reinstalling leopard

[Watabou]

I've been having all sorts of problems lately on my Macbook Pro. Things are starting to slow down. A restart doesn't fix it. I'm pissed off how Safari acts like it's running on the iPhone(before firmware 2.2 that is). It crashes like every 30 minutes or something. Even when I'm scrolling Macrumors.

Here's another thing. Whenever I click Restart from the apple menu, does nada. Only thing it closes is my iTunes. Safari, Mail, iCal just sit there.

Then, I manually quit the app but I have to force-quit mail every single time. Even when I'm not restarting. Mail works awesome and fetches my gmail and everything but it refuses to quit. I have to force quit at least 3 times for it to actually quit.

So, I'm thinking to erasing everything and do a clean install of Leopard. But before doing that, I wanted to ask if it is practical, because I have a lot of stuff on here so back up would take hours.

I mean, do users who do a clean install experience that new fast feeling?


P.S. My hard disk space is about 65 GB out of 200. Not too bad right? I don't believe that is the problem.
P.P.S: Running 10.5.5

 

[Blue Velvet]

If you're set on this path, try an archive and install, preserving your settings, rather than a clean install.

 

[Quillz]

I just did a complete clean re-install on my iMac early this morning. It's real easy with Time Machine.

First, I had Time Machine do a complete backup of my system, which was around 70 GB. Took about an hour. Then, I did a clean install (not archive & install.) The reason I did this was because I could then manually access my Time Machine backup (via the Finder, not the interface), and pick and choose what files, applications, etc. I wanted.

Sure enough, I found that a lot of the stuff I backed up I didn't need. So now my iMac has far fewer applications and documents, but the stuff I did copy back over is stuff I use all the time.

 

[Watabou]

If you're set on this path, try an archive and install, preserving your settings, rather than a clean install.

I thought about that but if the problems don't get fixed, I have to do a clean reinstall anyways. So if I'm doing this, I want to be able to do this quickly and not take up a lot of time. I need my laptop, almost everyday.

I just did a complete clean re-install on my iMac early this morning. It's real easy with Time Machine.

First, I had Time Machine do a complete backup of my system, which was around 70 GB. Took about an hour. Then, I did a clean install (not archive & install.) The reason I did this was because I could then manually access my Time Machine backup (via the Finder, not the interface), and pick and choose what files, applications, etc. I wanted.

Sure enough, I found that a lot of the stuff I backed up I didn't need. So now my iMac has far fewer applications and documents, but the stuff I did copy back over is stuff I use all the time.

Yeah, I'm a college student so I don't have the money for Time Machine. So I have to manually backup to a DVD and such.

But I have a question for you, Quillz, what made you want to do a clean reinstall?

 

[Quillz]

I thought about that but if the problems don't get fixed, I have to do a clean reinstall anyways. So if I'm doing this, I want to be able to do this quickly and not take up a lot of time. I need my laptop, almost everyday.



Yeah, I'm a college student so I don't have the money for Time Machine. So I have to manually backup to a DVD and such.

But I have a question for you, Quillz, what made you want to do a clean reinstall?

In a word: Safari. I installed the Safari 4 Developer Preview over 3.1, but the uninstaller didn't work properly. It made me unable to install 3.2, and after that, Safari just wouldn't work at all. Even a completely uninstall didn't fix the process.

So that, plus a few other minor things made me do a reinstall of Leopard. I actually was looking for an excuse to do it for a while, and now I had one. The entire process, from the Time Machine backup to the reinstall of Leopard probably took 90-120 minutes at the most.

 

[vandozza]

you could try as a first step creating a new user account, and then seeing if problems persist on the new account.

if the problems disappear, then a complete reinstall may not be necessary.