iMac 24" reboot-reinstall-refresh-advice needed:-/

[emdotdee]

Hey
I'm hoping someone can help me or push me in the right direction.

I've had my iMac since 2008 and has run really well (except for the now dodgy superdrive) but recently it has ran awfully slow and has kind of been neglected as I do most stuff on my iPhone.
I want to get the computer running back to it's best again as the machine still looks brand new and the screen is fantastic but it's all going to waste if i can't use the damn thing properly.

The problem I have is that I just don't know where to start. I've got myself and my partner set up with individual accounts. We both have our own iPhoto and iTunes full of music and photos that are linked to our phones.

I know I'll have to get an external hard drive to move everything on to first but how do I go about getting the music and photos etc on there without messing everything up.

Basically I want to totally refresh the mac with the ability to put things back in place and ultimately get Mountain Lion on this thing.

If anyone can point me in the right direction, give me some step by step advice or some best practise tips I would really appreciate it as I'd love to get this iMac back in action again.

Also, any external HDD recommendations as I really don't have a clue about which HDD's are best.

Thanks

 

[emdotdee]

Could a mod move this in to the Mac basics and help or the Lion section of the forum please?

I've had plenty of views but no replies so guessing i've put this in the wrong place.

Also, I've got myself a 1TB HDD, I just need to know where to start so I don't make a huge mess.

Heeeeeelp.
Thanks

 

[emdotdee]

Ok, I've started by turning on TimeMachine so that's gonna take hours to fully backup my mac.

I'm thinking this might be simpler than I expect buy am unsure.

Essentially I want to backup the Mac using time machine, do a clean install of lion so we're back to new, then start bringing my music and some photos back into each user profile. (that's what's taking up all of the space)

I'm not too bothered about replacing apps and things because most of them where free and they are easy to get hold of again.

Is it that simple to get things off the time machine backup once i've done the clean install?

 

[Ice-Cube]

Ok I've done this a couple of times so here goes:

1) Backup your whole mac using Superduper. Its free and it clones your whole HD over to an external drive. So in case something goes wrong, you can reboot from that HD.
2) Reboot from external HD to make sure everything else is backed up.
3) Signout and deauthorize your iTunes store account from iTunes
4) Erase and install your iMac with a clean copy of Mountain Lion
5) Setup the 2 user accounts as new
6) Install iLife
7) Update your Mac using Software Update
8) Connect your external HD and copy over:
- Macintosh HD>YourUserName>Music to your new Music Folder
- Macintosh HD>YourUserName>Photos to your new Photo Folder
- Macintosh HD>YourUserName>Any other file or folders
9) Hold option and launch iTunes/iPhoto. The app will ask you where your music/photo library is. Just point it to the folder you copied across
10) Presto, everything is there.

The reason I didn't use time machine is that time machine restores everything back and there are so much junk (including incompatible plugins etc) in my old macs that I don't want to be copied over. This method above ensures a fresh install with only stuff you want copied over and a bootable backup in case you want to boot up to check certain settings/passwords you have saved previously.

 

[emdotdee]

Thanks for the reply ice-cube.

I've already got time machine running so will stick with that for now as it's been going for hours.

I was just going to reinstall Lion but i've realised I might as well just get Mountain Lion straight away so there is less messing about.

Now that I've used time machine will I still be able to drag and drop the music and photo files over just like you would with SuperDuper?

 

[emdotdee]

Ok so Time Machine has just finished its backup.

I just went into the backup to see the files and when I go into the other users part of the HDD it says that I can't view the music as I don't have permission.
Now this makes sense as it's on the other users profile but how do I make sure that this doesn't become a problem when i do the clean install?