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Safely Upgrading from 10.6.4 to 10.9

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Hey all. I've been doing a lot of reading trying to nail down the best way to make the transition from 10.6.4 to 10.9 and my head is swimming. I've read some good articles but also gotten a decent amount of conflicting information, so I thought I'd ask all of you.

I would imagine I should start off by cloning my current start up drive so that I have something to fall back on in case I botch things horribly. I understand that prior to 10.6.8 you can't boot off of a Time Machine backup so I'd need to clone my current start up drive some other way. Carbon Copy Cloner? Some other method? Does the drive I'm cloning to need to be the same size as the current start up disc?

Once I've got a stable clone, what's my process? I've read that I should upgrade to 10.6.8 first in order to access the App Store and then I can download a free upgrade to 10.9. Is this true? Is that the best way to make the migration? Feel free to just point me toward pre-existing articles that you feel adequately illustrate the steps and the potential pitfalls. My hardware build is one of TonyMac's blessed builds from 2010, specifically build number two here:

http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html

Might I encounter any problems upgrading to 10.9 given my hardware configuration? Any hardware I should upgrade in the process? I have upped my RAM to 8 GB since the build was completed, but other than that the specs are identical to the link above.

And, assuming I do screw this up miserably, how exactly would I restore from my cloned drive?

Thanks in advance for any help you're willing to offer. I feel like I've pushed 10.6 as far as it can go. I'm about to be four Revs behind in the OS, and that's not at all where I want to be.
 
It's really not as complicated or difficult as you're expecting it to be. Since you followed
the buying guide to a T (I'm just assuming that cause you've not listed your hardware)
it should all work. Yes, a CCC backup is a great idea. First you'll update your old CustoMac
with the 10.6.8 combo update. http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1399?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
After you've installed that and rebooted see if you can access the App Store and download
Mavericks. Do not run multi beast, just get Mavs downloaded and make your Unibeast. Report back
how that step goes first.
 
Thanks for the quick response. I did follow the buying guide exactly. Of course the Samsung Spinpoint HD I originally installed isn't available anymore so I was thinking of using this drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840

to clone my startup drive to. Can you see any issues with that? Once the upgrade is complete I'll probably wipe this backup drive and install Windows on it so I can have a dual-boot machine.

I've read in various places that when you clone a startup disk you have to run Multi-Beast to make that drive bootable. Is that important or is the unadulterated CCC clone enough?
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840

to clone my startup drive to. Can you see any issues with that? Once the upgrade is complete I'll probably wipe this backup drive and install Windows on it so I can have a dual-boot machine.

I've read in various places that when you clone a startup disk you have to run Multi-Beast to make that drive bootable. Is that important or is the unadulterated CCC clone enough?

The seagate drive should work. Make the clone and don't worry about running Multibeast yet.
Most important is to see if you can download 10.9.4 from the App store and make a Unibeast
drive to upgrade with.
 
Not to railroad this thread, but I'm facing a similar dilemma. I have a 3D render farm of 10.6.8 Hackintosh builds (18) using the older Sandybridge processor and everything runs fine.

However, my 3D app's newest release has moved the minimum requirement to 10.7.5. Can I just buy a 10.7.5/10.8 installer and just install it over the 10.6.8 build or will that approach not work? I had to do the usual trickery to get 10.6.8 running, but I'm hoping for a seamless transition to a slightly newer OS. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you!
 
Not to railroad this thread, but I'm facing a similar dilemma. I have a 3D render farm of 10.6.8 Hackintosh builds (18) using the older Sandybridge processor and everything runs fine.

However, my 3D app's newest release has moved the minimum requirement to 10.7.5. Can I just buy a 10.7.5/10.8 installer and just install it over the 10.6.8 build or will that approach not work? I had to do the usual trickery to get 10.6.8 running, but I'm hoping for a seamless transition to a slightly newer OS. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Yes, the links to Lion and Mavericks from the App store are in the Buyer's Guide. Just purchase
either one and make a Unibeast USB. You can then either clean install or upgrade with the
UniBeast drive and keep your data and 3rd party programs.
 
Well, two years later I still haven't upgraded! To be fair I was attempting this right before my son was born and his birth (and subsequently keeping him alive) superseded all of my other priorities. But now he's two years old and much more independent. I think I can finally devote myself to getting my system upgraded. My question to trs96 and to anyone else that might care to chime in is, now that Apple has moved past 10.9, which is what I was planning to upgrade to before, are there any gotchas I should be aware of trying to upgrade my Hackintosh from 10.6.4 to 10.11? Is the starting procedure trs96 detailed above still the same? Thanks in advance. This time I'm not going to stop until my system is up to date.

Note: Please read my initial post in this thread before you respond so that you know exactly where I'm coming from. Thanks!
 
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