I mac hanging and can't relaunch finder

Question

Hi, I'm an I mac user 10.4.11, I already have 4 Gb of RAM, i'm having a problem with I mac, it seems to hang alot, and when it hangs there is usually a problem with the finder, I can relaunch, but when I do everything on the screen disappears all the icons, HD icons, even the menus on the top left hand corner, and right hand corner, and when this happens I can't shut it down, which forces me to turn it off by pressing the power button in the back of my i mac(now this is the main problem for me, I mean if could shut it down then I won't be complainning too much).
I've already done everything, tried updating it already, but i'm still having this problem.
tried doing the hardware tests but there was no problem, I've already repaired the Hard drive using the disc utilty. But the problem keeps coming back again.
Any advice anybody?
much appreciated..

Answer 1

First of all, it would be safest to make a backup of your drive, just in case something goes wrong. At the very least, make a backup of your current user folder. You can alway reinstall the OS and apps from original discs, but you cannot replace your personal data if it's lost with no backup.
The most complete way would be to get an external drive (if you don't have one already) that is at least as large as the used space on your internal drive. Use a cloning utility (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper) to duplicate your internal drive to the external drive. After the process completes, set the external drive as the startup disk, in System Preferences Startup pane, and try to start up from it. Make sure it works like the original and all your data is accessible. Now, you have a bootable backup and you are safe messing with your internal drive. Even if you mess up something, you can start up from the external drive and clone the external drive back onto the internal drive, and you are back to square one.
Back to your actual question... If you want to move to a new account and abandon the current account, Apple supplies a utility called Migration Assistant. While logged in to the NEW user account, you can run that utility (in Applications/Utilities) and select the +Migration Method+ to transfer your information +From a Time Machine backup or other disk+. If you select your current internal drive, you should be able to then select your current (old) account as the account to transfer. You will be presented with various options for what to transfer.
But if I was doing it, I would do it manually, so that I know what's happening and have more control. I would first move my current user account data folders to a common area. You can use the
<startup drive>/Users/Shared/
folder, because it is accessible while logged in to your old and new accounts. Move the folders and files you want to transfer there first while logged in to your OLD account. Then log in to your new account and move them from the Shared folder to the equivalent locations in your NEW account. You can try to do this all at once, or take it slow and do one category of your user files (such as Music, Pictures, Documents, etc.) at a time.
You should not need to reinstall apps because they are installed in a location that is common to all users. However, each user has a Library folder with preference files, so you may need to reset the preferences on apps and maybe also reenter product registration information again.
You can delete your old account from System Preferences Accounts pane, after you makes sure you have everything you want in your new account. There is nothing really special about the first user account. Make sure your new account is an admin account, because you don't want to be left with no admin accounts. However, you can just keep the old account around for a few months to play it safe. If you moved (not copied) the files over to your new account, the old account should not be taking up too much space.