Total Mac Breakdown

[iKolja]

Hello !
Im new to this forum,but i really, really need help.
My Mac finally dissapointed me...
It has slowed a lot,lots,and i mean LOTS of spinning wheels,finder bugs up from time to time,and restarts.
iTunes wont start
QuickTime wont start
Toast 10 wont start
Photo Booth wont start (also can;t take pictures with skitch,but skitch works)
Safari works,but bugs from time to time,and exits...

i rarely get "send to apple" window...


well...thats all for now,but i think there are more apps that dont work,i just didnt try them...
it is really hard to use my mac,and it is pissing me off...

i wanted to format the disk,but i dont have an external to backup my stuff,so i need a temporary solution before i do that
thanks !

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

I would put in the OS X disc and do an archive and install. Before you do that you may want to try creating a new user and see if that helps. Good luck!!

 

[iKolja]

I would put in the OS X disc and do an archive and install

What do you mean my doing and archive and install?
im not really an expert
but i know some stuff...

 

[jcosmide]

what mac is it, what are the stats, and what OS are you using? How long have you had it? Did you really anticipate a helpful answer excluding these key facts?

Also, don't be so cavalier about reformatting your HDD. This isn't windows, the filesystem is totally different and doesn't slow down by itself. Start by running Disk Utility to check the status of your HDD.

 

[iKolja]

what mac is it, what are the stats, and what OS are you using? How long have you had it? Did you really anticipate a helpful answer excluding these key facts?

Also, don't be so cavalier about reformatting your HDD. This isn't windows, the filesystem is totally different and doesn't slow down by itself. Start by running Disk Utility to check the status of your HDD.

im really sorry about not saying that...

I have a black MacBook
2.4 GHZ core 2 duo ; 2 GB ram ; Leopard 10.5.6 ; 60 GB of free space on HD ; (Intel GMA x3100 with 144 MB ram) - edit
Had it since June or July (cant remember) 2008

tried making a new user,but its still buggy,and iTunes didnt open...didnt even try the other ones...




EDIT 2 : ran disk utility, "the volume seams to be ok"

 

[buddhaface]

Also, don't be so cavalier about reformatting your HDD. This isn't windows, the filesystem is totally different and doesn't slow down by itself. Start by running Disk Utility to check the status of your HDD.

Uh, yes it does slow down on its own over time, just like under Windows.

ikolja, you probably need to defrag or reformat. I had the same thing happen. It's a myth that Macs don't slow down over time. They do, especially if you handle and install a lot of files 20mb or bigger.

 

[iKolja]

ikolja, you probably need to defrag or reformat. I had the same thing happen. It's a myth that Macs don't slow down over time. They do, especially if you handle and install a lot of files 20mb or bigger.

well i defraged about a month ago,but i will now again...
just...will it make the apps work again?
itunes,qt,toast,photo booth etc...

 

[misterredman]

There must be something else that is wrong with your mac. Defragging won't make your apps run again.

If you haven't do a backup right now. You better do that soon. If your Hard Drive has a problem defragging may kill it completely (Disk utility doesn't always find the problems).

Check the Console for error messages.

A good thing would be to do the Hardware diagnostics tests, which are found on the disc that came with your mac (usually you need to boot while holding the D key down).

 

[buddhaface]

If you just defragged a month ago, then defragging is not likely the problem. You need to backup your Mac ASAP. If you don't have an external drive, then just burn DVD-Rs (that's if your computer doesn't slow to crawl doing this), or put it onto flash. Flash memory is cheap now.

And then do a complete reformat and reinstall. If after the reinstall, you still have problems, then you know it's not software.

 

[ppc750fx]

Steps to try:

1) Backup your Mac. Seriously. Stop reading this post, grab some DVDRs or an external disk, and back up your Mac.

I'll wait...




.



.

Ok, now that you've got it backed up, go test out your backups. Take them to another machine that you know to be good, pick a couple dozen random files off each disk, and make sure that they were backed up intact. If you don't do this, Murphy will ensure that your backup is bad, so do this now.

.

.

2) Run Disk Utility, verify the disk, and check permissions. If repairs are needed, make the repairs, then verify again.

3) Test your RAM. Download memtest, (don't pay for it -- it's open source and there are free versions floating around, so it's impossible to "pirate" it.) Put the binary in the Applications directory (or somewhere accessible to all users), and reboot into single user mode. Run it at least three times, testing the largest possible amount of memory each time.

4) If your RAM isn't bad, then it's possibly your OS. Re-install Mac OS X.

5) Still no luck? Your Mac has some other issue -- take it in to an Apple Store.

 

[iKolja]

Steps to try:

1) Backup your Mac. Seriously. Stop reading this post, grab some DVDRs or an external disk, and back up your Mac.

I'll wait...




.



.

Ok, now that you've got it backed up, go test out your backups. Take them to another machine that you know to be good, pick a couple dozen random files off each disk, and make sure that they were backed up intact. If you don't do this, Murphy will ensure that your backup is bad, so do this now.

.

.

2) Run Disk Utility, verify the disk, and check permissions. If repairs are needed, make the repairs, then verify again.

3) Test your RAM. Download memtest, (don't pay for it -- it's open source and there are free versions floating around, so it's impossible to "pirate" it.) Put the binary in the Applications directory (or somewhere accessible to all users), and reboot into single user mode. Run it at least three times, testing the largest possible amount of memory each time.

4) If your RAM isn't bad, then it's possibly your OS. Re-install Mac OS X.

5) Still no luck? Your Mac has some other issue -- take it in to an Apple Store.

first...i fixed all the programs...
it was some quicktime bug,i dont know...i fixed quicktime,took me a while,and reinstalled it,now all works, QT,iTunes,Photo Booth,Toast etc.

wow...that would take a ******** of dvd's...ill see if i can borrow someone's external,and i will do this...

thanks a lot for help guys !