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Disadvantage to clean install?

Dou shittara ii kana?

I've been anxiously waiting for Tiger to do a clean install, I'm sure I'll be pleasantly surprised with the extra gigs that'll show up on my HD, from all those lil files you needed once but forgot to delete, etc, that pile up and take up space. As posted above, there's plenty of options for getting iLife back, and just about everything else you ever used....but, it's all up to you.

It almost sounded like you just bought a PB and Tiger, so you'll have nothing to backup from your PB, so for you an upgrade would work best, so you'll keep the lil bit of free software that comes with. No point in formatting a clean Hard Drive.

My PC determines when it's time for format, which is an awful lot more often than not...it likes being broken. Maybe it wants to be used for more than Solitaire and Free Cell, and just craves attention.
 
ChrisBrightwell said:
Operating Systems are complicated things. Coming from a Windows background, formatting and reinstalling was never required, but was always suggested. Even in major revisions of *NIX systems, I see people advocate formatting and reinstalling the OS.

OS X may be slick enough to pull off the upgrade without any hiccups, but I depend on my Powerbook for both work and play and would rather take the extra hour or two it takes to format and reinstall the OS now than spend that time somewhere down the road troubleshooting what winds up to be a problem rooted in the upgrade.

Besides -- Personally, I enjoy having as little on my machine as possible. I format and reinstall, then I just wait to install something until I need it. I get the OS, iLife, and a few other necessities installed and updated, then I just start working.

When I need FCE, I'll install it and update it. The same for Photoshop or Dreamweaver. I hate having cluttered drives and doing an Upgrade or a Archive and Install just perpetuates the clutter.

Formatting and reinstalling gives me an opportunity to wipe out the clutter and start fresh. For me, it's worth the hassle. As always, though, YMMV.
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I've never had a problem "rooted in an upgrade." Not once (at least, not with OSX). When I want to clean out my hard drive, I throw things I don't need away (why did Apple make that so easy?). This is so much safer than going nuclear, and risking deleting things I might actually need. I depend on my Macs for my livelihood, so I can't afford to loose important applications and files, which is always a risk with clean installs.

Now you're going to tell me the solution to that problem is simple: back everything up. Right, and that means keeping that backup on hand essentially forever, because you never know what you don't know. It might easily be months or even years before you realize that file you desperately need today was nuked in the last clean install.

Like I said, big hassle, no payoff.
 
buggybear said:
From what I can tell the latest "Mac Vodoo" here is not doing a clean install. It would be magical if hard drives never screwed up, but this is not the case. I take the time to do a fresh install upon every major upgrade.
One would have to be pretty set in their ways to not admit a fresh install does not speed up their computer after a period (a year or so) of heavy use (forum posting does not count).
Not only does a clean install force me to back up every year or so, it gives me a chance to zero my hard drives and check for corrupt sectors (albeit not standard clean install practice).
In fact i'm looking forward to the upgrade just so I can do a clean install.
All I'm really getting at is don't dismiss the clean install option as evil... and yo mama smells.
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If I thought clean installing was "evil" I would have called it that. What I called it is a waste of time, a hassle, and an unnecessary risk for unproven benefits. I'd also call it bad advice, particularly when it's given to someone who's new to the Mac. Just look at all the gyrations mentioned in this thread alone that are required to get the Mac back to where it was before you went nuclear. It seems to me, the clean installer advocates are telling people that they need to get OS dirt under their fingernails or (I guess) they aren't real Mac users. I think just the opposite is true. If I wanted to get all grundgy, I'd use Windows.

If I was worried about bad sectors on a hard drive, I'd use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup the entire drive, wipe the drive, then reinstall the backup. Then I'd upgrade. Much safer, far less hassle.
 
RacerX said:
And (again) what you'll have after a clean install of 10.4:
  • Mail
  • iChat
  • Safari
  • Sherlock
  • Address Book
  • QuickTime
  • iSync
  • iCal
  • iTunes
  • iPhoto
  • iMovie
  • DVD Player

If you have no use for the bundled software Apple provides (and have nothing better to do with your time), then do a clean install of 10.4.

Personally, I think Archive and Install is your best friend for installing 10.4.
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I was under the impression that iMovie (v3) and iPhoto (v2) were not including with Tiger. I actually like that, since I have iLife anyway and it is free with all new Macs, because having some of the older generation iLife apps included with the OS just made things confusing.

