got new Hard drive but ical/email/quick view doesn't work & updates fail!

[RunnyCustard]

Hi all

I have a 2008 iMac 24" which the hard drive failed after a year which they replaced then recently it started failing again so this time they put in a larger hard drive (500gb) but now my email says this version is to old but wont allow me to update it (I've tried individual updates and combo type to but it goes through all the motions and restarting but then says fail... no other details given).

iCal just refuses to open, iTunes didn't work but I managed to re-install that so it works fine. also, quick view (clicking a file and using the space bar) that just comes up with a gray space... no image of documents/image etc.

I reformatted and verified the disc all ready and that's all fine no errors, I've tried the OS disc installations etc and tried downloading updates etc but no joy.

I would really like my email and iCal back - maybe I should just switch to a entourage but maybe the issue is something that will affect other programs down the line... so probably best to try to solve the problem plus I feel that I'm giving up too easily

I'm at work now but I can post up screen grabs later when I get home if that will help

any help would be appreciated - thank you

 

[RunnyCustard]

This is the message I get when I click on mail - either from doc or apps folder.

You can't use this version of Mail with this version of Mac OS X
you have mail version 4.3 (1081/1077). it can't be used on a Mac OS X Version 10.6.2 (Build 10C540).

I tried the updates, single and combo on the apple site - it gets to the point of restarting the computer then states that the installation failed.

just tried iCal and got this in the error info

Dyld Error Message:
Symbol not found: _OBJC_CLASS_$_CalDAVCalendarSharingOperation
Referenced from: /Applications/iCal.app/Contents/MacOS/iCal
Expected in: /System/Library/Frameworks/CalendarStore.framework/Versions/A/CalendarStore
in /Applications/iCal.app/Contents/MacOS/iCal

Model: iMac8,1, BootROM IM81.00C1.B00, 2 processors, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.8 GHz, 4 GB, SMC 1.30f1

any suggestions... pleeeeease

 

[Makosuke]

I reformatted and verified the disc all ready and that's all fine no errors, I've tried the OS disc installations etc and tried downloading updates etc but no joy.

Please correct me if I'm reading this wrong; you're saying that you took the OS installation DVD, booted from it, completely erased the new hard drive, installed a fresh copy of the OS, and you STILL get those errors, before you've done anything else to the computer?

If that's the case, either there's something wrong with your install disc (which I'd think the installer pre-check would catch--did you skip that?), or there's something causing intermittent read or write errors on the hard drive that's corrupting the installation. Which isn't unheard of--I had a similar issue once due to a bus incompatibility--but it's odd that it'd result in the same problem repeatedly, and that's not the error I'd expect.

What it actually sounds like is you've imported your old users over, but the links in the Dock are pointing to an archived copy of the OS or your backup disk or something, so when you try to open those apps you get old, incompatible versions.

Another thing to try is temporarily creating a clean user account and see if the problems happen there; if not, that tells you it's some setting (such as the above-mentioned Dock issue) in your imported user.

 

[RunnyCustard]

Please correct me if I'm reading this wrong; you're saying that you took the OS installation DVD, booted from it, completely erased the new hard drive, installed a fresh copy of the OS, and you STILL get those errors, before you've done anything else to the computer?



Another thing to try is temporarily creating a clean user account and see if the problems happen there; if not, that tells you it's some setting (such as the above-mentioned Dock issue) in your imported user.

actually I think I has an issue with restoring from my back-up when I first got the iMac home so I used disc utility via the desktop not the installation disc... after still having issues restoring I then used the installation disc to check permissions etc... I'm not sure if I reformatted the drive at that point as I can't remember.
But I think I will give that another try.

I also tried your other suggestion of creating a new user and updating the software but the installation failed the same way as before.

Thanks for all your help.
I'll try reformatting soon... just after I've hoovered, repainted my desk and other stuff before ... just to feel productive (messing with this computer means going and around yet not getting anywhere! )

 

[Makosuke]

Ok, that makes more sense--it sounds like you're just running from the restore; something probably went wrong during the transfer that's causing your problems.

What you want to do is:

1) Make absolutely sure you have a good working backup (because you're going to be completely erasing the hard drive).

2) Boot from the newest OS install disc you have (either the one that came with the computer or 10.6 if you bought it; if you DIDN'T buy 10.6 yet, this would be a good time to do so and upgrade at the same time).

3) Select Disk Utility from the menu, select the hard drive in the list at left, select the partition tab, and "1 Partition". Execute the repartition; you should now have a completely blank hard drive.

4) Run the OS install and let it do its thing. (You can, alternately, select "Erase and install" instead of the step above, but I'd recommend wiping it first to be 100% sure.)

5) Once the OS is installed you can create a "dummy" user account, to make sure things are working. Don't use the same name as your previous user, since you'll be importing that one later. Use this dummy account to run Software Update and get everything up to the latest version.

6) Now mount your backup and use Migration Assistant (in the Utilities folder) to import your old user(s). You can also use it to import old applications, but given that you're already having problems, were I you I'd go ahead and re-download/re-install all of them, just to be absolutely sure nothing funky is getting brought over. Usually this isn't too time consuming, unless you have a lot of apps.

7) Log into your newly-imported user and see if everything works--hopefully you're back in business. If not, since you know the OS install was good (having already tried it with the fresh user account), you can start troubleshooting preferences for that specific user.