How to restart from scratch?

Hi everyone,
I was wondering. How can I reboot my iMac from the very first time I bought it, and turned it on? I want it to be like it's fresh out of the box, and all of my apps should be deleted, and the one that came with the iMac should be already installed? I have the two installing discs (Tiger, and Leopard). Is there a way I can do that without putting in more memories in my iMac? Please help. Thank you so much.

Start with Install Disc 1. At some point it will pop out and you'll be prompted for disc 2. This will leave you with the computer as you brought it home with all the bundled software - iWeb, iTunes, iPhoto, etc and I assume 10.4 (Tiger). Then insert the Leopard disc to upgrade to 10.5 - You don't want to skip straight to the Leopard disc.

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How to start from scratch?

My G40 2388 is running slow although I have increased the memory. I spoke to a computer sales person who did not try to sell me a new laptop but said that it could help to make backup of all documents etc and then reinstall everything and start from scratch. Anyone has experience with that? Will it help? and how do I go about doing it? For instance how to I go back to the initial config. I do not have CDs because the laptop came with Win XP Pro installed from the manufacturer. I just want more speed and more space so I am open to other suggestions.
Thanks a lot.

The "funny" thing (I spend most of a day figuring it out but still have figured it out so "funny" is not the right word) is that the G40 recognizes other USB sticks, but also that one USB stick works on other laptops so it seems to be that stick with this mashine that is the issue. I thought it could be the driver but when I try to update the driver it tells me that I have the most recent driver - albeit that it is dated 31 January 2001.
The problem is that I do not see the drive (F) and when I click on E (the USB is partioned) then I see E and F and then I click on F the mashine gives me this message: This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions on this computer. I have no idea which rstrictions it could be. I am logged in as administrator (only user). I have tried to restart.
I really find it strange. Maybe I should delete the driver and see what happens?
Regarding the restore point: When I look in add / remove programmes, I see several older upgrades of XP and I thought: Maybe if I remove those because I do have the SP3... but maybe that is the same as removing restore points??
TS files. They are in a folder I have made.. New folder2. It must have been a programme I installed, I just don't know which.. Some file names are: VTS_01_1.VOB (this one files is 1G alone..) and there are several of those.. do you have any idea what these files are for?
I hope I can get these problems solved...then I can move on with more productive matters

How To "Start From Scratch" and Build a Clean iTunes Library on a Portable USB External Drive?

A while ago I posted about my confused (and confusing) mess of an iTunes:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16183210#16183210
While dozens looked I guess eveyone agreed with me "what a mess" and moved on.
So ... someone at the Apple Store suggested that what I should do is start from scratch. But I'm not sure if I understand all the steps. He said I should:
* create a folder of all my songs and just the song files not all the other iTunes stuff -- copy all the mp3 and m4a files that I have in Music > iTunes > iTunes Music > Music to a temp folder let's call it "all my music"
* launch iTunes and tell it to move to / always look at / whatever the terms my new portable external USB drive
* click on file / add to library and tell iTunes I want to add that "all my music" folder to iTunes
At this point I don't care if we lose playlists, artwork, play counts and all that stuff.
Does this approach make sense?
Is there another way?
So how do I tell iTunes to only look to the external? How do I get rid of the old stuff I have on the internal that is offering duplicates and phantom entries? Do I need to delete iTunes and then download a new copy? Should I delete the iTunes foilder? ...?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Many thanks!

jayessemm wrote:
So how do I tell iTunes to only look to the external? How do I get rid of the old stuff I have on the internal that is offering duplicates and phantom entries? Do I need to delete iTunes and then download a new copy? Should I delete the iTunes foilder? ...?
the simplest and working way.
go to iTunes -> Preferences -> Advanced
On there change the iTunes Media Folder location to your external hard drive
Check that the rest of the preference pane looks similar to the following picture.
After doing so, on menu bar go to File -> Library -> Organize Library
This will force iTunes to copy all songs and playlist's to the new place and to build up a new database for the Library.
Empty or corrupted files will left behind on the old location.
After checking that all is on place and working at the new location, you may delete all files at the former location.
Done
Cheers - Lupunus

If I cannot "go back" when using a website I cannot close that specific tab and have to close them all. I have had to restart from scratch several times today . Having a choice of closing the last tab only would be very useful. Why can't I?