They still have iTunes in there, although it is free, so no problem there.
 
Freg3000 said:
I was under the impression that iMovie (v3) and iPhoto (v2) were not including with Tiger.
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Oh....well, I had suspected that at some point Apple would unbundle them from Mac OS X. :rolleyes: It seemed odd that a large amount of iLife would still be part of the Mac OS X software so long after the release of the iLife suite.
 
I'm considering the clean install mainly because my hard disk, on my PB seems to have been working alot more than it did several months ago (before I started downloading large files off video cameras, digi cameras etc and virtually using up my entire disk - even having deleted lots of them it just seems to be firing up more often...)

Has taking up a lot of dis space meant that it has had start writing new every day information such as upgrades etc (that I want to keep) closer to the centre of the disk so it has to do more to find them?

More importantly, I have no worries about reinstalling the various apps I use after a clean install, but will I have an issue with any updates that I may have done since they were first installed, or will combo updates be available??

Long post apologies...but an answer to the update question appreciated)

Zim
 
Zim Bargo said:
I'm considering the clean install mainly because my hard disk, on my PB seems to have been working alot more than it did several months ago (before I started downloading large files off video cameras, digi cameras etc and virtually using up my entire disk - even having deleted lots of them it just seems to be firing up more often...)
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You may be building up large swap files. Have you logged out or restarted recently?
 
yup, logged out and restarted several times over the last few weeks. But I seem to have been gradually slowing over the last year or so.

Maybe I'm susceptible to the notion that clean is better - I do agree with the guy that said about downloading thinga then forgetting about them. I've look around my system and nothing jumps out, but I have no idea what kind of associated files, cookies, installers, whatever have come along for the ride.

Clean install is certainly not something I want to do just to be able to play at setting everything up again. only really interested if there is a potential perormance gain (from clearing out the closet)
 
Okay, it seems you've done the right things so far. I presume you've repaired permissions too. How much space do you have free on this drive? OSX doesn't like to operate with minimal free space. I can't recall the formula. Maybe someone else knows more precisely, but I recall having a bad time with my Cube when the free space in the original 20 gig drive got down to around 1-2 gigs.
 
Right now i have 40G or so (80G drive) but I had it down to about the last 5 at one point with all the DV etc - my thinking is that if you've got it down that then maybe new stuff associated with an app on the outer part of the drive has had to be written closer to the centre of the disk.

I don't know - happy to do the clean install just incase, but if the updates are going to be a pain in the arse I might rethink it

(first new install by the way having happily switched about 18 months ago - and never got the hang or correct rpocedures down for backing up etc)

Thanks for the help by the way

Zim
 
If you do a clean install the way to get back the bundled apps that came with your PB (if you bought one recently) is to put the Mac OS X disc that came with the PB into the drive and open it in finder. Once you do that there should be two icons one on the left to install the OS and one on the right to install the bundled apps. Select the one on the right and this will open an installer and allow you to install all the bundled apps as you so choose that came with your PB or iBook including iLife.
 
OH BTW when you ever install something do a search for it and get everyhting out including any prefs etc. This will clean allot up and keep it smooth :D

or try omnidisk sweeper from the omnigroup the same guys who brought you omniweb
 
Best of luck. I'd certainly grit my teeth really hard before I pulled that trigger, but you may have run out of more appealing options.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I've never had a problem "rooted in an upgrade."
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You are hardly a comprehensive sample, to say the least.

I depend on my Macs for my livelihood, so I can't afford to loose important applications and files, which is always a risk with clean installs.
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That's why the gods invented "backup" software.

Now you're going to tell me the solution to that problem is simple: back everything up.
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I'm sorry. I thought that was common sense. If it's important, back it up regularly.

Like I said, big hassle, no payoff.
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For you, that's becoming clear. For me, however, I keep good backups of anything important -- so "going nuclear" does no harm.

The nuclear plan, however, does a lot to clean clutter around here.

So like I said -- suit yourself. I'll be formatting and reinstalling.
 
I'd rather not take the risk either. It's considered routine maintenance in the Windows world. Also, just because volume defrags are no longer necessary, does not mean your hard drive is optimized as much as it could be. Archiving only makes this worse.

