Installing Apple’s new operating system, 10.5.0 or Leopard, should be a painless experience. “Should,” being the operative word. It seems that Apple have managed to bend time with their new application, “Time Machine,” because the phrase, “Less than one minute remaining,” lasts a damn sight longer than a minute.
Let me be the first to put my hand up and say, “OK, I should have backed up first.” In my defense, I have used Apple computers for years, have upgraded successfully all the way from 9.1 through to Tiger and NEVER had a problem.
The Leopard install did not go well. The first obstacle I came across was, on inserting the disc, there was only one option available to me: “Erase and Install.” No, I do not want to erase ALL the information on my computer. Why on earth would I want to do that? OK, no problem, I will back out of the installer, save the information I need to keep and start again. Right?
Wrong. Hit the restart button, pick the disc I want to start from (my original hard drive)- Nothing – Just Apple’s version of the blue screen of death. Hmmmmm, that can’t be right, OK, I’ll just restart.
No go. The computer starts to boot up, then dies. OK, no problem, I’ll start in safe mode. No I won’t – same thing, dies on startup. OK I’ll try starting up with the c button held down. Great, it started. Not great, my only option is to erase the disc and install from scratch again. I do not want to do that. Not only that, but the disc utility is telling me that the hard drive cannot be un-mounted, so I can’t do any repair work on it.
OK, no problem, I’ll take the disc out and try again. Reboot with the track pad button held down. Nope. OH SHIT, I’m starting to get worried now. It won’t reboot in any mode, I can’t get the disc out and I’m miles from the nearest Apple store, I am in France and seriously doubt my ability to explain to the bored technician what the problem is in French. I see myself lamely pointing at my MacBook Pro, shrugging helplessly and offering a large pile of money saying, “S’il vous plait.” It is now one ‘o’ clock in the morning and Mark is not a happy bunny.
I’m getting desperate by this time. I have already wasted a good three hours when I should have been working. So, I decide to look at my options. They seem slim. I can’t restart, I can’t get the disc out and I do not want to erase all my data.
Aha, I say to myself, I can install Leopard on my external hard drive, recover the data from my MacBook Pro’s hard drive, erase the disc, install Leopard on the MacBook and migrate the data back. A solution. After four more hours looking at this screen the problem was finally solved.
If you are thinking of upgrading to leopard in the near future, unless you own a real time machine, I suggest doing it this way until Apple get their act together. In my next post I will take a look at the more positive aspects of Apple’s new OS. Leopard. In the meantime, here’s a quick look at my new desktop. Thank God for the migration Assistant. In the meantime, Mr. Apple, you owe me 7 hours work. You know where to send the check.