After I browsed a page in a websit, I could not close that page by using the X in the rt. hand top corner as when I did this Firefox told me that it would close all tabs. It was the only way out so I closed them and started from scratch.

mratlasdreamz,
which app are you running when you get the annoying chime as you try to correct a typo?
If you’re sure that you have a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and 2 GB of 667 MHz RAM, then what you have is not a MacBook Pro, but an Early 2008 MacBook (did it really cost £2000 then?) — and with that model of MacBook, you could upgrade to Lion. Whether you stay with Snow Leopard or upgrade to Lion, you might find that upgrading your RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB could be helpful.
You can confirm which model you have by selecting About This Mac on the Apple menu, clicking the “More Info…” button, then clicking on the “System Report…” button, and looking at the “Model Identifier” value in the Hardware Overview section. If you have an Early 2008 MacBook, then the model identifier will say “MacBook4,1”. If it gives a different model identifier, then include that model identifier in your reply, and we can determine which model you have, and which CPU and speed of RAM it uses.
Note that Firefox 26 still supports Snow Leopard, and that Mozilla makes no CPU recommendations for Firefox on OS X other than “an Intel x86 processor”.

Restarting from Scratch

My Macbook pro has been running slower and slower for quite a while. I have just ordered Snow Leopard to upgrade and whilst at it, I figured now would be a good time to completely clean out the computer and start again. I have lots of photos and music etc as well as some documents I need to keep, but otherwise not that much of massive significance. Is there a step by step guide to what I need to do, to do a complete system reset and reinstall? My only problem that I worry about is that I run an old iWork and iLife, which I no longer have the disks for - can i keep these? Thanks for any help?

Because you do not have the discs to reinstall iLife or iWork you cannot erase your drive and start from scratch or you will lose both. So you need to upgrade your system to Snow Leopard which does not erase the drive.
To clean up your existing system see the following:
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.1 or higher are Intel Mac compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. Versions 1.5.1 or later are Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts had been significantly reduced in Tiger and Leopard. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc. Other utilities are also available such as Onyx, Leopard Cache Cleaner, CockTail, and Xupport, for example.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
Backuplist
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
iBackup
JaBack
Silver Keeper
MimMac
Retrospect
Super Flexible File Synchronizer
SuperDuper!
Synchronize Pro! X
SyncTwoFolders
Synk Pro
Synk Standard
Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
After you do some maintenance your current system should be in decent shape for upgrading. The next thing you need to do is make a backup. I suggest you do that as follows. You will need an external hard drive you can erase that will be used for the backup.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
You can then boot from the Snow Leopard DVD and follow the onscreen instructions for installing. The installation will be an upgrade that preserves all your files.

How to restart from disk when Diskwarrior 4.2 wont quit and the option

I routinely defragmented my Mac Pro after setting the startup disk to Diskwarrior, now it won't quit and keeps rebooting. I cannot fint the eject hole on the disk platter so am stuck with it in mys machine. Have tried rebooting using Pram reset, option, shiftand the eject keys.
Are there any other keys that cancel the startup disk options and reset back to my boot disk?

I routinely defragmented my Mac Pro after setting the startup disk to Diskwarrior...
Disk Warrior doesn't defragment drives. Please don't waste any more time on this pointless action, which will either have no effect at all (apart from hours of lost productivity) or will cause problems like the one you have now.
Restart and hold down the mouse or trackpad button until the disc ejects. You might need to use a wired mouse to do this. If it doesn't work, the disc is physically stuck in the drive.

How to start from scratch, School mac?