JackB79... how does zeroing help? Does it find bad sectors? :confused:
 
ChrisBrightwell said:
You are hardly a comprehensive sample, to say the least.
Click to expand...

No one individual is a "comprehensive sample." That includes both of us, and it certainly includes the folks who say a clean install makes them "feel better" or makes their Mac "run better."

I'm seeing clean installs recommended to fix all manner of trivial issues and even no issues at all, and disturbingly often to address problems that a clean install has no prospect of fixing (like hardware issues). I think people deserve to know the other side of this story, which is that clean installs are no panacea. In fact, the way they're prescribed for everything and nothing at all, they're more like a placebo.
 
Clean Install Questions

I've read this entire thread and I'm a little confused. If I understand what is being said it appears that there is no way to get around reinstalling all applications other than those installed by Apple when you do the clean install. It's been a while since I last did a clean install just for that reason. I simply have too many applications and too little time. For the last two versions of OS X I have done the upgrade and things seem to work OK.

The major problems I run into have to do with applications that I have not yet upgraded to work with the latest version of OS X which is most often because the developers have not upgraded their software yet.

I back up my startup hard drive every night using Retrospect by doing a complete duplication. Except when I install a new system I turn the script for nightly duplication off. That way should anything go wrong with the update, which I usually know after a few days of heavy use, reverse the duplication process and then do a clean install as a last resort.

Why go through a big hassle if it's not necessary? I can go through my hard drive when I have a little free time to find files I no longer need. Or there are program like Spring Cleaning that offer some help in this regard.

It seems to me like my method is the best of both worlds. Does anyone have a better plan?
 
Archive & Install vs. Upgrade

What are the benefits? It seems like that they both have the same objectives, especially if you select "automatically import user..."

:confused: I am about to upgrade to 10.4 very woon
 
I think a lot of it has to do with "computer junkie"-ness...

I like to know everything that's going on with my system. I use Terminal to to run the UNIX cron scripts and tinker around, I know everything that's installed...

For some people this is ridiculous and a waste of time, but for me it's enjoyable to know how fine-tuned my machine is. :)
 
diehldun said:
What are the benefits? It seems like that they both have the same objectives, especially if you select "automatically import user..."

:confused: I am about to upgrade to 10.4 very soon
Click to expand...
Well, I have to say I thought Archive and Install would be more of a hassel than it was. I do have a 3.5GB Previous System folder, but it brought over all my user and network settings as well as all my applications and even my dock. The only thing I've had to do is bring over a the ScriptingAdditions folder for Photoshop - everything else works beautifully. Regarding benifits? I'm not sure, but I feel better knowing that the underlying OS got a clean start with 10.4 :cool:
 
Cooknn said:
Well, I have to say I thought Archive and Install would be more of a hassel than it was. I do have a 3.5GB Previous System folder, but it brought over all my user and network settings as well as all my applications and even my dock. The only thing I've had to do is bring over a the ScriptingAdditions folder for Photoshop - everything else works beautifully. Regarding benifits? I'm not sure, but I feel better knowing that the underlying OS got a clean start with 10.4 :cool:
Click to expand...


Now all you have to do is delete the previous system folder and you are golden
 
Cooknn said:
Heh, yeah I think I'll sit on it for a couple of weeks just in case something else comes up :p
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Na I'm brave... don't even have a backup of my system under panther... deleted that yesterday and replaced it with tiger. So I'm putting my faith in Apple's core of engineers that they did alright with this system
 
JackB79 said:
Now all you have to do is delete the previous system folder and you are golden
Click to expand...

The one surprise I had is that even with users porting turned off, under Archive and Install, Tiger moved copies of some applications into the new apps folder, in some cases creating duplicates (I had Safari 2 in the applications folder, and Safari 1.3 in the applications/internet folder, WHERE IT INSTALLED ITSELF, mind you! :)). I had two copies of several Apple utilities, as well, such as ... I think Internet Connect, DVD Player, maybe...anything that wasn't in the root Applications folder (in Internet or in Utilities) before.

It wasn't supposed to do this, was it?

So in hindsight, my one additional recommendation to archive and install is to move your applications out of the root apps folder and into the one in your user folder, so they will definitely get archived and not mixed up with Tiger apps.
 
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