Installing OS X First Time. 1hr?

[Rayzilla]

Greetings everyone. I finally joined the club.

I am installing OS X now and it is saying that it will take about 1 hour. Is that the normal time?

Or is it already pre-installed and ready to go and the disk is only for when I need to reinstall? What would happen if I installed it again?


Thanks.

[mooblie]

Hi and welcome.

If it's a new Mac, then yes, it's already installed, and the discs are just for recovery, if ever needed in future.

If it's a used Mac, if it starts up and gets to the desktop, then it clearly has a version of OSX on it already - use the Apple Menu:About this Mac: to determine what version.

If you installed OSX from the discs again - you will get a "clean" copy, and while it's probably unnecessary on a new Mac, most people think re-installing it on a used Mac is a good way to go, to ensure you don't inherit any problems from the previous user!

If you do re-install, don't forget to do Apple Menu:Software Update: afterwards to pick up the latest updates from Apple.

Re the time taken: it over-estimates the time, but a complete install might take half an hour or more (if you ever need to do it). The "time remaining" will count down as the install proceeds, and gradually indicate more accurately when it's going to finish.
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Martin at HeadSpin HD now on Blu-ray

[Rayzilla]

Hello mooblie,

Thanks.

If I loaded it again, does that mean that it is in the hard drive twice and I should delete one? I assume not but best to be sure.

I've got a lot to learn about the Mac world but the first impossible task I am still trying to figure out is how to transfer my iTunes from my PC to my Mac. I have about 17 Gb of music to transfer and not all of them are in the Touch. Why is it so complicated?

[Smithcraft]

I would just network the peecee and the mini, and transfer the iTunes collection across the network.

As for the system install, OS X will only install one version per drive partition. The installer will overwrite(upgrade an older OS) to the version that you are trying to install.

SC
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Grumpy old man of computing.

[Desktop] G4 mini - 1.5Ghz 1GB 80GB HDD - Newer miniStack v2 500GB - 10.5.8

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