COMPLETELY clean re-install

Hello, I have to do a factory restore with my current SSD (to get rid of the windows partition I don't need anymore). I've done quit a few, probably 10 hard drive restores but every time there's still settings leftover from the previous install, namely Wallpapers (see this thread) and Bluetooth devices, and who knows what else is left over bugging my system that I can't see.
There's a console command to reset the wallpapers completely, is there a console command to completely erase all settings stored in the RAM or the motherboard or wherever else they are hiding that obviously isn't the hard drive, as if it were I was opening it up for the first time.
This would be so much appreciated as I restore fairly often for one reason or another.

Perhaps its the way you're describing the issue that's not detailing some necessary fact, but if you format the hard drive and reinstall OS X as you claim to have done then it will not have any of your data on the drive. The process for doing this would be the following, so if you have not done exactly these steps then post back here with what you did instead, and that will help determine what is going on:
1. Reboot to the Recovery HD partition by holding Command-R at startup.
2. After choosing your language, select "Disk Utility" from the tools window.
3. Select your hard drive in Disk Utility and format it to "Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)" (optionally partitioning before doing this).
4. Quit Disk Utility and then select the Install OS X option from the tools window.
5. Proceed with the full installation of OS X, and then reboot.
At this point you should have a fresh copy of OS X installed, which will not have any user data besides a freshly created user account. At this point you may have been prompted to migrate your datat from another system or from a backup, which would restore you user data including your background settings, but this type of settings restoration is going to happen if you automatically restore your user data to the system.

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Clean re-install Lion mid 2008 MBA

I have a MBA which I think is 'mid 2008' pedigree. Something like that, anyway. 2GB RAM. 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. That sort of thing.
Since putting Lion on it, it seems to have slowed down. Spinning beach balls all over the shop.
I've done all the usual stuff, permissions etc.
So here's the thing. Is it worth my doing a complete clean re-install of Lion? The sort that deletes everything on your laptop (I've backed it up already.)
Doing this is a bit of a chore, but I'm sure I can figure it out. Just I don't want to do it unless it's likely to achieve the result I want - i.e. a slightly less clogged-up MBA.
Ta.

To answer briefly.
On the short term: yes. it will make it faster.
On the long run: no. It will slow down again once you give it some use.
Lion is slower than Snow Leopard on these models, it makes them run hot, beachball more often and shaves around an hour of battery life.
Cheers

How to completely clean install Mavericks?

Title sums it up...I want to do a completely clean install of Mavericks, making it as if I just bought the laptop with Mavericks installed. I do not currently have access to a big enough USB so if there is a way to do this without one that would be preferable.

Mr. Gagné wrote:
I am still running Mountain Lion. So, I need to install Mavericks, then do a standard hard drive wipe/OS re-install?
If you're on Mountain Lion and you want to do a clean install, the Recovery Partition is available for you to boot into and run the OS X installer. There is no need to install Mavericks if all you want to do is clean install.

Should I do a clean OS install after buying second hand MacBook?

I just bought a second hand MacBook 2010 for my girlfriend. It came with a clean Lion installed. What is making me paranoid is that I use tracking software Prey on my own MBP and now how can I be sure that the new one hasn't got tracking software installed for opposite reason (to steal it and sell again)?
I know it might sound stupid, but I like to be prepared for the worst. So should I format the drive and install Lion again? What would you do?

I would never run a used Mac "as is"; there is too much potential for security violations or just software problems. I strongly recommend, unless you completely trust the person from whom you purchased the Mac, that you erase the hard drive and reinstal Mac OS X. That way you start fresh, without any of the cruft that accumulates on any OS, and of course remove any potential for malware such as a keylogger.
Regards.

My Apple G5 using operating system 10.6.8 keeps locking up. I get no warning or error message. I do get some intermittent screen distortion. Any ideas as to what could be causing this and how i get rid of this problem? Complete system re - install? N

My mac keeps locking up it s Power mac G5 Intel using 10.6.8 OS.X. I get no warning or error messages it just locks up and the only way to get it to work again is to depress power button and restart. Its random intermittent and incredibly frustrating. I do get some screen distortion from time to time and wondered whether it may be a graphics card issue or whether it could be solved with a complete system re-install and OS upgrade?

According to everymac.com, your Mac came with Tiger, 10.4.x and can't go any higher than Lion, 10.7.x.
It would have come with gray, machine specific disks. Since there's no reason to install 10.4.x first, and then Snow Leopard over that, just purchase a retail copy of Snow Leopard for $20. What you won't get with the retail version of SL is the iLife suite (Garage Band, iDVD, etc.) that were on the original bundled disks, but you can purchase iLife on Amazon pretty cheap, and get newer versions besides.
When you get Snow Leopard, you can boot to the DVD, erase the drive and install everything clean. Hopefully, you issue is only software, and not hardware related.

How to restore my itunes after clean Leopard install

Hi!
I made a complete backup of my MAC hard drive before doing a completely clean install of leopard.
can someone tell me what I need to do (and where to go) to get the data off the backup image to make itunes work like before?
thanks!

