Full system restore

[mfacey]

After 3 years (actually a few days more) I feel it is time for a full system restore for my trusty powerbook. How exactly do I go about doing this? I really want it to wipe the harddrive and put a clean install of Panther on. Also, when I'm doing this, how do I prevent OS 9.2 from installing?


Thanks guys, sorry if this has been posted before, I did search but couldn't find anything!

Oh and another thing. What about my music. I have about 13GB of music in iTunes. Purchased and ripped music. How do I keep from losing this stuff when doing a clean install?

 

[mduser63]

First backup anything you want to keep. Do it however you want, but the easiest way is probably to put it all on an external hard drive if you have one. If not, you can use DVDs, or transfer the files over a network to another computer for temporary storage. If you use an external hard drive, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your entire hard drive and make it bootable just in case something goes wrong and you need to restore your computer back to the exact same state it was in before the clean install.

As for doing the clean install itself, just put the Panther CD in your CD drive and hold down the 'C' key while turning your computer on. It'll boot from the CD and start the Panther installer. There's an options button (sorry, can't remember exactly where) that you can click to select which type of install you want to do. The choices will be something like, "normal install," "archive and install," and "clean install." Pick the clean install option as that's what'll wipe your hard drive clean and start from scratch.

Good luck!

 

[mfacey]

Thanks for the quick reply. Slight problem though. I don't have an external HD (except for my ipod). and I don't have a DVD burner (bought my powerbook a few months too early!). Furthermore, my home network is a wireless-B set up making it far too slow to transfer files over, and to make matter worse, the only other computer on the network is a winxp machine. Backing up my documents and stuff is easy enough to cd-rs. However, my iPhoto library and music might be a problem. I have everything backed-up up on my ipod. but I'm afraid something might go wrong! And besides that I won't be able to get my music back off my ipod onto my refreshed powerbook again will I?

Any advice at all is appreciated!

 

[jeremy.king]

Plenty of progs to get your music back to your mac. search here or google. Photos - not sure what to offer.

However, after reading your last post. I must say that you should strongly consider investing in something to take regular backups such as a DVD burner or ext HDD. Too many times people are burned by unfortunate events that result in complete data loss.

Of course you could try an archive and install, but that is probably not what you wanted since you feel the need to completely reinstall. Even if you went this route, its of the utmost importance that you BACK UP EVERYTHING you want to keep.

 

[mfacey]

Plenty of progs to get your music back to your mac. search here or google. Photos - not sure what to offer.

However, after reading your last post. I must say that you should strongly consider investing in something to take regular backups such as a DVD burner or ext HDD. Too many times people are burned by unfortunate events that result in complete data loss.

Of course you could try an archive and install, but that is probably not what you wanted since you feel the need to completely reinstall. Even if you went this route, its of the utmost importance that you BACK UP EVERYTHING you want to keep.

I fully agree with you on that one. I definitely need to be able to back up my stuff on something besides my ipod. Fact of the matter is that I'm planning on getting a new Powerbook VERY soon, just need to save a bit more cash. Then I've have a superdrive with plenty of back up options. Of course, knowing murphy's law, my HD will crash and I'll lose everything the week before I get it! Knock on wood!

Thanks anyway though, I think i'll just back up my photos on to a couple of CD-Rs.

 

[PlaceofDis]

enable fw disk usage on your ipod, empty it, throw your tunes and whatever other files will fit onto there, restore and then drag back to your system


and as others have already said, a more consistent way of backing up would be useful too