After archive and install macbook won´t boot

Hi everyone! This is the first time I´ve posted a question here, so please be patient. I have a 2007 macbook white with 10.5 mac os leopard. Lately a was having trouble with low free space left so I decided to clean some unused files. Accidentally I erased some (I don´t know which ones) that I shouldn´t have from the libraries folder. Since I couldn´t start my mac, I decided to do a "archive and install" with the install disks. Everything wen´t fine and my mac came back to life, BUT now a had even fewer space left due to these new second mac osx installation. Since I needed to retrieve some space I selected the files from the just made "previous system folder" and the deleted it. I finally got some free space left and thought it had gone ok UNTIL I restarted the mac and got a flashing question mark. Now I can´t solve it with any of the key startup combinations, and when I insert the install disks the disk utility doesn´t find my HD. What has happened??!! I´ve got a big hunch that I´m screwed, what do you think?? Thank you all

Once you were sure everything worked you should have deleted the (now redundant) Previous System Folder.
How to Archive & Install:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710
and this also:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2196?viewlocale=en_US
BUT: Don't install older versions of Mac OS than what came with your computer:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2186?viewlocale=en_US

Similar Messages

  • Finder not responding after Archive and install

    I recently encountered my first problem ever with my mac(new in '05) This is the first mac I have owned; I have worked on G3's and G4's in the past. After reading through many message boards and support pages I don't believe my problem to be similar but different to previous posts.
    My problem started off with an OS problem that I was able to diagnose in the "help" book I purchased when Leopard came out. It said I should Archive and Install to remedy the problem and keep my files. I ran the archive the install (it gave me no options to preserve user or network settings). After Archive and install my computer started up alright, but I got the permanent beachball and the finder does not work. it is constantly non responsive. I can relaunch finder, but after it restarts it goes non responsive immediately once again. So I can't actually access my "previous system" folder to move anything over. I checked my dock items and finder, they opened, but my itunes asked for an update. I list of update items came up; I did the non-restart items first. they updated fine, (my itunes old itunes playlists are viewable but not playable now) then I did the items that required a restart. That is when I found out that I could not shut down or restart my computer with std. procedures.
    Currently I can only access my spotlight or apple pull down menu if I am in a functioning dock program (safari or itunes, quicktime. etc.) after reading some more support pages it looked like the common thing to do was check permissions and verify disk. I did, I repaired two permissions and the disk was OK. I did look at the HD files, they were as I remembered, but unaccessible (greyed out) and the "previous system" folder was present. +It didn't look like I would expect. The HD looked same as it used to just with a previous system folder.+ After checking the permissions and verified the disk I tried a hard restart. It came back the same as before, unresponsive finder and only the few dock items worked along with spotlight. I checked permissions and disk verify again and everything was OK.
    Sorry to be long winded I am trying to be thorough...In short, My finder does not work after doing an Archive and Install to fix my original problem (which has been fixed)...the remedy for an unresponsive finder is to do an archive and install. Is another archive and install really going to fix my problem? Can I archive and install OSX 10.4 and work my way back up to 10.5.6?
    Secondly is there a way to restart my computer without doing another hard restart?

    It won't let me add a new account. I am locked out and when I try to unlock it gives me the beachball and becomes non responsive after it tries to authenticate.
    I looked at the log file, I am not sure what exactly to look for. I am no programer. I see an awful lot of negative wording. I see some errors like "error (-4956) locating menu extra but they are mostly under system preferences...I see some stuff in the loginwindow that says is not a full path... Otherwise, the only reference I see to the finder is when I have force quit the finder.
    2/8/09 8:59:55 PM com.apple.launchd[114] ([0x0-0x4d04d].com.apple.finder[304]) Exited: Terminated
    2/8/09 11:10:17 PM com.apple.launchd[114] ([0x0-0x57057].com.apple.finder[321]) Exited: Terminated

  • Where is mail stored after archive and install?

    Hello All,
    I need to know where my old mails are stored after archive and install. To give a bit of background... This is a work computer. Its a MacMini which came with 10.4 installed. Before I joined the company boss upgraded to Leopard and thats what I have been using all this time. Recently it blue screened and I had to do an archive and install after trying various other options.
    I only had the original install discs with 10.4 in them and not the Leopard discs. Since I needed to my computer up and running, I used those discs and did an archive and install.
    I have all my old documents, etc but I couldn't open mail from the previous systems folder because its a different OS.
    Is it possible to retrieve my old emails without having to install Leopard again?
    Any help is appreciated.

    When I started the computer up, instead of the login page with the account names coming up, there was just a blue screen. There are lots of articles that gave suggestions to try but nothing worked so I had to archive and install.

