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Doing my first reinstall

HE15MAN

HE15MAN

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 3, 2009
955
14
Florida's Treasure Coast
I have had my iMac running for two years now, and I have decided this weekend to copy off the data, and do a format and reinstall everything fresh. Would it be easier to just manually copy the files onto an external like I am used to, or give time machine a try for the first time?

The main things I am unsure about are backing up my Aperture and iMovie libraries.

I have done this hundreds of times on a Windows computer but for some reason I am quite nervous about this!

Thanks
 
I use Carbon Copy Cloner to back up everything as well as Time Machine

With either you can use Migration Assistant to bring the data back over if I recall correctly

And drag/drop is simple from the clone as well
And, it is bootable
 
Time Machine doesn't give you an opportunity to select what to backup (well you can exclude things but it takes more time). You could clone your HD with CCC and then transfer just the things you need. You can do that with Time Machine as well I think.

Depends what you want. TM or other backup utility will easily backup everything but if you only want few things, then doing it manually will be easier.

http://guides.macrumors.com/Clean_Install_of_OS_X_10.6_Snow_Leopard
 
HE15MAN said:
...

I have done this hundreds of times on a Windows computer but for some reason I am quite nervous about this!

...
Click to expand...
You are wasting your time. You are running MacOS X, not Windows. You should not employ Windows strategies in your Mac environment. Having your installation work for two years is no reason to throw it away and start over. Doing a clean install is intended to be a last resort solution to vexing problems that can't be solved any other way.
 
I just have a few programs running slower than I feel is usual, and this is my first Mac computer, and I did a lot of experimenting on it with Parallels and such. I just figured it would be better off cleaning out all the junk that could be laying around on here and starting fresh.
 
HE15MAN said:
Ok, well then would could be causing it to take 10 seconds on average to unlock the screen when I wake it and type in my login password?
Click to expand...
You are falling victim to the "Fallacy of False Alternatives." How much time do you expect to save during each boot? How long do you expect these cumulative savings to equal the time that you spend reinstalling your OS? My guess is that you will have abandoned the machine long before you make-up the time.

Economic argument aside, there is no way of knowing what is going on with your system without physical access to it. When you fixate on short times like 10 seconds, it becomes doubly difficult. I recommend that you run File System Check (fsck -fy) from the command prompt in Single User Mode. If you have a problem, then it will probably fix it. If it says that you don't have a problem, then you don't.
 
In my opinion, format a UNIX machine to make it faster it's just pointless. Just try to use the available tools to delete junk files and stuff.
 
I would use MacJanitor to clean up temp files, repair permissions, etc. If you already have Onyx or Mainmenu (both shareware) you can use them as well.

You probably just need a cleanup. If you're still having issues after that and a reboot then I would make a new user account and move to that one then delete the old account. That usually fixes most odd problems users can't get rid of.
 
OS X does suffer from OS rot, although not as bad as OS X, I found that making a new user profile often helps speed things up a LOT. You might try doing that instead of a full reinstall.
 
QuarterSwede said:
I would use MacJanitor to clean up temp files, repair permissions, etc. If you already have Onyx or Mainmenu (both shareware) you can use them as well.

You probably just need a cleanup. If you're still having issues after that and a reboot then I would make a new user account and move to that one then delete the old account. That usually fixes most odd problems users can't get rid of.
Click to expand...
MacJanitor is shareware. OnyX is freeware. However, both are placebo-ware. Left alone, MacOS X pretty much takes care of itself.
 
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