this upgrade on the G4? The Apple forums were in meltdown over the problems this upgrade has caused, and I absolutely cannot afford at the moment to have any major repair work done on the G4 (not that there is anything wrong with it just now!). The technobabble on the Mac forums can leave me even more confused than normal

I know I haven't been online in ages, due to some serious family problems, but any advice will be most gratefully accepted.

Thanks.

[Keith]

you know it's so hard to answer this one because the safe answer is "dont do it" but argh

The truth is that an OS upgrade isn't going to kill your hard drive unless it was dodgy to start with. A significant OS upgrade can give the hard drive a good workout across the disk and this can cause it to find problems that were already there.

So, completely unhelpful but it's really awkward to tell you whether it's safe or not because the answer is yes, unless your hard disk is already dodgy and of course I can't know the answer to that one.

I think the best answer is therefore, if you can't afford to take the risk, don't take it and forget the OS upgrade for the moment

[cathydisneynut]

Thanks Keith! You confirmed what I suspected, leave it alone! So far as I know the drive is ok, but who knows what is lurking??? Its just soooo hard to resist clicking the blue install button...

[catrancher]

I think the best answer is therefore, if you can't afford to take the risk, don't take it and forget the OS upgrade for the moment

I'd have to agree with Keith. If you can't afford to take a chance at this time, then don't. You can always upgrade later when your situation allows for more wiggle room .

Having said that, I upgraded both our laptops (one PowerPC and one Intel) to 10.5.7 with no problems.

Tom (... not fond of the "bleeding edge")

[Claire]

Hope no one minds if I hijack the thread but is there anything I need to do to my Macbook like people do with a PC. How do I know if my disc doesn't need defraging or if there's something else I need to do?

[catrancher]

Hope no one minds if I hijack the thread but is there anything I need to do to my Macbook like people do with a PC. How do I know if my disc doesn't need defraging or if there's something else I need to do?

No defragging necessary! There are utilities available that will do that for you, (Micromat TechTool Pro) if it makes you feel better but it's not necessary. I've never done it on mine.

About the only thing you should do from time to time is to repair the disk permissions. You can do that by running the "Disk Utility" application. It's in the "Utilities" folder that's inside your "Applications" directory. Launch it and it will give you a window with your disk drives over on the left hand side. Select your startup disk and then you can choose either the "Verify Permissions" button or the "Repair Permissions Button". Both of these are on the "First Aid" tab. Verify tells you what it would do before it actually does it. Repair actually repairs the permissions.

There's lots of other things this utility can do. Take a look at the help menu to find out more.

Tom (... not much maintenance on a Mac)

[Keith]

Generally speaking, you don't need to do any kind of housekeeping like that on an apple mac Unless you're a geek, obsessive or seeing a particular problem, you can stop reading there

The somewhat more detailed answer is that like all UNIX based OSs, macosx runs certain maintenance scripts overnight at certain intervals, daily, weekly, monthly depending on the job to be done. Since most people, especially with laptops, won't have their machines on overnight, it can sometimes pay to run these scripts manually or there's a great utility which I can't remember off the top of my head but it'll come to me (or Tom will know) which can do it for you.

However, the first answer is the best. You don't really need to do anything at all unless you're seeing specific performance problems. Macs are much more clever about fragmenting files than windows has historically been.

I suspect the only time you'd see problems would be if your disk was getting low on space and so you deleted a load of small files in order to install some larger files or say huge video files. In THAT instance I can imagine that the mac would have no option but to use the smaller files' space up and would fragment in doing so.

Anyway, I could go on all day no, you don't need to do anything

[catrancher]

I can't remember off the top of my head but it'll come to me (or Tom will know) which can do it for you.

• Cocktail is my weapon of choice for that.
• Macaroni
• Mac Pilot
• Maintenance
• Maintidget (this one's a Dashboard widget)

You takes your choice!

Tom (... Cocktail anyone?)

[cathydisneynut]

Hope no one minds if I hijack the thread but is there anything I need to do to my Macbook like people do with a PC. How do I know if my disc doesn't need defraging or if there's something else I need to do?

No problems with a tiny hijack! How macs 'defrag' puzzled me for ages!

No defragging necessary! There are utilities available that will do that for you, (Micromat TechTool Pro) if it makes you feel better but it's not necessary. I've never done it on mine.

About the only thing you should do from time to time is to repair the disk permissions. You can do that by running the "Disk Utility" application. It's in the "Utilities" folder that's inside your "Applications" directory. Launch it and it will give you a window with your disk drives over on the left hand side. Select your startup disk and then you can choose either the "Verify Permissions" button or the "Repair Permissions Button". Both of these are on the "First Aid" tab. Verify tells you what it would do before it actually does it. Repair actually repairs the permissions.

There's lots of other things this utility can do. Take a look at the help menu to find out more.

Tom (... not much maintenance on a Mac)

Generally speaking, you don't need to do any kind of housekeeping like that on an apple mac Unless you're a geek, obsessive or seeing a particular problem, you can stop reading there

The somewhat more detailed answer is that like all UNIX based OSs, macosx runs certain maintenance scripts overnight at certain intervals, daily, weekly, monthly depending on the job to be done. Since most people, especially with laptops, won't have their machines on overnight, it can sometimes pay to run these scripts manually or there's a great utility which I can't remember off the top of my head but it'll come to me (or Tom will know) which can do it for you.

However, the first answer is the best. You don't really need to do anything at all unless you're seeing specific performance problems. Macs are much more clever about fragmenting files than windows has historically been.

I suspect the only time you'd see problems would be if your disk was getting low on space and so you deleted a load of small files in order to install some larger files or say huge video files. In THAT instance I can imagine that the mac would have no option but to use the smaller files' space up and would fragment in doing so.

Anyway, I could go on all day no, you don't need to do anything

I must be a saddo Keith, I will repair the permissions every so often.

• Cocktail is my weapon of choice for that.
• Macaroni
• Mac Pilot
• Maintenance
• Maintidget (this one's a Dashboard widget)

You takes your choice!

Tom (... Cocktail anyone?)

Singapore sling perhaps?

[catrancher]

Singapore sling perhaps?

Works for me! As long as it's cold, wet, and alcoholic!

Tom (... I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!)