Clean Install (Guidance)

[PS65]

I have my original Late 2008 Macbook Pro and it hasn't been formatted since.

Having recently upgraded to Lion, I personally feel it is a little slower, possibly due to heavy disk fragmentation, thus I have decided to carry out a clean install of Lion.

However...! I have tried searching for some guidance on the exact procedure, but it gets a little complicated on the following questions:

1. If, say, I realised I forgot a precious document and assuming I have backed up using Time Machine before my format, could I pull off a specific item/folder through Time Machine post my format?


2. Are there any files (other than the typical Music, Photos, Documents) that are hidden which I should really consider?

3. Does anybody know of any good guides/tips I should read before doing this? I have tried searching, but clearly I am not very good at finding content?!

Thanks for your help!!!

 

[Mac Skeleton]

Hey PS65,

A fresh install is not always the solution, but often times it is a great way to get rid of any corruption or other issues without a doubt.

Now you mention disk fragmentation. You can use a software application such as iDefrag http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php
to defrag your hard drive or at least to better understand and see if it is indeed actually heavily fragmented.

Secondly, if you do proceed to do a clean install and there are files that you realize post fresh install you needed, you can surely grab them off of your time machine back up. Time machine is great for the overall convenience and user friendliness, but it does NOT capture EVERY single detail. You may often time have to reenter serial numbers of programs etc.

In addition, keep in mind, a fresh install will delete all of your user preference files. Your "plist" files. So any preferences you have created in the system or in your applications library will be lost. For the most part, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes preference files can become corrupt and this is a great way to clean out the trash.

Another GREAT way to back up your hard drive, is to use a clone software such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. I prefer SuperDuper http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html and this program allows you to actually make an exact bootable clone copy of your current hard drive. And this way, if you are worried about hidden files or other things you may not have considered, you can always access a clone of your current hard drive.

As long as you have a clean solid back up, Time Machine or SuperDuper, you shouldn't have any worry in doing the fresh install!

 

[Quad5Ny]

You have a few options, here are 2;


A.) Replace your old hard drive, use it as a permanent backup and Clean install Lion:

1.) Pick up a new 2.5" Internal HDD or even SSD
2.) Download Lion or buy Physical Media
3.) Backup everything with Time Machine
4.) Burn Your Own OS X Lion Install DVD or USB Drive (Skip this Step if you purchased Physical Media)
5.) Swap out your Old HD for the New One (Remember to put your old one in a safe place)
6.) Clean Install Lion (See Quote at Bottom of Post)

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B.) Backup your current install and Clean Install Lion:
You can skip step One and Five, but I recommend you don't.

1.) Find or Buy a Backup drive == or > in size than your Current HD (Make sure its empty)
2.) Download Lion or buy Physical Media
3.) Backup everything with Time Machine
4.) Burn Your Own OS X Lion Install DVD or USB Drive (Skip this Step if you purchased Physical Media)
5.) Clone/Make a bootable copy of your current drive onto the Backup Drive using CCC / SuperDuper
6.) Clean Install Lion (See Quote at Bottom of Post)

How to Clean Install OS X 10.7 Lion

Part One: Partitioning the hard drive

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install DVD into the optical drive, or insert the Software Reinstall Drive into the USB port.
   
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2. Turn on or restart the computer.
   
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3. Press and hold the Option key at startup to select the volume containing the installer.
   
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4. If your are using a wireless mouse, a mouse icon should appear asking you to turn the mouse on so that the computer can discover it.
   
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5. Select a language, then press the right arrow key.
   
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6. Click the Utilities menu, the choose Disk Utility.
   
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7. In the box to the left Select your hard drive.
   
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8. Click the Partition tab.
   
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9. Under Volume Scheme choose "1 Partition" (This will Erase the Entire drive, including Boot Camp Partitions)
   
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10. Click the Options button and make sure "GUID Partition Table" is selected.
    
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11. To the right of Format choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
    
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12. To the right of Name Type "Macintosh HD".
    
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13. Click Apply.
    
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14. After the partition is formatted, choose Quit Disk Utility from the Disk Utility menu.

Part Two: Installing the operating system

1. When the Mac OS X Installer screen appears, click Continue.
   
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2. When the license agreement appears, click Agree.
   
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3. Select the disk you partitioned. It should now be highlighted with a green arrow.
   
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4. Click Install. A status bar appears on the bottom of the screen while Mac OS X installs.
   
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5. An Additional Information screen appears, advising you that you operating system has been installed. Click Continue.
   
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6. An Install Succeeded screen appears. Click Restart.

