I think I need to do a clean install...

... but I barely know what that means.
Still have the "lampshade" flat-panel iMac, running 10.4.11 -- which I believe is the latest one this computer will run ?? I love it and don't plan to get rid of it for quite awhile yet. The only reason I think about it is that it often has a hard time playing video.
Really haven't had many problems, except that it won't burn CDs anymore, so I can't do a backup that way. Now I can't even Repair Permissions, because Disk Utility closes as soon as it starts to open.
There are all kinds of useless things all over the computer, a lot of which were things I accidentally copied or aliased or something, all those times I didn't have a clue. Yes, I'm quite computer-illiterate. I've always had Macs because they're supposed to be so user-friendly.
Somehow there are multiple copies of every picture in iPhoto, including every stock photo. Usually, everything is really s-l-o-w, whatever the computer tries to do.
Should I do a clean install, and if so, how do I save the contents of Mail to a PC, so that I can put it back after the install? My son can transfer the music and photos, but he doesn't know what to do with Mail (I've saved a lot of important emails).
thanks

You should bootfrom your install disk and use
Disk Utility
   1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
   2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
      Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
   3. Click the First Aid tab.
   4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
   5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
   6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
Then, if things haven't cleared up, you can do an Archive and Install which will give you a freah OS, but retain all your data and preferences.

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Spinning ball problems--need to do a clean install--have questions

Hi
background:
I have a G4 (quicksilver) since July 2002, it came with OS9.2 and OS10.1.3. I've upgraded a few times since and currently have 10.3.9. I mainly work in OS9.2 due to most of my programs being used are only in 9 and the PC network I'm hooked up to likes it better. I boot up in 9.2 -- 80%of the time.
I'm not sure when the problem started in OSX since I'm not working there alot but I started to get the spinning ball in installer, software update and some preferences. So I reloaded (archive/install) from 10.3.5 upgrade disk but couldn't further upgrade to 10.3.9 due to that spinning ball-- still there even after I reloaded 10.3.5.
I've run Disk Utility from the 10.3.5 upgrade disk (repaired disk, repaired permissions) and then I again reloaded (archive install) 10.3.5 and then upgraded to 10.3.9 and this time it worked because I went immediately to the 10.3.9 to install.
BUT I still have the spinning balls in almost everything. Almost seems worse now. I can't even use Disk Utility from the utility folder on my mac without getting the spinning ball.
OS9.2 is fine and I would like to leave it that way.
But it's looking like I need to do a clean install--which means I'll have to reload OS9.2 -- correct?
My question is for a clean install do I need to go back to the original disks that came with my Mac (OS10.1.3) or can I do a clean install with the 10.3.5 upgrade disks. And if I do a clean install from 10.3.5 can I still install OS9.2?
Also what are those Software Restore disks for? They came with the original set of CDs, are they used in the clean install?
Thanks for any help you can give
Power Mac G4 (quicksilver) Mac OS X (10.3.9)
G4 quicksilver Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Keith:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
You really should start a new topic, as threadjacking is frowned upon in these Forums.
The spinning ball or the beachball effect is a result of the computer spinning its wheels, so to speak, as it does not have sufficient computing power to deal with the task at hand. This can be caused by many things.
I am almost certain that it has nothing to do with the latest Panther update. I did them all with no problem.
Is there a way to deal with it?
1. Sufficient RAM
2. Sufficient available HDD capacity.
3. Regular maintenance.
4. Repairing Disk Permisssions before and after any installations.
In terms of RAM you should aim to max out your RAM if you can. I don't have much information on your computer specs so I can't give any more specific information about that.
You should have 10 to 15 percent of your internal HDD as free space. This gives your computer room for virtual memory to be most efficient.
Here is an article on maintenace that has good advice and links to resources: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607640&#607640
In addition to repairing permissions, another simple procedure is to reset the PRAM. You should boot from your install disk and run Repair Disk from Disk Utility on the install disk. I run monthly diagnostics and repairs with Tech Tool Pro or Disk Warrior. In addition running regular CRON cleaning with a utility like MacJanitor, Cocktail, Macaroni or Onyx (all linked in the article above) keeps your machine running smoothly and minimizes the potential for major problems.
I think I have given you enough to chew on for now. Post back if you have further questions.
Good luck.
cornelius

I need to do a clean install of maverick on my 2010 mbp what disk do i use and how do i move certain files from an external hard drive