  • Cd inserted but unrecognized after "archive and install"

    After "archive and install" OS X.2 and clicking on "save settings", everything works fine, except sound cds are not recognized when inserted. iTunes works fine with the original files on hard disk, but doesnt see the cd (it did before).
    I repaired permissions. I deleted the "previous systems" folder. still nothing.
    I did notice that the "previous systems" folder has an "audio" file in it but the current "system" folder doesnt. I tried copying this audio file into the current "system" folder but I get the notice that it cant be changed.
    I need to hear cds on this computer. Any ideas?
    (It isnt a speaker problem as the itunes files play fine).
    John in Vancouver

    Hi John in Vancouver! And Welcome To
    Discussions!
    Open System Preferences > CDs & DVDs.
    Adjust the appropriate setting there, and see if it
    helps.
    Good Luck!
    ali b
    Thanks, ali, but I did that early on. Didnt put it in the post. On insertion of a CD I have it set to open iTUnes.
    I found a further problem which is that the midi set-up no longer locates my external keyboard. I will check the discussions under audio for this one, however. (I did check about the CD problem in the audio discussion but nothing there.)
    John

  • Recover mail after archive and install

    Hey there good mac people,
    I recently archived and installed on my ibook g4. It was successful, my problem is that I forgot to backup all the mail I had in my osx mail app.
    The previous system folder (library<mail<mail accounts<com.mac.mailaccounts<English.lproj< file, but I don't know if this will help restore or not?
    Some of the mail is still on the server, but it is set to delete from the server once a week, and thus only a weeks worth at best is still on the server.
    Does anybody have any suggestions?
    In the future, what's the best way to back up mail?

    Hello art-is-work.
    I don't understand your problem. Archive and Install should have preserved all your data, unless you told it to do otherwise. Did you?
    Mail stores most preferences and all account settings in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist. Everything else, including all your messages and mailboxes, is stored within the ~/Library/Mail/ folder.
    If the problem is that you told the installer to not Preserve Users and Network Settings, then Archive and Install should still have saved a copy of your entire home folder in /Previous Systems/Previous System N/Users/, where N is a number. The old Mail folder and preferences file should be there. You can just copy them to the appropriate location of your current home folder, or follow the somewhat convoluted procedure described in the following article to safely restore them:
    How to get files from a previous home directory after Archive and Install (Mac OS X)
    Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder.

  • IPhoto won't open after Archive and Install

    Recently, my macbook won't boot up so I had to perform and Archive and Install. Now iPhoto won't open and therefore, I have no access to iPhoto Library. Does anyone know why this is happening? I don't have iLife '08 with me and my restore CDs would have the previous version of iPhoto on it. Would it be impossible to revert to an older version of iPhoto? If I delete the Previous Systems folder, will it affect this problem more (as I have only 5 gb of free space)? (Btw, I am update to date on Tiger updates)
    Thanks,
    munky11
    Message was edited by: munky11

    My guess is that there is part of the iLife install in the Previous System Folder and you're going to need to re-install iLife 08.
    Yes you can re-install v6 (or whatever is on your System Restore disks) but v6 will not open an iPhoto 08 library. You would need to create a new v6 library and that would entail losing all your edited versions, albums, books, keywords etc.
    Regards
    TD

  • .mov files won't playback in quicktime 7.2 after archive and install

    I just did an archive and install, because I was having a few problems with the Safari beta.
    However since doing so it has been a complete nightmare. So many things stopped working. I'm guessing I had them installed on the system and not on my user.
    So now after getting most thing back up and running, .mov files won't play in quicktime 7.2 an annoying 3ivx pop up appears which leads to a dead link.
    So I checked the .mov format and they are 3ivx, but how do I install and from where do I get the codec??

    Perian
    http://perian.org/#detail
    It's free and most people use this to play off the wall codecs...3ivx.
    Please read the information on the web page on how to install and use. In the download there a help page.

  • FCP won't launch after Archive and Install

    After the fiasco of the 1.1 update for the Alu-iMac's I had to do an archive and install on my system to return it to 1.0.
    Everything is now working fine but FCP6 won't launch. It bounces in the dock once and then nothing. LiveType and DVD Studio 4 will open but Color, Motion and FCP won't.
    I have trashed preferences and repaired permissions with no luck.
    Any ideas?
    Thanks in advance.

