Nothin' But a Blue Screen...

[shadowfax0]

Ok, a while ago I reported here that the program BeachBall had 'failed to install' and left me with some rather strange GUI nusances. Now the problem has escalated. I recently had my cursor just STOP, the time was ticking, but my whole keyboard simply cease to function (the light on my optical mouse even went out), and soon the clock and menu-bar items were gone, but the computer was still going. I believe the problem exists with the CoreGraphics file that was 'replaced' by BeachBall. Anyhow, the new symptoms are:
-More crashing than I have EVER had before on OS X, which still isn't that much (OS 9 is a different story ), but I am afraid to do anything of importance
-The screen that comes up when you start up that say 'Welcome to Macintosh' is now gone, replaced with the simple blue background, but the computer still starts up
This:
I am wondering what to do, I was thinking I could install Jaguar onto another one of my drives, then simple replace the folder on this drive with the folder that contains CoreGraphics on that, being that I am 95% sure that my CoreGraphics file is corrupted. But just in case, I have ALOT of programs on my computer, Im wondering, would I simply be able to my Applications folder onto another drive? Or change my start up disk so I am running off another drive, but utilizing the applications on another? My idea is that I want to do as little of a 'clean' install as possible. Thanks for all the help!

 

[King Cobra]

When you do a "clean" install from the Jaguar CD a new system folder is created and becomes the new boot system folder. The install process still keeps the old system folder where it was.

In case you are worried about this not going to work, which I will not guarentee, back up everything to an external Hard Drive or another computer, including your personal material and any programs. I always save the original Stuffit expander files, so I don't have to search for all the individual parts for stuff that isn't available on a backup CD or such. If you don't have the original stuffit packages or the original CD for any app/program that scatters stuff about your Hard Drive, copy the program folder and help folders, if any, within your user library.

If you have another computer, you can quickly transfer stuff back and forth using FireWire Target Disk mode. I think this is a very big time saver, rather than using 10 CDs or so.

I would recommend you wipe out your Hard Drive and start fresh anyways. It may be time consuming, but it should rid of all and any problems, especially in regard to this particular installation issue.

IF you are still willing to go about with the CoreGraphics program and are willing to take a chance messing up your GUI, the first thing you should do after installing Jaguar fresh is install this program fresh and see if it works. If it doesn't, then trash the total crap program and just reinstall your other apps/programs/personal stuff/etc.

 

[GeeYouEye]

Fairly stupid question I'm sure, but did you try running beachball again to restore the coregraphics file?

 

[shadowfax0]

Actually I DID try to re-install BeachBall to see if taht would fix me up, but no dice Also, I use Entourag for my mail, how do I save all my messages?! If I move Enourage, how do I go about it so that I don't muck up all my saved messages, anyone know?

 

[King Cobra]

I don't have much experience with entourage, but I'm gonna help you the best I can.

If you do a search in your user folder, there should be a folder for Entourage. If it's not in your documents folder, it should be in your user Library. Most likely, that is where all your messages are. I'm guessing, since my mail apps, Mail and Mozilla, have folders there for mail at a certain depth directory inside each folder. Your best bet to save all the messages in this senario would be to copy the entire Entourage folder.

If you do this, make sure to bring the entire folder back to where it was EXACTLY located within the Hard Drive before you do a fresh install.

Again, no guarentees, but if that doesn't work, you are probably going to have to copy each message, one by one, into Appleworks (or Word) and save them from there. Once you save and copy that file, you will have all the emails. It is time consuming, but it isn't risky.

 

[Fezwick]

Not exactly sure if this would work, but there is a program called Aquafix which installs all of the original aqua interface files. Give it a run and see if that works.