Hello everyone,
So I have had a student laptop Macbook 2011 and now it is mine to keep, I was wondering if anyone could explain how to wipe the hard drive, reinstall snow leopard and start over
Tnx

You can use your Snow Leopard retail install disk to erase the drive and reinstall 10.6 Snow Leopard. You will lose any iLife installs (iPhoto, iMovie,GarageBand, iDVD and iWeb) since those are on disk #2 of your original install disks.
Put your install DVD into the optical drive (CD/DVD drive) and reboot. Be sure to either use the disc that came with your Mac, or, if you installed a later Mac OS X version from disc, use the newer disc. 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

Since installing Mac OS X 10.9.2, when my computer sleeps, it frequently will not wake up, and I have to restart from scratch. Any advice?

Since installing Mac OS X 10.9.2, when my iMac sleeps, it frequently will not wake, and I have to force a computer restart.

Kate Bernard wrote:
The OP said that the computer will not awake from sleep, but did not mention any troulble with WiFi.
Are the troubleshooting steps for fixing a WiFi connection after waking from sleep relevant to a computer that fails to wake up at all?
Perhaps.

How to restart from a SL partition in a Lion preinstalled Imac?

Dear All,
I've been studying about this issue for a while and just got my 21.5" Imac core i7 2.8GHz yesterday.
It took me a while to figure out how to install SL on a partition in target disk mode instead of installing it with the disc. But when I try to reboot with the SL partition, I still get the gray screen with some coding and saying unsupported CPU and asking me to shut down the machine. I wonder if it's because the SL disc I'm using is from a previous Macbook Pro free upgrade? Should I go get the retail version? Will it be any different?
Anyone did install and running SL on a Lion preinstalled Imac successfully?
Thank you for sharing your advice or opinion!

You cannot use an original OS X install disc from another computer for a couple of reasons, first it would be theft because it's a violation of the licensing agreement. In addition the original media is machine specific and will not work on any other machine. You can attempt to install a retail license of Snow Leopard however even that may not work, whether it works or not is a case by case situation. Traditionally a version of OS X that was released prior to your machines release will not work. However the current iMacs were released with Snow Leopard in May and Lion was released July 20th. It's possible a SL installation will work but also possible it will not.

10.5 lost master discs - how to install from scratch

I've mislaid my master discs but need to repartition the hard drive in order to install Bootcamp and Windows. If I re-format the hardrive I'll have no master System to update. Is it possible to download initial installation for OSX10.5 ?

You can user SuperDuper to "clone" your hard drive to an external firewire or USB drive. Then you can boot from the external "clone," and then you can erase and reformat the internal drive. Before doing that, it would be good to check that the clone works properly. Then after reformating, you can clone from the external drive back to the freshly formatted internal drive volume where you want OS X to reside. Then boot from that internal drive volume and verify that everything is working.
1 = internal drive
2 = external drive
Clone from 1 to 2.
Boot from 2. Check that 2 works just like 1 did.
Erase and reformat and repartition 1.
Clone back from 2 to 1 (choosing the volume and partition that you want OS X on).
Boot from 1, checking that all files and programs are as they were originally.

How to start from scratch with iCal (getting rid of duplicate iCal events)

For reasons I can't figure out, all my iCal events are duplicated 6 times in iCal. None of these events can be deleted (either by hitting the Delete key or via the Edit menu).
I tried using an AppleScript for this purpose (http://www.johnmaisey.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/applescripts/ ) but it doesn't work, at least on my 10.5.1 Mac.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to switch over to Daylite, for both my Calendar and Address Book functions, but until then, it'd be nice to start fresh with iCal, since I'm also trying out a .mac account for the first time, and it might be handy to have a clean calendar backup.
Is there a method for just starting fresh with iCal?

see this thread that may help you with duplicate events: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1192813&tstart=0
hope this helps

HT200197 When first starting Apple TV for the first time it went straight to the screen with the choices and they were all in French. I have been unable to get to the setup screen no matter what I do. I have tried restarting from scratch several times.

