[Gravitas]

Hello all,
I'm planning on upgrading to Leopard soon, however I have a 3 year old PowerBook and quite frankly the machine really needs a clean install after 3 years of junk collection. I'm trying to discern the best way to do it however...
Does anyone have a suggestion on how to best do this. These are the ways I know of...
1. Back up all files, apps, preferences, etc that I want to keep manually. Do a clean install and then have to transfer everything back over bit by bit. I currently use .mac backup utility to make back ups and I could use it to restore things as well but this would still be a very labor intensive process as I would have to restore everything from my email accounts in MacMail to specific settings in MS Word.
2. Using SuperDuper or CarboncopyCloner make a complete backup of my existing drive. Do a fresh install with Leopard and then Run AppleMigrationAssistant to migrate all my old stuff back on. This seems to be the easiest however I have had troubles in the past. 2 years ago when upgrading to Tiger I did a migrate from an old G4 Cube to a MacMini. The G4 cube had some issues (hence why I was moving to a MacMini at the time as a temp solution) and many of them were migrated to the MacMini along with all the files I needed. There are no real big problems currently with my PB G4, I have simply noticed slow downs and lots of old and cluttered files. I'd like to just start fresh. However, if I do use the Migration Assistant to migrate things from a full backup of my PB G4 Tiger install will I be inheriting any of the junk from the old install?
Obviously I'd prefer option 2, but anyone with input would be greatly appreciated. Or if someone has a better idea that would be great.
Thanks so much!

[tuqqer]

Here's what I just did, and this is my first response on Leopard:
1. Clone to another drive.
2. Wipe the first drive.
3. Install Leopard on the first, wiped drive
4. Use Migration tool built into Leopard to port what you need from the Clone.
Voil. Worked well, and even told me what it couldn't bring over (USB Overdrive for one).

[iGrooveLA]

i did this exact same procedure but it ddidn't work out as well. the install succeeded no problem. i used Migration Assistant and selected by SuperDuper clone that went fine as well..however, when all was said and done, none of my data from the transfer was in Leopard! my itunes, iphoto, address book, calendar, etc. were all empty! i know its somewhere there because the size of the hard drive was about the same but i couldn't find it anywhere...in other forums i've heard people use "Set Up Assistant". is this different from Migration Assistant? if so, how do I access "Set Up Assistant"?
also, my leopard home account was the same name as my tiger home so migration assistant asked me to change it...i wonder if that was the problem?
at the moment i reinstalled tiger from SD which is working fine...i want to redo the install and i want to do the erase/install again but i'm afraid i'll have the same problem...so i'm thinking of just doing either the upgrade or archive/install.
any help is appreciated.

[Typhoon14]

Personally, wanting to minimise any problems, I did a clean install and then restored applications and settings manually, checking each one so I only got what I wanted and what I was sure was compatible. Not recommended unless you have a good knowledge of where OS X stores different types of data. I ran into a few hiccups, as the iCal and Mail data storage formats have been changed. I ended up having to import my calendars one at a time using the new iCal's import function. I wasn't able to get my mail to import at all, and ending up having to start anew with Mail (not too much trouble when all your accounts are IMAP as mine are, but impossible if using POP).