Is it possible to reinstall OSX without deleting docs, pictures and stuff...

Yup. The installer will offer you the option of saving the user account. Just go slow, read the fine print, and you will be fine.
Before you do that, have you done the Disk Utility --> Repair Permissions deal yet. That is definitely the place to start.

 

I have been running on OS X 10.4 Factory install since I bought my powerbook more than 1.5 years ago. And it is still running rock solid.

 

Reinstalling OS X is generally safe, it will not eat your files. Email, browsers, etc are all held safe and sound. Now, having said that, I will deny having said that in a court of law! Make a backup of your important stuff. Do that even if you don't reinstall the system. The Mac OS is very forgiving but, Mac or Windows, your hard drive will die someday. Maybe in five years, maybe in five minutes.

Permissions are the usual culprits in a misbehaving Mac. Run Disk Utility --> Repair Permissions at the first sign of trouble.

Then grab your Installation CD, reboot with the "c" key held down so that the Installation CD is the boot drive. Pick your language (English is good...!) and run Disk Utility --> Repair Disk. Run it until it is clean. You can potentially Repair Permissions from the CD boot, but don't. It doesn't know who you are and it will reset permissions that you will have to repair when you boot normally.

 

You can lose those old Windows habits -- reinstalling OSX is almost never necessary! Unexpected application quits are very unlikely to be caused by problems with OSX, so you won't cure them that way anyhow.

Don't reinstall, and enjoy the Mac advantage to the fullest.

 

I'm a little confused. You seem to say do THIS because it's safe and you won't lose anything. Then you seem to say if you do the SAME THING, is will reset your permissions.

What exactly are you saying?

 

If you have a external HD, then you could backup your iTunes. iPhoto, Safari Bookmarks, Movies, Documents, Applications, or whatever else you need, and then initialize/reinstall that baby.

Then what i would do is create a partitioned drive, with the OS on a smaller partition, and all of you apps like Photoshop, or whatever else that doesn't need to be in the OS Applications folder to work [unlike Microsoft's Office Suite, this needs to be in the OS Apps folder].

This helps out, if say in Jan. or whenever 10.5 comes out, if you want to upgrade with a clean install. All you would have to do is simply delete the OS partition of your hard drive, and not the other partition. This way everything will still be on the other partition after your new fresh OS X install.


However, what the other people have said will/should do the trick. I don't think you would need to do a Repair Permissions twice like stated above. You should only need to do it from your current OS install. After doing so it would be smart to Restart, and then Repair your HD from the OS X DVD if you need to do so.


Good Luck.

 

Yes but you should do a backup first. You'd be nuts not to. User error is always a possibility.

Also after you do the re-install you will need to update to the current versions then yu will be back EXACTLY to to place you are at now. I re-install likely will do nothing.

 

What he should have said has that "repair permisions" on the CD is likey a version of two back from what you have on the boot disk. Apple has issued some updates. It's best not to do this from the CD.

 

Thank you ChrisA!
Repair permissions from the Disk Utility on your hard drive after a normal startup. You can't Repair Disk from Disk Utility after a normal boot/login.
Repair Disk from the Disk Utility when you start up with your original Installation CD. The confusion is my fault, you have the ability to Repair Permissions after booting from the CD...don't!