SOO CONFUSED! Need Help Soon!! PLEASE!

[zmund]

I am currently running a macbook pro with OSX 10.5.8 installed. About a week ago, my laptop started acting up and the problems are very frustrating. I am a film student and need my laptop back to working status as soon as possible.

The Problems I am facing-

1. Can't drag files. Files on desktop can be highlighted, and can be right clicked, but they cannot be moved anywhere. I have right click checked in the preferences for the trackpad but it does nothing. Also tried drag lock, also nothing.

If i try dragging a song in iTunes, it shuts down in 5 seconds and says i "do not have the access priveldges for this operation."

2. Can't copy and paste. It allows me to click "copy" and "paste", but nothing is copied to the clipboard and paste does nothing. I have tried the shortcuts and they also do not work.


What I have tried-
1. Resetting the access priveldges- nothing.
2. rebooting-nothing
3. checked the /tmp folder and it is in place.- so, nothing.

If I have to, I will back everything up and reinstall osx but on other threads, it has not fixed the problem so I would like to avoid that if possible.

Please Help!!! Thanks...

 

[MarkMS]

Make another user account and see if this still happens.

 

[zmund]

I have tried that as well, forgot to mention, but it still does not fix the problem. thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[MarkMS]

Ah, okay. Not to sound condescending, but do you have enough space on your hard drive? Also, did you empty the Trash can to purge files you don't need anymore?

 

[munkery]

If you have run your Mac without the necessary free space, you may have to "Repair Disk" via Disk Utility while booted from your install disk.

 

[zmund]

I have cleared out a lot of stuff on the hard drive so I have space and the trashcan is empty. I have looked everywhere for a solution to this problem but it is completely baffling. First problem that occured was my Ableton Live application not opening. If anyone can help me out it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[cteselle]

If you have run your Mac without the necessary free space, you may have to "Repair Disk" via Disk Utility while booted from your install disk.

I'd do this as well as repair permissions.

 

[MarkMS]

If you have run your Mac without the necessary free space, you may have to "Repair Disk" via Disk Utility while booted from your install disk.

I'd do this as well as repair permissions.

Definitely try this. If this doesn't work, my next step would to forget trouble shooting and reinstall OS X. Just make a quick back up via Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner and hopefully within an hour or two everything is fixed for you.

 

[zmund]

Nothing of the sorts worked. I am just going to backup everything then buy the new lion software. Thanks for the help everybody i REALLY appreciate it. Still extremely confused about the entire problem.

 

[zmund]

Does anyone think that installing the new Lion software will fix my problem????

 

[munkery]

Using Disk Utility from the install disk, run "Verify Disk" instead of Repair Disk.

This will tell you if the issue requires a clean install to repair. Some types of filesystem corruption require a clean install to repair.

Also, check the S.M.A.R.T Status of the disk within Disk Utility (shown at bottom right of app window). If the physical disk is OK, it should show "Verified." This isn't 100% accurate so if the issue persists despite being verified, then you may need a new hard drive.