Hi folks

This is sort of a "mini-warning."

1) 99% of the folks upgrading to 8.5 have no problem whatsoever (including myself.)

2) the other 1% (or less) are having problems that can be very frustrating: something is affecting their hard drives.

Let me stress that this is very unlikely to happen to you, but I said I'd provide timely warnings, so I'm doing it for the 3 or 4 of you it might otherwise affect.

Let me be clear: noone has a handle on what's going on: it's so rare an occurance that it cannot be reliably reproduced.

So, here are my suggestions and guesses.

1) As I've always recommended, do a complete backup of your drive(s) before you install a new OS.

2) run Disk First Aid on the drive to be sure it is not already corrupted.

3) install the latest disk drivers. Once you do this, you must shut down the machine, wait 20 seconds and then restart.

4) now run the installer.

5) Here's where I'm deviating from the norm: when you run the installer to upgrade to 8.5, DO NOT have it automatically update the drivers.

Proceed with the install (and, as I usually recommend, do a clean install, rather than updating the existing system. Refer to previous techNotes for ways to automate the update, including the new Conflict Catcher. (You can also try clean install assistant http://www.marcmoini.com although I have no personal experience with this software.)

The reason for the above advice is that one thread that seem prevalent with those who have had trouble is that their disks were partitioned.

Again, I didn't experience any trouble, and most folks don't.

You can read all the horror stories you want at http://www.macintouch.com/m85_diskdamage.html

What's my advice about upgrading? That's up to you. I did it. So have zillions of others without a hitch. If you'll follow my installation advice, you have a 99.9 percent chance that you'll have no troubles either.

But the final decision is, of course, yours.

Tracy