i dont feel comfortable trying this. i dont have any backup and im not every expericened in this type of thing. Am i screwed?
Not per se, but you should definitely start with backups. It is a good thing to do on general principles- I has seen computers fried by lightning strikes, shorting out from Coke or Gatorade spills (
*), or even being stolen, and not having a backup of your stuff will make you very, very unhappy. You could probably drag files to CD and burn them, or plug in an external hard drive and drag your stuff over and save anything you need first, because I don't think your Quicktime error will stop you from making backups.
(Just thought of this-- can you try to download your Internet browser of choice again? Get Safari from Apple or Firefox from Firefox; try reinstalling that, restart the computer, and see what you get, maybe the Quicktime plugin in your internet browser is squirrelly.)
But otherwise, having a backup before you try any repair process like this is just a good idea, and it will make you more willing to try, if you know your stuff is safe first. And doing a repair like this is probably your only way to get back up and running-- see MJ's link above on how to Archive and Install. What that does is move your old system while (hopefully) keeping your personal files/stuff where it belongs, but again, always make sure you are covered by having a backup first.
You will need your Mac OS CDs or DVDs, and start up from them by pressing the "C" key. First try to run Disk Utility and run a Repair and see if that helps- that should not mess with your data. See
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh12.html for how to run Disk Utility.
If that doesn't help, then armed with a backup you might feel braver about trying the Archive and Install.
Good luck--
(
*) So no food or drink within 3 feet of a computer.... ever!!!!
