Housekeeping Needed due to synch with 10.2.8?

Question

I recently purchased a new Mac Pro Quad. Formerly I had been running a G4 with 10.2.8. When I started the Mac Pro for the first time I saw a message asking if I was updating from an earlier Mac OS X, which I was. The OS then gave directions on setting up a firewire link and having 10.5 bring over user accounts and other software that had been on my former machine. For the most part this worked well but there are a number of glitches. (It would have been most helpful if Apple had provided some kind of "read me" file to explain the process and what to expect as well as potential problems)
As it was I ended up with a new machine that runs well and has all my old applications up and running but it also brought over items that appear to need to be trashed. I am looking for some advice on how much house keeping to do.
The biggest item is a number of folders with the suffix (from Old Mac) on them.Some of these are in the Library folder outside of the System, some in the Library folder inside the System Folder, and one (etc) is an alias just shoing in the file listing containing many parts and pieces of what appears to be system 9. I have looked into these folders and see some creation dates going back as far a 2002. My G4 did support classic and was running both 10.2 and system 9.
Should I be trashing these folders or would a better solution be to perform a clean install? Would a clean install do anything to my user accounts? My machine is being used by 2 persons actively but has also accounts for four other persons. I wouldn't want to do anything that would damage or destroy these user's information.
Thanks to anyone sending advice.

Answer 1

Any of the OS X related items such as aliases to etc, var, tmp should be invisible. They are not most likely because of the use of the Upgrade option to Leopard. If you're willing you can do the following:
Start by downloading Pacifist at VersionTracker or MacUpdate. Open Pacifist.
Insert your Leopard DVD into the optical drive. Select Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu and enter:
/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Installation/Packages/
Click on the Go button. Locate the OSInstall.pkg file and drag it to the Pacifist window. Click on the Resources tab in the Pacifist list window. Open the Scripts folder and locate the hidden_MacOS9 file and click on the Extract to icon in the Pacifist toolbar. I would extract it the the /usr/sbin/ directory. Now Open the Tools folder and locate the SetHidden command. Select it and click on the Extract to icon in the Pacifist toolbar. Extract it also to the /usr/sbin/ directory.
Now you can quit Pacifist. Open the Terminal app in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter:
cd /usr/sbin
sudo ./SetHidden / hidden_MacOS9
Enter your password which will not be echoed.
This should return the visible items to invisibility.
As for any OS 9 folders still present they can be deleted. Drag them to the Trash and them Empty the Trash. If OS X complains that it cannot Empty because some items are in use then restart the computer. After the restart you will be able to Empty the Trash.
After all the cleanup I suggest doing this:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Leopard 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 and Leopard.) 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 restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) 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.