Now all I need is to save up for PT 12 (or probably 13 by the time I can afford it) and move on.

Do a backup before installing, preferable 2 backups on 2 different drives.

I use this machine for Pro Tools v.10.3.10.

I also use DropBox to send music to clients and collaborators (mostly the latter these days.

Now, Pro Tools 10 cannot run on anything past Mavericks with any certainty (actually, its a disaster), although it worlks well with Mavericks.

10.9 Mac OS Mountain

On the other hand, DropBox has decided to drop support for Mac OS Mountain Lion or below.

Without paying for a full upgrade to PT 12 I thought my best bet would be to go to the one OS version both companies could agree on, Mavericks, only to find that option barred to me.

I talked to a manager at a local Apple store and after consulting with his techs he told me that they could do the update if I brought in my Mac Pro.

That is definitely not the best solution -- I live miles away from the closest store and since the computer is the heart of my audio studio I would need to have at least one day off to tear it down, take it in, then add it back into the system.

Can you call the Apple store back and ask if they could do the install to an external disk, where you ONLY bring the disk with you.

You can also use SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner or Disk Utility - Restore to transfer the contents of the bootable external disk to any other bootable partition you want.

If you have another Mac that is old enough to run Mavericks, take that Mac with you.

Again, it might be best to use an external disk as the Mavericks destination.

But because Stuff Happens, make sure any Mac you take with you is backed up.

My mistake Sorry.) I did go to the Apple Store, with a flash drive in hand, but was told they needed the computer to do the install.

They mentioned that while they had access to Apple the installers were part of one large bundle and they couldnt separate out just one OS and the bundle needed the Machine ID to perform an upgrade.

I suspect that even if I take the Mac in, they might not be able to do the upgrade anyway.) This Mac replaces a Mac Pro 1,1 running Lion (10.7.5) which was as far as it could go.

10.9 Free Drive Slot

I cloned its boot drive then moved it into a free drive slot in the 2010 Mac Pro, from where I was able to update to Mtn.

Lion. it never occurred to me that Apple would restrict access to Mavericks Silly me.

Well, the good part is I now have a good, clean backup and another, slightly old one on an external (not connected) drive, something I was meaning to do soon anyway.

Download Mac Os 10.9