mac problems

[redgaz26]

hi all, this is my first post here but been looking around the site for a while. anyway I've had my mac since April 2006 and love it it. it's an intel core duo with 1g of ram.(512 when i bought it and got another 512)
the last couple of months I've noticed the mac running far slower than it had, apps take longer to start up, apps are also not responding(ilife apps as well as others that i have downloaded) spinning beach ball appears regularly and twice in as many weeks I've had to repair my disk my using my install dvd.
also I can no longer burn dvd's. tried using idvd and toast and everytime comes up hardware error unable to burn. burning cd's is no problem.
could all these things be related?

 

[mad jew]

Welcome to MacRumors! I think the key is the disk repairing. If you've had to repair it twice in as many weeks, then it sounds like your drive is failing and you should probably back everything up before replacing the hard disk.

 

[mkrishnan]

This is for MJ:

Is there any chance you *did* something that precipitated all this? Installed or used monolingual or delocalizer? Deleted or modified anything in a system directory? Installed any application that changes basic system behavior?

 

[mad jew]

It should actually say:

My wang is this big!

 

[redgaz26]

monolingual

i have installed and used monolingual and then removed it.

 

[redgaz26]

applecare

i have bought applecare, if my drive was to go would this be covered?

 

[mkrishnan]

i have installed and used monolingual and then removed it.

This is the most likely culprit. I don't know if Applecare will fix it for you or not, since it's not a defect. If you're not extremely careful with this app, it can delete things that programs on Intel macs need to function.

I'd just make it simple. Go back up all your important files. Get your system restore DVD. Put it in, system prefs -> startup disk -> select the DVD, reboot. Then reinstall MacOS....

 

[redgaz26]

no back up

This is the most likely culprit. I don't know if Applecare will fix it for you or not, since it's not a defect. If you're not extremely careful with this app, it can delete things that programs on Intel macs need to function.

I'd just make it simple. Go back up all your important files. Get your system restore DVD. Put it in, system prefs -> startup disk -> select the DVD, reboot. Then reinstall MacOS....

i thank you for your advice, only problem is i do not have an external hardrive to back up with, i have nearly 4000 songs on itunes and over 1200 photo's.

how can this program muck things up if all it takes off are the languages you don't need?

 

[mkrishnan]

how can this program muck things up if all it takes off are the languages you don't need?

That's been discussed extensively on the internet, so if you want to know, please Google it. But its a pretty likely candidate and a known issue (even the author of Monolingual warns about it directly).

Okay, but that aside, how to solve your problem.... I guess my next advice would be to do an archive and install. This is 99%+ safe. (Not to mention that even if you convinced Applecare that this was their fault and not yours, they probably will wipe your drive anyway). When you start the install process off the DVD, after one or two screens, there will be an option button in the lower left, I think. When you click on it, there are several ways of installing OS X. You can use either archive and install option. Depending on what you do, your music, etc, will either be right back in your home folder when you're done, or it will be in a folder at the root of the hard drive called previous systems. But either way, it'll still be on the HD.

If that doesn't sound comfortable to you, you might try booking Genius bar time and being really nice to them. If its not a busy day, they'll probably walk you through the re-install. I guess, that way too, if it turns out to not be a monolingual issue, you can get it booked to be repaired / replaced while you're there?

 

[redgaz26]

authorized apple reseller

i live just outside Glasgow and theirs an apple shop opening in September, but I know of an authorized apple reseller and phoned them up, they said once i back up my mac I should bring it in, I told the guy on the phone about the program i had used and if it would still be under applecare and he said that if it needed repaired would be fine they would put it through as something else.
so i'm going to buy a hard drive tomorrow back up and take it in.
but here's what I forgot to ask him, do i back up just my home folder or the whole thing?
my home folder is 50g but on my hard disk is says i've used 187g.
bit of a novice at all this so can someone explain!!!!!

 

[mad jew]

I only ever back up my Home folder because the remainder of customised (non-system) files is pretty much just the apps for me, and I like to install them from scratch.

 

[redgaz26]

got the drive

hi all, well i went out and bought a drive today, seagate 320gb, it was USB but the guy says he could change it to firewire for me which he done.
got home turned it on and says i have 298.09gb! what happened to the other 20?
a bit confused already!!!!
then i click on get info which you can see here http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/redgaz26/Picture1-4.png


so capacity is 298. is this because he formated it to be firewire?
and whats the Windows NT file system?
is this the correct device for my mac?
advice would be grateful!!!!!!!!!

 

[mkrishnan]

The 289 vs. 320 GB issue has to do with the way hard drives are marketed. Hard drives are advertised under the assumption that 1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes, 1 megabyte = 1,000,000 bytes, 1 gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes, etc. Computers, however, consider 1 kb = 1024 bytes, 1 mb = 1024^2 bytes, etc. So the hard drive has 320 billion bytes of space, but that only works out to 289 operating system gigabytes (because 1024^3 is larger than 1,000,000,000...). It's a standard issue, and it affects all storage devices on all platforms. It has nothing to do with whether you use the drive on a Mac or Windows, or with USB or Firewire.

As far as filesystems go, it's probably formated FAT32, which is probably where you want to stay, unless you have to use individual files that are >4GB in size.

 

[redgaz26]

cannot copy anything

thanks for clearing that up for me. now sorry to be a pain but i can't get anything to copy to it.
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/redgaz26/Picture2-3.png
this is what it says when i drag something into the drive.


http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/redgaz26/Picture3-1.png
this is what it looks like on the finder

im i doing something wrong or just really stupid??????

 

[mkrishnan]

Can you please open it up in disk utility (in your apps/utilities folder) and then post a screenshot of how it looks in there? You'll see in the left side two nested icons -- one for the physical drive itself and one for the formatted partition inside that drive. Click on the nested (partition) one and then take a screenshot of Disk Utility.

 

[redgaz26]

pics

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/redgaz26/Picture5.png

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w214/redgaz26/Picture4-1.png

 

[mkrishnan]

Ahh, that's why you were asking about Windows NT filesystem. It's also called "NTFS." It's the dominant filesystem right now in Windows NT4+, Win2k, XP, 2003, and Vista. Unfortunately, OS X only natively supports *reading* from it. There's a package called MacFuse that lets you write to it, although I would exercise caution. It's probably not stable enough to use it to backup files.

If you don't need anything that's on the drive, and you'll only use it on Macs, click over to partition, make it a single partition on an Apple partition scheme, and then re-partition it. Then go to the erase tab and format it using the MacOS Extended / Journaled file system (HFS+ ... I'm not exactly sure what the text is in disk utility).

If you want to be able to use it with Windows computers, just go straight to the erase tab and reformat the volume using the FAT32 file system. Then you'll be able to read and write, but you cannot use files that are individually larger than 4GB. But it should be fine for backing stuff up.

 

[redgaz26]

cheers

thanks for all the info, the guy in the shop said it would work on my mac without having to do anything, seems he was wrong.
not bothered about windows machines so will partition the drive, I see you can split it to so that would be good.
one half for back up and the other for movies and stuff.

one final question regarding my first post about the problems on my mac, once i get this disk working will i drag all of my hd over to it or just my home folder and then reinstall mac osx?

and what's the benefits of using a program such as superduper when you can just drag folders in yourself?
again thanks for the help!!!