    There are files that are not brought along with Archive and Install.
    Some are invisible and not accessible without enabling "root" access and even then you have to know exactly which files have to be moved from the 'previous System' folder.
    Archive and Install never works with Apple's Pro apps.
    If Niel's suggestion doesn't work you'll have to erase your hard drive and reinstall everything making sure you first backup important data to another hard drive.
    (don't forget to save your mail and addresses)

  • Video podcasts won't play after archive and install

    I'm one of the folks having capture issues with FCP 4.5 and OS X 10.4.9. So I decided to archive and install to 10.4.8. Now it seems I'm having all kinds of video problems, including downloading and playing video podcasts in iTunes (7.2). When I download a podcast, say "Tiki Bar TV", the file downloads, but in the podcast screen, I get an error message which reads,
    "There is a problem adding the video to iTunes. The file might be corrupted, or a file type that iTunes cannot play." For the record, I have never run into anything like this before. And it's the same way with every video podcast.
    I had some similar wonkiness going on with QuickTime, too. But after I installed a divx plug-in, and flip for mac, everything seems to be okay with the QT. iTunes is still a mystery. Any ideas on what my next step should be would be appreciated.
    Thank you.
    Ben
    PowerMac G5 Dual 2.5Ghz   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   3GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, ATI9800XT

    There are files that are not brought along with Archive and Install.
    Some are invisible and not accessible without enabling "root" access and even then you have to know exactly which files have to be moved from the 'previous System' folder.
    Archive and Install never works with Apple's Pro apps.
    If Niel's suggestion doesn't work you'll have to erase your hard drive and reinstall everything making sure you first backup important data to another hard drive.
    (don't forget to save your mail and addresses)

  • Recovery of lost printers after Archive and Install

    Hi,
    I just finished an Archive and Install of Leopard, and I discovered that one of the side-effects of doing this is that my printers are all gone. I sort of expected this, and I have a full system backup of the system I rebuilt, so if all else fails, I can boot off the backup, and print or take notes on the printer settings, and then go back to my active installation of Leopard and re-enter them all. But I'm wondering if there's an easier way. Would anyone know if all of the printer info might be contained in a few discrete sections of the "Previous System" folder that I could just drag into the current system folder to get all of my printers back? I do consulting work at a number of companies, so I have about ten printers that I routinely print to, so it's a bit of a bother to rebuild the list by hand.
    Thanks,
    Ken

    Usually, when no additional printer software had been installed into the Mac
    (assuming the printers are among the many supported printers already in it)
    all you'd have to do in order to use one of those attached or available printers
    would be to have them turned on and attached to the computer or the network
    they'd normally be accessed through. Unless they require newer driver software.
    At times, the choices of available printers would appear in the print setup in an
    open application; at others, you may have to go into the setup utility to see if
    the printers could be added to the list - pulling drivers from the installed OS X
    and putting them into a position to be used, if compatible with the printers there.
    The system's installer and updated files available to it include many drivers,
    and these are not all turned on by default.
    So, if there is no chance of the printers being recognized by the OS X version
    you have (assuming archive & install and update) even after being given any
    new drivers available through Software Update, you may have to seek out the
    latest drivers from the printer manufacturers web site downloads pages.
    There may be some other way to make the printers work through the OS; if
    they otherwise should appear and be available. Some of the printer setups
    & CUPS printing options or settings should be explored if they haven't been.
    Although I don't have OS X 10.5.x running in my computers now, I have tried
    it and decided to stay awhile longer in 10.4.11; some of the same kinds of
    issues can occur, between these slightly different systems. You may be able
    to re-use the printer drivers from the Previous System, unless their installer
    had an instruction set to put various parts for the printer software in different
    locations, in which case, the drag-n-drop may not be suitable to reinstall them.
    Hopefully someone with more restore experience (short of manually reinstalling
    drivers, if these are not already a part of the OSX and its 10.5 install/updates)
    will contribute a bit more and direct you as per the specific demands of Leopard.
    PS:
    When you get your system back in order, you may wish to consider making a
    full computer drive clone on an externally enclosed FireWire drive unit capable
    of booting Mac OS X and running your PPC-based Mac (and also Intel-based)
    so that unit may be something in the way of a FW400/800 + USB2.0 drive with
    its own AC power adapter. OWC sells a mercury drive enclosure with HDD in it.
    That may be a way to avoid doing Archive & Installs + updates; just restore from
    a full drive clone and be on your way. And do other backups if needed, too.
    Good luck & happy computing!
    { edited 2x }

  • Triples of applications after Archive and Install

    Hi
    I just tried to install Leopard on my black macbook, which made it go to a blue screen until i re-installed it using the archive and install option, and the preserve user settings and networks option. I was attempting to access some applications from my dock, and they were saying that i couldnt use the application with this version of Mac OS X. Anyways i looked in my applications folder, and I now seem to have some triples of apple applications. One copy is in the previous system folder, and two in my current applications folder, one of which does work. Do i need all of these, or will it wreck anything if i delete them from the previous system folder or the ones that don't work in the current applications folder??? Very very grateful for any help... at all!!!