I want to do a clean install of maverick on my 2010 mbp. I need to know what disk to use and also how i take certain files off my external hard drive and put on my computer. When I was having problems with my airport they did a clean install and they pulled files of my time machine.   however they forgot to put the partition back in for a windows side. Originally I had Parellels on my computer. After my external hard drive got corrupted i called apple and they fixed the problem but didn't have me set up the time machine except for the external hard drive. Now my only back up is from the external not from the laptop.    I am not sure how to do any of this. I am not computer savvy...PLEASE I NEED HELP>

First, you need to make a backup of your MBP onto your external drive. I suggest you start by cloning your MBP drive to the external drive:
Clone Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
This clone is fully bootable and also contains a clone of your Recovery HD.
Second, you need to do a clean install of OS X onto your MBP as follows:
Install or Reinstall Mavericks or Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
OS X Mavericks- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Erase and reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
            because it is three times faster than wireless.
This should accomplish your goals. You will have a clean install of OS X on your MBP and a bootable clone of your old system and all your files on the external drive.

I need to do a clean install with Lion. How do I do this. I can't find any doc. to tell me the procedure.

I need to do a clean install with Lion. How do I do this. I can't find any doc. to tell me the procedure.

Follow the instructions at the link I posted
have a lot of old stuff transferred from Mac to Mac to Mac that is slowing down everything
If that included Power PC apps, read here > Lion upgrade questions and answers: Apple Support Communities

Do you have to down load from the internet using apple's recover partition, every time you need to do a clean install? or can you make a copy of Mt Lion onto a USB stick and install off that?

Do you have to down load Mountain Lion from the internet every time you need to do a clean install? or can you make a copy of Mt Lion onto a USB stick and install off that?
Thanks

Yes you can make a USB stick of Lion or Mt Lion. Use Lion Disk Maker after you download OS X from the internet.
For Lion you have to point the download to an external drive and watch when it completes and reboots the system to start the install disconnect the external. If you bought Mt Lion from the Mac App Store then you can download it from there and just cancel the install when it comes up on the desktop.
If you are downloading from the Recovery HD or from the Online Internet Recovery system, slightly different then the built in Recovery HD, then again you need to point it to an external drive and discoonect that drive when the system reboots to start the real install.
Then use Lion disk maker to create either a DVD disc or USB thumb of the install files.

Need to do a clean install of Win 7 on my HP Dv7 1464rw. Purchased it with Vista on it and it was up

Need to do a clean install of Win 7 on my Dv7 1464rw. I purchased this computer with Vista on it and HP sent me the upgrade for Win 7 as part of the purchase. Can I reuse these discs or do I need some other disc to do this? Also, Do I need to wipe the hard drive clean or will the install process do that?

Do you have the license key with the Windows 7 upgrade disk? If so you should be able to use it to format and reinstall.
******Clicking the Thumbs-Up button is a way to say -Thanks!.******
**Click Accept as Solution on a Reply that solves your issue to help others**

I need to do a "clean install" How do I retain my passwords, etc?

I intend to purchase a new hard drive and do a clean install of OSX 10.4, but I shudder to think that I won't be able to restore all of my passwords, iChat stuff, e-mails address books, etc.
Is there a method? I have used 'carbon copy cloner" in the past to duplicate my current system on a new drive, but now I need to start from scratch, as I was informed that some of my system problems are due to updating from earlier OSX versions....
Any advice?

So much for that.... here is the synposis:
I am a professional mixer. I have a private high end mix room in Manhattan.
I use Apple Logic pro running on a G5 dual 2Ghz tower as my main transport and have several racks which contain all of my outboard signal processing (nearly 60 channels of outboard compression EQ and other processors).
I rely on the MOTU PCI-424 and 2 HD192 and one 1296 interfaces as my patchbay for this gear. Insert latency is compensated by a plugin I invented called "latency fixer" which was implemented by the UK based 'OS collective" and is available as freeware.
I have a separate, internal 10,000rpm hard drive which stores only the audio tracks for the current mix project. I also have a UAD-1 card which I use very sparingly, usually only one active plugin. I always use the largest possible Core Audio buffer setting (1024samples) and the Uad-1 driver apparently doubles that figure.
Recently I added a Duende to the system. Initially I had very dubious luck getting audio through this device without dropouts and random temporal anomolies, i.e. If I inserted the Duende on a few of the drum tracks, these tracks would randomly shift in time by several hundred milliseconds. Not good. I became aware that OS X had serious problems with random latency when using aggregate audio drivers, and upon further investigation learned that there was an identical problem when using a firewire based audio interface. According to reports online, Apple ignored this issue for more than 2 years, but when Apogee released it's "Ensemble" firewire interface, the iShit hit the iFan, so to speak. They quickly addressed this problem by rewriting the kernel level firewire driver.
This new driver was sent to me and I installed it on my 10.4.5 OS. This fixed the random latency issue in my aggregate interface driver, and seemed to improve the performance of the Duende as well. Recently I have again been experiencing the random time shifts when using the Duende.
It's a professional embarrassment in my system. I find myself spending 4 hours on a mix and 6 hours troubleshooting the system in order to print the mix without spurious noises.
I was advised by apple that a clean install of OSX would improve the situation. I did a clean install of OS 10.4.8 and the problems with the Duende are actually worse than they were under 10.4.5.
I would appreciate any thoughtful advice about how to remedy this problem.