Original Steps Edited from: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3910

 

[PS65]

Hey PS65,

A fresh install is not always the solution, but often times it is a great way to get rid of any corruption or other issues without a doubt.

Thanks guys, both really useful!

Just a quick question, you mention this isn't always the solution? I am seeing my machine become incredibly slow and the spinning beach ball.

It came with the original Leopard, upgraded to SL, and now Lion. I was thinking this could be the reason for the poor performance?

Also, just a general tidy up of three years of software install/uninstall abuse?!?

 

[r0k]

Thanks guys, both really useful!

Just a quick question, you mention this isn't always the solution? I am seeing my machine become incredibly slow and the spinning beach ball.

It came with the original Leopard, upgraded to SL, and now Lion. I was thinking this could be the reason for the poor performance?

Also, just a general tidy up of three years of software install/uninstall abuse?!?

Those Lion install steps from Quad5Ny's quote from Apple support aren't quite right. That gets you back to Leopard or Snow Leopard and you will still have to reinstall Lion afterwards. Lion is not available on optical media.

Slow down. Stop in fact. First and foremost, use CCC or SuperDuper to make a clone of your internal drive. This is essential as Time Machine backups sometimes do not work when the time comes to restore. I know this from experience!

Second of all, if you decide you want to be able to restore some files from that old TM backup, mount the backup volume so that "time machine backups" shows on your desktop. It is best to NOT do this while TM is spinning. I suggest you switch TM off as having a finder window open on a TM volume causes it to take f o r e v e r to do anything. Open disk utility and check the sparsebundle file that contains your backup. If it takes forever or offers to do deep traversal, your file is junk and you may not ever see any of that data again. This is why it is essential to use TM only as a backup of convenience, not your only backup. I recommend CCC over SuperDuper because CCC is donation ware. You aren't asked to pay until it has already worked. CCC makes bootable backups.

The shortest way to a "fresh install" like situation is simply cloning as cloning copies the OS and user files but not log files and backups of previous OS. Cloning also solves fragmentation.
Step 1: Get a fresh usb hdd (could be a new SATA drive and a usb to SATA cable).
Step 2: Clone from your internal drive to the new drive
Step 3: Swap them.

If you decide you really need a fresh install of Lion, here are the steps
Step 1: Get a fresh usb hdd
Step 2: Make a fresh new TM backup to the new usb drive (may take all day)
Step 3: Shut down and restart holding Option
Step 4: Select the Lion recovery partition to boot from
Step 5: Pick install and when it comes to the point you can migrate data, browse to the TM backup you made in step 2

An alternative method is to use a bootable Lion USB key either purchased from Apple or one you made yourself from install osx lion.app before it installed and deleted itself.

Before you go after your Mac with a big hammer, consider that the poor performance could be (lack of) memory related or app related. All our minis only came with 1 gig of RAM and were frequently beachballing under SL. Even before upgrading to 2 gig of RAM so we could install Lion, when we stopped using Firefox, we stopped seeing the beachball.

 

[Quad5Ny]

Those Lion install steps from Quad5Ny's quote from Apple support aren't quite right. That gets you back to Leopard or Snow Leopard and you will still have to reinstall Lion afterwards. Lion is not available on optical media.

I know, that's why I included the Lifehacker link on how to Burn/Restore the Lion DMG.

I also told him to either clone his drive or replace it and keep the old one as a backup (in addition to his time machine backups).

 

[PS65]

I know, that's why I included the Lifehacker link on how to Burn/Restore the Lion DMG.

I also told him to either clone his drive or replace it and keep the old one as a backup (in addition to his time machine backups).

Thanks chaps!

Sorry for another simple questions! Thus, if I use CCC to copy my entire drive, is there a need to backup anything else? I am using 100gb at the moment, so I will be backing up all my information (including system files?) and therefore if I came to a situation where I, say, forgot my Safari favourites I could looking into the CCC copy and restore my .plist?

 

[Quad5Ny]

Thanks chaps!

Sorry for another simple questions! Thus, if I use CCC to copy my entire drive, is there a need to backup anything else? I am using 100gb at the moment, so I will be backing up all my information (including system files?) and therefore if I came to a situation where I, say, forgot my Safari favourites I could looking into the CCC copy and restore my .plist?

Yes.

If you make a complete/full clone, then it will backup everything and will also be bootable.

 

[PS65]

Guys, thanks for your help. Did a clean install last night and the machine is running perfectly.

CCC is an awesome program, albeit I was up until 3am due to me starting it very late!