Will I lose my settings, programs, and preferences, if I.....

[Imola Ghost]

Boot from the system discs and run a Repair Disk from Disk Utility?

I've been having some startup problems, like a circle with a slash and it's been mentioned that I may need to do this.

 

[flopticalcube]

No. Everything should be as it was. You should implement a backup strategy going forward, however.

 

[Imola Ghost]

Can you tell me exactly how I've gotta do this? I'm new to Mac's (4 days) and I don't want to mess anything up.

Thanks, in advance!

 

[melchior]

hmmm, bit of bad luck already?

basically, put disk 1 in the drive and boot holding down the C key. then it will load the install interface. click on the menu at the top of the screen and select disk utility. then select repair disk.

good luck.

 

[Imola Ghost]

why do you need to boot to the DVD? because when I put in the OSX install DVD it popped up on the screen and gave me the option to "Install OSX". Once you click that, it asks for admin password and then it restarts.

 

[melchior]

that's fine, if you allow it to restart it will boot off the dvd and then you can run the disk utility and attempt to repair your boot disk.

 

[Imola Ghost]

I'm running "Time Machine" for the first time ever just in case I mess something up. But this seems like its going to be a long while before I can repair the disk.

Does repair disk basically just install the OSX and nothing else?

 

[melchior]

I'm running "Time Machine" for the first time ever just in case I mess something up. But this seems like its going to be a long while before I can repair the disk.

Does repair disk basically just install the OSX and nothing else?

no harm in running time machine if you have no other backups, though disk utility is non-destructive and could only cause damage if your disk was physically failing.

'repair disk' does not do a reinstall. it is not windows. basically the utility looks for conflicting and incorrect information in the filesystem and directory structure and attempts to repair these inconsistencies. it is more like a windows chkdsk, if you like. more advanced software is for example DiskWarrior...

 

[Imola Ghost]

Thanks for that very informative last post. I was told to try the Repair Disk first and if it didn't cure my problem I'll probably need to do a complete reinstall.

I don't mind doing these things as this really helps me learn about my Macbook.