I had to archive and install after 4 days - now what?

[shuurajou]

It's really sad for me to report that I've already had to archive and install after only 5 days of having my Mac and using it minimally over those days.

My problem was whenever I turned on the Mac, the grey Apple logo would turn into a pixelated corrupted image looking block before the swirling loading icon came up to indicate the system was starting.

I called Apple tech support who advised me to try to do an Archive & Install. I did, and this fixed the problem (luckily).

Apple tech support advised me that I wouldn't lose annything, which is great, and I didn't - apart from I had to re-install iLife '05 again because it said there was something wrong with it's system files.

Now, it seems that I have much less space available on my HDD than I did, and I feel like the system is running slower.

Any idea's what I can do to help this? Does the Archive & Install function store a backup of files anywhere I need to remove?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jsw]

First of all, it's quite odd that you'd need to do that so soon. My family iMac is 2.5 years old and has never had that done, except when upgrading to OS X 10.3 from 10.2.

Second, the old system files should be on your "Macintosh HD" drive as a top-level folder named - I think - "Previous Systems", in which there will be a folder for each time you do an Archive and Install.

Please post back if this happens again. It seems very fishy.

 

[Peterkro]

Theres a System old folder which is probably quite large,though depepending on how big your hard drive is it shouldn't be a problem.I'd back up essential data and do a complete reformat and reinstall.

 

[Makosuke]

First, yes it does store the entire previous system, hence the "Archive" part of Archive and Install. There should be a folder called "Previous Systems" or something like that, which you can now delete and free up several gigabytes of space. Depending on how much free space you have, it might also make things feel a little faster.

That said, you might just be having bad luck, but I'd be careful with that hard drive--you may have gotten a bum drive (it happens). It'll be covered under warranty, but you want to be sure you have a backup of everything important. This could explain why your previous OS install got corrupted (could've just been bad luck, though I've never seen that happen personally) and the slowdown you're seeing now.

Try running the Apple Hardware Test CD that came with the comptuer and see if it finds anything wrong. If you got AppleCare, you should also give TechTool a shot and see what it finds or fixes. If not, open up Disk Utility and make sure it says "S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified" way down at the bottom when you select your hard drive.

Assuming all those check out ok, if you want to do a more thorough test, you can always carefully backup everything, then completely reformat the disk and reinstall from scratch (Erase and Install is the option, I believe). Once you've put your files back on (again, back up EVERYTHING important, since this'll wipe the entire drive) if it still is acting odd, you either have a bad install disc (very unlikely, as it should complain if the disc is bad), or your hard drive is probably going and Apple will replace it under warranty.

 

[shuurajou]

Thanks for the quick reponse guys. The only thing that I can really think of that might have caused this problem is a) installing quick silver or b) installing my iPod. I can't think of anything else really. All I know is that for some reason the next time I started my system from installing the iPod I got the Mac's equivalent of the BSOD telling me to restart.

But, you are correct, there was a 'Previous Sytems Folder', in which I saw all my old stuff. I have now removed that from my system to free up some HDD space.

Any other advice would be appreciated, like general maintenance that would be good for my iMac G5 (and obviously not damage it).

Any Question - is there a Disk Defrag for OS X?

 

[dotdotdot]

Thanks for the quick reponse guys. The only thing that I can really think of that might have caused this problem is a) installing quick silver or b) installing my iPod. I can't think of anything else really. All I know is that for some reason the next time I started my system from installing the iPod I got the Mac's equivalent of the BSOD telling me to restart.

But, you are correct, there was a 'Previous Sytems Folder', in which I saw all my old stuff. I have now removed that from my system to free up some HDD space.

Any other advice would be appreciated, like general maintenance that would be good for my iMac G5 (and obviously not damage it).

Any Question - is there a Disk Defrag for OS X?

There is, but I dont know how to access it... I think its rarely needed, as the Mac magazine thing I picked up (cant wait till I order a Mac mini!!) said it is hardly important

 

[shuurajou]

Okay, well, I think it's improved somewhat. But I don't know for sure.

Is there a benchmarking program that I can run on my system to compare to somebody else's iMac G5 with the same specification? Currently the standard 20" iMac G5 setup, but with 1.25GB RAM.

I'm concerned as to what might be slowing down this machine. Although I can't really complain about it right now, it's acting pretty solid and fast - I just want to know it's running perfectly.

 

[Jsmit]

Xbench, it is a benchmarking program for OS X. It is not perfect but will give you an idea of how your machine is running.