[hwal2605]

Hi,
I hope someone can help. I have an ibook that I need to upgrade to support my iPod Nano. I tried to upgrade from 10.2.5 to 10.2.8 (as recommended) using the Apple online upgrade facility. Now my ibook hangs on startup - Apple symbol and a small blue box with indeciferable writing. I can only load the repair and restore CD, I've first-aided the disk but reluctant to reinstall the OS as it's even more down-level.

I'm concerned that I have a problem with the ibook as this has happened before while trying to upgrade.

Should I reinstall and try to upgrade again - to what level

Or are there other potential problems I should be investigating.

Any advice would be much appreciated - my current thoughts are to go to a higher level of os - but I've little mac experience so don't know which options is the most appropriate.

[RevEvs]

Welcome to MacNN!

It sounds as if somethings gone a bit wrong in the upgrade to 10.2.8 unfortunately!

If you want to keep all your data, you should be able to boot off a Mac OS X CD and choose to do an "Archive and Install" - its an option somewhere when you reinstall.

This will allow you to fix the OS, and keep all your data!

If your data is nto important then feel free to do a "Erase and Install"

It sounds like a software problem to me, I wouldnt be too worried about it being the hardware of the iBook.

[hwal2605]

Originally Posted by RevEvs

Welcome to MacNN!

It sounds as if somethings gone a bit wrong in the upgrade to 10.2.8 unfortunately!

If you want to keep all your data, you should be able to boot off a Mac OS X CD and choose to do an "Archive and Install" - its an option somewhere when you reinstall.

This will allow you to fix the OS, and keep all your data!

If your data is nto important then feel free to do a "Erase and Install"

It sounds like a software problem to me, I wouldnt be too worried about it being the hardware of the iBook.

Thanks Rev - any advice on whether going to 10.2.8 is a good idea - should I be looking at a newer release ?

[Detrius]

Originally Posted by hwal2605

Thanks Rev - any advice on whether going to 10.2.8 is a good idea - should I be looking at a newer release ?

10.2.8 is pretty old. 10.3 offered many useful new features (e.g. exposé).

The problem with doing an archive and install, though, is that you may have a damaged directory structure--with overlapped files. If this is the case, not only will an archive and install probably not work, but you may hose all of your data in the process. Did Disk First Aid mention anything about overlapped extents that it couldn't fix?

[hwal2605]

Deterius - thanks for the reply. I did the Archive and instal and it appears to have worked OK - although my wireless usb connection has disappeared. Do you advise to go to 10.3 ? if so, what version ?

Thanks again for you help.

[tooki]

If you have 10.3, by all means use it. It's much improved over 10.2.x. Go all the way to 10.3.9.

tooki

[Detrius]

Originally Posted by hwal2605

Deterius - thanks for the reply. I did the Archive and instal and it appears to have worked OK - although my wireless usb connection has disappeared. Do you advise to go to 10.3 ? if so, what version ?

Thanks again for you help.

Your wireless usb connection disappeared because you effectively did a clean install. The drivers aren't installed any more. Reinstall the drivers and it will show up again.

10.3 is better, faster, more stable than 10.2. And of course you should upgrade to the last version of 10.3.

[Chinasaur]

I hung onto 10.2 long after I should have switched. The eye candy in 10.3 is nice, but what convinced me that upgrading was a good idea was the increase in calculations I was getting for distributed projects. My throughput went up, meaning my system was more efficient on the same hardware.

10.3 has also been more stable than 10.2.8 was. I am still at 10.3.9 and holding for reviews on .4 before I jump.

Luck with whatever you decide.