Copy the entire iTunes folder including music to the new location.
Click on the iTunes icon to start it, then immediately press an hold the Option key.
iTunes will ask to Create new library or Choose existing library. Select Choose existing library and select the library in the folder you just moved.
You will not need to set the iTunes prefs -> Advanced.

Clean re-install of Snow Leopard on Macbook 2,1 - how to do, have Snow Leopard CD.

I have an old (late 2006 or early 2007 I believe) Macbook 2,1 : Core 2 Duo. Too old to upgrade to Lion. Still good. Has been running slowly of late, would like to do a clean re-install of all the software. Did re-install Snow Leopard off CD, but it maintained all the existing software and did not help.
Thanks, Matt

Put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the "c" key on your keyboard (or the Option Key until the Install Disk shows up) until the apple shows up. That will force your MacBook to boot from the install DVD in the optical drive.
When it does start up, you'll see a panel asking you to choose your language. Choose your language and press the Return key on your keyboard once. It will then present you with an Installation window.
Completely ignore this window and click on Utilities in the top menu and scroll down to Disk Utility and click it. You should see your hard drive in the left hand column along with your other drives. Click on the drive and select the Erase tab. Set the format value to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click the Erase button. After that has finished select the Partition tab. Type in a Name for your hard drive and select how many partitions you want from the Volume Scheme. The usual setting is one partition. Click on the Options button after you've selected a partition to make sure it's set for GUID. Then click the Apply button and after the Partitioning is done quit Disk Utility.
You can now follow the instructions on the install screen

I keep getting the following message when I try to install firefox.."your computer must be restarted to complete a previous install of firefox" I've restarted numerous times..keep getting the same message

I keep getting the following message when I try to install firefox.."your computer must be restarted to complete a previous install of firefox" I've restarted numerous times..keep getting the same message

Have a look at the solution to a similar problem: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/921375?s=%22Your+computer+must+be+restarted+to+complete+a+previous+upgrade+of+Firefox.+Do+you+want+to+reboot+now%3F%22&r=0&e=sph&as=s
If that doesn't work, you can uninstall FF and do a clean install. You'll prob lose your bookmarks, history, etc, though, so if you do this set up Sync first! https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-firefox-sync-and-how-do-i-use-it

MacBook Pros Not waking up properly even after clean re-install

I just bought a used 17" Quad core MBP with 16gb of ram. I installed a samsung 512gb 840 Pro series SSD, transferred all my info from my old dual core i7 17" MBP. So both are 10.8.4.
The new MBP started not waking up from sleep. The keyboard would like up and the light in the front would indicate that it has started, but then it doesn't show anything on the screen.
Ultimately, I decided, i'll just do a clean re-install of OS 10.8 because maybe something went wrong in the migration. Now, with a fresh install when i wake it from sleep it seems to open as if it ran out of power and is doing a restore power up. The screen opens at half opacity and I get some progress dots and its back quickly. But it's still strange. The only thing installed on the computer at all is adobe production suite.
Odd thing is, that the OLD computer, the DUAL core i7 17" MBP is also not waking up from sleep properly now. It also has a new 128gb SSD drive It BTW. It doesn't fully wake up, so I have to hold down the power button, shut it down then turn it back on again. And again it does a recovery startup.
so now I have TWO computers having almost the same issues, and one of them has a fresh install. So what could the problem be? totally diffferent hardware. Does 10.8 not like SSD's in 17" MBP's?
any tips would be apreciated.

One last detail, connectivity through my iPhone's hotspot works completely fine. No idea if that is related / helpful in any way.

MacBook 2008 can't complete new OS install

I am trying to erase and do a clean OS install. Disc 1 install is complete, but disc 2 won't load and keeps ejecting. I've tried cleaning the disc and it is good condition. Any ideas how to complete the installation?

Let me know which LSI array controller you have by checking CIMC - Inventory storage/PCI tabs. The LSI 2008 or LSI 9265 will show up in one of them.
If you one of them, you will need to break into the LSI OptionROM during POST and configure an array LUN.
If you have neither listed in CIMC, it's possible that there is an issue with one of th LSI array controller, or you have no hardware LSI array controller.
Unfortunately, the only way I know to check this is by removing the top cover. If you see the HDD mini-SAS cables connecting directly into the Motherboard and not to a LSI 2008 mezzanine card or PCIe 9265 LSI controller, then you are using the Intel Southbridge Patsburg Storage Control Unit (SCU) C600. The SCU C600 is not supported by VMware for ESX/ESXi.

Clean Leopard Install - Can't get Photos back in Right (tripling, etc)

Hi. I did a clean Leopard install then loaded my iLife '06. I have my "iPhoto Library" on my external. This contains folders 'originals', 'modified', 'data', and other accoutremonts. In iPhoto, I selected "Import" and thought things were going well till I saw 1) triple copies of each photo 2) no import of my tags for each photo, albums, folders, etc. I see 2000, 2001, 2002, etc. but no 'Canada Vacation', etc.
So, knowing I still had them on my external, I deleted over 10,000 photos from iPhoto to start anew. Then I figured the triples were coming from 'originals', 'modified', 'data' so I tried just importing "originals". This put only 1 copy of the photo in iPhoto, but it's a jumbled mess with no tags, sections, etc.
I checked the help section but am still not 'getting it'. Could someone point me in the right direction or explain what I should do here to get my iPhoto back to where it was pristine/organized? I'm befuddled.