No setup screen when first starting apple TV

Hey Docbarb2,
You should be able to change the language by either restoring your Apple TV with iTunes or change the language by following the steps in the second article. Take a look at the article below for more information to either get you back to square one or to at least a language that you know.
Apple TV (2nd and 3rd generation): Restoring your Apple TV
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202118
Change the language on your Apple TV
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202799
Take care,
-Norm G.

Restart an app from "scratch"

Hello
I'm building an app for iPhone on iOS 5.0 and when I quit the app (with home button...) and I restart the app, I would like it to restart from scratch and not to restart from where it was when it quit.
Thank you.

Add this to the app plist:
UIApplicationExitsOnSuspend (Boolean - iOS) specifies that the application should be terminated rather than moved to the background when it is quit. Applications linked against iOS SDK 4.0 or later can include this key and set its value to YES to prevent being automatically opted-in to background execution and application suspension. When the value of this key is YES, the application is terminated and purged from memory instead of moved to the background. If this key is not present, or is set to NO, the application moves to the background as usual.
This key is supported in iOS 4.0 and later.

ITunes: Starting from scratch?

Greetings:
I just recieved my new iPod touch (replaced iPod Classic) and I want to delete all my existing playlists and music and start new again via iTunes.
I unistalled iTunes completly and deleted the iTunes folder within Window's program files. However, when I relaunch the new iTunes install, all my old playlists exist?
Can anyone tell me how to start from scratch again? I really appreciat all the help.
Thanks
RA

My iTunes folder is located at the following:
C:\Program Files\iTunes
This is whats listed within the folder:
iTunes.Resources
CD Configuration
iTunesHelper.Resources
iTunesMiniPlayer.Resources
Mozilla Plugins
Acknowledgements.rtf
CDDBControlApple.dll
iPodUpdaterExt.dll
ITDetector.ocx
iTunes.exe
iTunesAdmin.dll
iTunesMiniPlayer.dll
iTunesOutlookAddIn.dll
iTunesPhotoProcessor.exe

How do I restart Time Machine back-up from scratch?

How do I restart Time Machine back-up from scratch? I have a MacBook Air that was my wife's - now given to my daughter for school. My wife never used Time Machine to back up (she simply copied files to an external drive), so before clearing her files off the Mac HD, I tried using Time Machine for the first time with an external HD. However, the Time Machine back up repeatedly failed after about 2GB of 28GB of files. I manually copied my wife's 28GB of files to another external HD and deleted all the files off the Mac HD. I then reformatted the external Time Machine drive. But when I try to use Time Machine to back up the MacBook Air as it is now with my daughter's files on the Mac HD to the external TM drive, Time Machine acts as if the 28GB of my wife's deleted files are still on the Mac HD and fails back-up after counting to about 2GB, even though there aren't even 2GB of files on the Mac HD now and nothing on the external TM drive. I don't need to save any back-ups of how the MacBook used to be - I just need to start from scratch with how the computer is now. Can anyone please tell me how to get Time Machine to think the MacBook is a brand new computer and act as if it's a first time ever back up? I tried updating to Yosemite, and tried renaming the computer in System Preferences>Sharing, plus (as noted above) deleting all the old files off the Mac HD and reformatting the external Time Machine drive - none of that worked. All I can do at the moment is manually copy my daughter's files to an external HD - very frustrating.

Hmmm.. Office is not hard to restore.
You have something major wrong (Yosemite being the primary one).
Do a verify of the source drive.. to do that you will need to boot to the recovery.. and run the disk utility from there.. it sounds like your main disk is corrupted.
Once that is complete, delete the current setup of TM and try again.. use the widget to find out why it is failing..
See Troubleshooting.
A1, A4 and A5 for further info.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Good luck with it..
I would also download carbon copy cloner.. it is $40, but you can use it free for a time.. forget if a week or a month??.. to try out.. and make a proper backup before you start.. CCC is far more reliable than TM.. and in fact you might decide to simply forget about TM if it works and pays the $40.. because you can produce a bootable clone on the external drive which is a heck of a lot easier to use than TM.

How to restart from scratch?

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