[X-Newbies] Help - spinning beach ball w/one minute of Leopard install left on G5.

[Al Poulin]

Hello Brian:

I've been watching your tribulations on the g3-5-list, hoping to learn  
a few things from the experts there.  Anyway, it is strange that the  
Leopard install process hic-uped at the very end.  I have a few  
questions in mind.  But first, I would check to see if the G5 is happy  
with itself.  Go to:  "Mac OS X: About This Mac "build" information" at:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1633

Your Build should read "9F33."  Check for that in the About this Mac  
window in the Apple Menu.  Click on the grey Version 10.5.5 item just  
under the black Mac OS X.  Or go the long way, clicking on More Info  
to bring up the System Profiler, then click on Software in the left  
column to look at System Version.

Were you using a retail Leopard disk that is black in color, or a grey  
disk issued for a specific model Mac?
Did you have all your peripheral devices, especially USB, printers and  
such disconnected, or at least turned off?
Was there any hint of an electrical power interruption during the  
install?
Or maybe your DVD drive needs another cleaning?

On Sep 20, 2008, at 2:42 AM, Brian Durant wrote:
> I just tried installing Leopard (10.5.4) on my G5 single with  
> "archive and install". It worked fine until the end, where I got a  
> message saying that the installation was almost complete - a minute  
> left. After about 10 minutes, I clicked on the "utilities" menu in  
> the menu bar and suddenly got a spinning beach ball. The progress  
> bar stopped moving at the same time. The situation remained the same  
> for over an hour before I shut down my G5.
>
> I rebooted without the install DVD and got an intro video and then  
> Migration Manager kicked in. The video and Migration Manager  
> continued recycling if anything besides migrating system and network  
> prefs. I went for that as I thought that the other bits could  
> probably be transfered later. I got the following error message:
>
> "Networking settings could not be transferred correctly"
>
> I booted into the system. Looong boot up with a yellowish-white  
> screen,
I did not see this when I upgraded my G4 iBook from Tiger to 10.5.1  
(retail).

> then a black one and then finally I got a prompt to set settings,  
> register, etc. Access to the Internet through my router worked, I  
> also suddenly got a prompt that updates to the system were  
> available. I decided things couldn't get that much worse, so I  
> updated to 10.5.5. The system rebooted and things still seem to be  
> working, though I still think the system boot is long compared to  
> Tiger.
Leopard boot is still longer for me on my machine with only 512 MB  
RAM.  But it may speed up a bit for you after a few times, especially  
if you let Spotlight finish its indexing.
>
> Looking at the bright side, I have what seems to be a working  
> system. I also have a folder on the drive labeled "previous system".  
> What do I do now?
Keep it for a while.
>
> 1) Should I boot from the install DVD and run Disk Utility to check  
> disk is OK and permissions are fine?
You can do both from Disk Utility in your Leopard Applications  
folder.  If Verify Disk shows need for repair, then you would use the  
DVD to do the repair.
>
> 2) How do I get all of my user stuff, apps, preferences registration  
> keys, etc. (particularly my Mail prefs, mailboxes, accounts, etc.)  
> transfered from the "previous system"?
Basically, it is just a drag and replace process.  I would first  
remove the item being replaced from its location, putting it in a safe  
out of the way folder and then drag the corresponding item from the  
previous folder.  You mail boxes remain untouched in your Users folder  
(little house).  Your apps remain untouched, but some third party apps  
may need to be reinstalled to work correctly.  If you have problems  
with settings, you could try looking into the Preferences folders in  
the System and Users libraries, but I would first run the problem by  
one of these e-lists for best recommendations on where to look.  You  
can go to the Apple Support tab and run a search on "archive and  
install" , with the quotation marks.  Here, among many others, there  
is this article, "Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5: About installation options":
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1545?viewlocale=en_US

If the "US" tag does not work for you, just look for the Article:  
HT1545.

> 3) Can I just move the OS 9 stuff that was with Tiger to the trash?
Yes, if you are absolutely certain that you will never want to use OS  
9 again, either by replacing Leopard or by partitioning your hard  
drive to have both Tiger and Leopard available.
>
> I waited as long as I did to upgrade to Leopard, to make sure that  
> Apple had sussed out the upgrade procedure. This obviously still  
> isn't the case.

Good Luck,
Al Poulin