I fixed my problem by accident. I merely dragged my "iPhoto Library" from my external to "pictures" in my home directory.

Mid-2010 27" iMac very slow, even after clean OS install - HELP!

Good afternoon guys, I'm hoping someone can offer me some advice.
I bought my Mid-2010 27" iMac in May-ish 2011. Everything was brilliant, I couldn't believe the ease of use, and especially the start up speed, coming from a world of PCs. My iMac was used almost every day, for web browsing, photo editing, etc.
Maybe about April / May this year it started becoming very slow, slow to boot, slow to respond to mouse clicks, slow to do anything. Since I'd used about 750GB of my HDD (mainly photos), I decided I would archive some and hope that would ease the congestion. As my photos were stored in Aperture, it took about 3 days to export them all to my external HDD, 3 days of the iMac only getting so far, switching itself off, then me finally getting it to come back on (I was getting messages about Kernals, etc. now and again through boot too) - it finally backed up my photos I have from my daughters first year.
Great news, but I still had probably 400GB / 500GB of photos from her second year and any other photos I'd taken. I found the root of my Aperture directory, and managed to pull these images off, so everything is now backed up.
I decided I should try and clean install, and managed to get the HDD to boot and choose the option to re-install from Apple's Servers. All installed OK, and we're good to go! Fired up the iMac, and although it's fractionally quicker to respond, and a lot more stable, it's not quite right. And I've lost all my iLife Apps which originally came with the iMac.
Does this sound like a HDD issue? As I say, it was on quite a lot through the backup procedure, and I had set it (maybe stupidly looking back now) to never sleep, and for the monitor to only switch off after 3 hours. Or does it sound like something more is wrong with it?
I am quite confident of working with PCs, so would manage to replace the HDD I think, looking at some videos, etc. online. I did upgrade the RAM to 16GB, and that was simple enough. My question is, when you replace the HDD, how does it know where to look to the Apple Servers for the clean OS install? Or do I have to do something to let it know where to look first? I have to point out I don't have any Time Machine backup, etc. as the iMac was just not stable enough to get this in place - and up until that point, again probably stupid now looking back, I had never bothered to set up.
Any help / advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated. At the moment I have totally fallen out of love with the iMac, for something to cost £1,500+ and only last 3 years, where my last build PC lasted Approx 8 years for half the price, is very disappointing.
Thanks in advance,
Col

Just suggesting things right off the bat here-
To me it sounds as though the HDD is failing, if your iMac shipped with a Seagate drive try entering your serial number to see if Apple will replace it:http://www.apple.com/au/support/imac-harddrive/
Or try running Apple Hardware Test a few times back to see if it is a hardware error.
As for the iLife apps they should've come on one of the install discs that shipped with your mac.
If your iMac is ineligible for the program above I would consider replacing it yourself with either an SSD or HDD, as for recognising apples servers for download, you will need the original install discs that came with your computer or if you haven't already it will need a firmware update to enable internet recovery
See here:Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery
Good Luck!

How can I get my iTunes to start up after a clean re-install?

Following the corruption of many of my Applications and Files, I had to have a Clean Re-install done.
That solved most of the problems, but when I try to start iTunes it comes up with the iTunes Software Licence Agreement.
When I click on Agree, I get the message "The File 'iTunes Library' cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes. That's it.
Do I try update my current iTunes 6.0.2, or what?
Your help in solving this problem would be much appreciated.

I can only speak from a Windows perspective.
Have you tried uninstalling Itunes, then uninstall quicktime and reinstalling both ?
if you log onto the pc as another user does itunes work then ? if so quicktime and itunes are fine and it's something specific to the user.
Try finding the itunes library (for vista c:\users\users name\music\itunes most likely), this is where your music is going to be along with what seems to be configuation files for itunes for that user. Try renaming.
Does Itunes work then ?
HTH

I have a macbook pro with 10.6.8 on it but I need to do a clean re install and my CD is 10.4.6. Can I use the CD and then are my OS updates to 10.6.8 free?

I have a macbook pro with 10.6.8 on it but I need to do a clean re install and my CD is 10.4.6. Can I use the CD and then are my OS updates to 10.6.8 free?
Also can I use iMac OS install disks on a MacBookPro?

You will have to buy Snow Leopard:
You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order. You also should find it at your local Apple retailers.
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mountain Lion if your computer meets the requirements.

I had a computer crash and completed a Fresh install of Win7 and restore of all files from Carbonite. I have managed to get LR 5 running in LR. However, I am not sure I have all of my previous catalogs. How can I find my catalogs to assure that I have

I had a computer crash and completed a Fresh install of Win7 and restore of all files from Carbonite. I have managed to get LR 5 running in LR. However, I am not sure I have all of my previous catalogs. How can I find my catalogs to assure that I have a complete inventory of all my catalogs.

<moved from Downloading, Installing, Setting Up to Photoshop Lightroom>

COMPLETELY clean re-install

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