Wait for 10.6.3 update? Or re-install?

[Ed State]

Last month my original HD bit the dust. Luckily I had a fresh SuperDuper backup, which I simply cloned back onto my new, replacement HD.

However… and this MAY be my imagination… it has never seemed as "stable" as the original system. There are a lot more hangups, crashes, and long wait times. There just seems to be a much larger amount of zaniness going on in my system. Ie: Safari crashes more than it used to, and CS4 has all these weird buggy things that weren't there before.



I've done all the standard "maintenance" stuff, but nothing seems to help. And in my slightly-paranoid brain, I'm thinking the "cloning" wasn't 100%-100%. Because (correct me if I'm wrong) there are always bits and bytes that are dropped, or mis-interpreted when copying large amounts of data like that. Right?

My question is, with the 10.6.3 update coming fairly soon, should I wait for that? Or go ahead and re-install?

Do OSX updates like these "over-write" the system to some degree? Or totally? Or does it only affect the "elements" of the OS it's meant to update?

PS, my brand new HD is a 750 Caviar Black, so it *shouldn't* be the problem.

tx,

e

- Early 2008 MP, 22G RAM

 

[r0k]

If you have your SL dvd lying around, why not do an "archive and install"? You would then be back to 10.6 but Software Update would have you back to 10.6.2 in a matter of minutes. Then you wouldn't be waiting around for 10.6.3. What's more, there is a possibility that whatever is making your system act up won't be fixed by 10.6.3 so you will have waited for nothing and will be faced with doing an archive and install anyway but you will have to sit through the software update again when you do.

 

[Ed State]

Meh, If I'm going to have to an A&I I might as well do an E&I… I'm going to have to reinstall all my programs anyway, right?

 

[r0k]

Meh, If I'm going to have to an A&I I might as well do an E&I… I'm going to have to reinstall all my programs anyway, right?

No. An A&I keeps all your programs. I've done both. Very often A&I is enough to bring a system back to peak performance and all your programs are still there. What do you think this is, Windows? Only once did I decide to do an E&I when Apple support suggested I delete and recreate the account for a user whose iTunes was freezing when she plugged in her iTouch. To do an E&I, when you insert your SL DVD, start disk utility and tell it to format the internal drive before proceeding with the install. Of course, you lose everything this way so I'm assuming you have some sort of backup, Time Machine or otherwise or you wouldn't even mention Erase and Install, right?

 

[Ed State]

Yes, lol. I have a couple back-ups Time Machine and otherwise, and will do another one before I do anything. I've been burned before. Once bitten by not having a backup, 10-times shy

I just remember doing an A&I once, a few years ago, and I had to reinstall a bunch of my programs, or at least dig up all the serial numbers again, etc.

 

[Chrysaor]

My question is, with the 10.6.3 update coming fairly soon, should I wait for that? Or go ahead and re-install?

I wouldn't expect .3 anytime soon. They just released the first dev build and its one of the biggest updates for OS X, I would expect many more dev builds. Besides, with the development of the new iPhone/Tablet OS, Apple surely switched some OS X devs to mobile OS.

 

[Mal]

Yes, lol. I have a couple back-ups Time Machine and otherwise, and will do another one before I do anything. I've been burned before. Once bitten by not having a backup, 10-times shy

I just remember doing an A&I once, a few years ago, and I had to reinstall a bunch of my programs, or at least dig up all the serial numbers again, etc.

Not with Snow Leopard (or any recent OS X version), unless something went wrong.

With Snow Leopard, btw, the option of an Archive and Install is gone, sort of. It's now the default. Just pop in the disk, hit all of the default install options, and away it goes!

jW