    Alf Megson wrote:
    Do you really want me to answer that question?
    yes. I had to ask. I don't know you and I've seen way too many posts by people with similar problems who don't know that one has to empty trash to actually reclaim the missing space.
    Boot from the leopard install DVd and repair the startup drive (not permissions). reboot and see if that makes a differences. if not try to find out what's taking all the space. see this post for tools for that.
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8188595&#8188595
    10GB should not be hard to find.

  • Running Time Machine after 'Archive and Install'

    I had a strange problem with my iMac with finder and dock crashing on booting and not being able to open any files. It's been off to an Apple centre for repair, they've done an archive and install to replace the OS, and I apparently now need to run Time Machine to restore my system (don't have the computer back yet).
    Am I right in thinking I'll just plug in Time Machine hard drive, insert my Leopard CD and then use Utilities > Restore System?
    What's worrying me is I'm going to reintroduce the problem that was fixed by the Archive and Install in the first place! Any help or thoughts very much appreciated,
    Andrew

    AndyAsb wrote:
    I had a strange problem with my iMac with finder and dock crashing on booting and not being able to open any files. It's been off to an Apple centre for repair, they've done an archive and install to replace the OS, and I apparently now need to run Time Machine to restore my system (don't have the computer back yet).
    as mentioned you don't have to do that after an archive and install.
    Am I right in thinking I'll just plug in Time Machine hard drive, insert my Leopard CD and then use Utilities > Restore System?
    What's worrying me is I'm going to reintroduce the problem that was fixed by the Archive and Install in the first place!
    that's very likely to happen if the problem was not hardware. did they do anything with the computer besides doing an archive and install? if not, you most definitely should NOT do a full system restore from TM as this would bring your problems back.
    Any help or thoughts very much appreciated,
    Andrew

  • No User accounts after Archive and Install ?

    Today I tried to salvage a 20" iMac G5 for a friend. He had done something that screwed up his hard drive. Disk Utility Disk Repair run of the startup partition always failed. Using an external FW disk, I was able to use Disk Utility Repair successfully, but drive would still not boot. Decided Archive and Install was the right way to go, did that and everything seemed OK but I found I could not log in to his account. Thought it was just a lost password, so tried using the OSX Tiger Install DVD to Reset Password. His *Macintosh HD* Startup drive shows only the "root" user available, neither of the two previous user account names appear.
    I can think of nothing to do to recover except an Erase & Install (I have his User files saved). Is there an alternative?
    I would assume performing another Archive & Install would yield the same result.

    I continued work on this issue today. First, I checked and the three User account folders were present in the Users folder along with the one new account created as part of the Mac OSX Tiger A&I. For some reason, not one of these 4 was accessible from the Login screen; it acted exactly if there were no user accounts.
    Purchased and installed DiskWarrior 4 on the FW drive and rebuilt the directory of the iMac's internal drive. Ran all other tests available w/ DW. Still no joy on logging in. I should NOT have had to see the Login screen at all if the new user had been created properly.
    Punted. Copied everything I thought I would need to the external drive, then did an Erase & Install of OS X Tiger. Applied all updates, no problems logging in. Copied all the original User/username files and folders and restored a few apps.
    Finally, after much wasted time, I have all but one App running and all data files, folders, pics, music restored.
    Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 fails because I apparently failed to save a .plist file somewhere and now I learn too late that PE 3.0 will not install on a 10.4.x system. Sigh.

  • After Archive and Install, music and photos lost

    Hello, I installed Leopard yesterday on my Imac desktop and it went fine, but then somehow it locked me out of the hard drive, and then...the blue screen. I put the orginal Tiger disk back in and re-installed the previous software, opting for 'archive and install'. It worked but my question is this;
    Within the previous system folder, my music and photos are still missing. All I see is the iphoto icon which opens to a completely empty program. (Yet the info on this Icon says it is a 1 gb in there). Are my photos lost, really? And if not, how may I retrieve them? Thanks in advance.

    You may find it in the Previous System Folder created during an Archive and Install that contains your old system. Assuming you have no need for its contents you can delete the PSF and recover the disk space.
    Of course if the hard drive is corrupted then you may have performed an Archive and Install on a corrupted drive which will result in a corrupted installation. Consider doing the following:
    Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

  • After Archive and Install, will I lose all my contacts and apps?

    I recently had to do an Archive and Install of OS-X 10.4 and I'm in the process of getting everything up to date.
    I need to know if after this process when I try to sync my iPhone if I will lose all my contacts, music, and/or apps?
    Can anyone help?
    Thank you,
    Matt

    Hi JTatro
    An Arhive and Install will keep your documents, photos, files, etc, in a folder called previous system, so no, you won't lose them.
    But to be safer still, it would be even better to backup these precious files to another location, like to DVD or another drive.
    If this answered your question, please consider awarding stars.
    regards roam

Maybe you are looking for