Does cloning a hard drive repeatedly have degrading effects on the OS?

[Night Phoenix]

Hi,

I have cloned my iBook several times for various reasons, and I am now considering to do a fresh install of OS X Tiger since it seems as though my computer has slowed down a bit and is doing some odd things, like automatically ejecting my iPod and not ejecting my external drive when I tell it to. Does anyone know if repeated cloning has any negative effects on a system? Or is it just in my head? Or maybe should I just go buy a MacBook already? :)

Thanks!

[MisterMe]

All you are doing is writing bits to a disk. In the normal operation of your computer, you read and write bits to your disk. Cloning your OS is no more dangerous to your hard drive than saving your catalog of digital photographs on the same drive.

[AlBDamned]

Before doing a fresh installl, you could try an archive and install (back up first obviously) and see if that blows the dust out and makes your 'book a bit snappier. :)

[Night Phoenix]

Well,
I did a fresh install and that seemed to fix all the little bugs and slowdown that I was experiencing. Thanks for the help.