I need help doing a clean install.( keyboard shortcuts?).Macbook will not read any of the disks/ turns off

I installed a new 'used' Logic board, im my macbook 13.3 and it turned right on!..( i was out of warrenty)
Apple logo and spiing wheel, then turns off..
After reading several forums, I went into self mode, did the 2 checks within in and got an error which pointed to the OS software being currupted..
so I have inserted the Os disk, the disk-repair disk and a disk warrior disk, but none of them are being read. I hear the Macbook starting to read the disk then the disks are ejected and the systen turns off.
Is there a way i can do a clean install on the HD? shortcut keyboard shortcuts?
or force the disks to be read as the first boot device like of that in a PC's bios settup?
I have no data on the computer that I wish to save btw.. just want a fresh install..
thanks for any help in advance.

Unfortunately the necessary software to reinstall your OS is not located on the hard drive. If your MacBook will not accept the disks you have you are going to need a hardware repair, probably the optical drive.
If you have access to another MacBook you may be able to install the OS on an external hard drive and use that to boot your MacBook. You may then be able to get any data off of your hard drive.
Best of luck.

Need to do a clean install, important questions

Hi all,
For several months my two-year-old MacBook has been having a serious typing issue that I have not been able to resolve. When I am typing, quite frequently, the typing will move to the middle of the text box (or Word document) and start writing over or deleting what I've already wrote. I've searched online, other people have suffered this problem, but there is no definitive solution. I will not go further into this, but if you know what might fix the problem please let me know.
Anyway...
Per the suggestion of a friend, I plan on doing a clean install to Snow Leopard. Since this sounds like a software issue, I am hoping this will resolve my typing problem. I have never done a clean install before and need to purchase an external hard drive. Everything must go seamlessly, as I am a college student and have very important docs and applications that must safely be transferred back. This is what I'm looking at:
- 40 GB of media files in iTunes
- 10 GB of photos in iPhoto
- 0.5 GB of text documents
~ 30 GB of applications (Office, Adobe Suite, etc.)
My friend told me I will need the install discs for Office and Adobe Suite in addition to to the serial numbers. I live far away from home now, and am not even sure if the install disc for Office is still in my hometown. Adobe Suite came preloaded on my MacBook when I purchased it from Apple with a student discount (there were never any install discs). It is very crucial that I am able to transfer the Adobe Suite.
Will I be able to transfer all these documents/applications to an external drive? If so, could you provide me a tutorial on how to go about this process.
I greatly appreciate all help.

You are very welcome.
"I just learned that external hard drives are either Windows or Mac compatible. You said I needed one that works with Firewire 800, but what about USB 2.0? I'm not even sure if this MacBook is Firewire 400 or 800."
Almost all drives will work on either. What matters is how the drives are formatted. If you were to buy a drive, things might be a tiny bit easier if it came formatted the way you want. If the firewire port is oblong, then it is 400. If it is pretty square, then it is 800. 800 is better than USB 2.0 which probably is better than 400. You can get USB 2.0 that are bootable, but I don't know that all of them are. You can be almost certain that a firewire 800 or 400 will be bootable. You need one that will bootable, of course.
"What exactly is the migration process? You said it will prompt me to migrate (transfer to external hard drive?) after I've put in the Snow Leopard install disc? I assumed I would be manually transferring the files and applications to the external hard drive before putting in Snow Leopard. So you are saying I will be able to transfer my applications such as Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office without needing the original discs or even entering in the serial numbers?"
Yes, to the last sentence. It wouldn't work to transfer things to the drive before installing the OS. At the end of an erase and install of SL, you will be prompted to migrate, or restore, your users, settings, apps, and data. I would migrate the apps and data, but not the users and settings. You would elect to migrate from your Leopard installation (i.e., from an earlier system).
"Thanks again for the reply. I will go ahead with buying an external hard drive as soon as the first question is cleared up."
A good thing to do is to see what is carried at the Apple Stores. One brand I like is LaCie, but they can be more expensive than some. The manager at "my" store is willing to do price matching on drives they carry. Another brand (not Apple oriented) that I like is Buffalo. Newegg.com and Frys tend to have good prices on these. You can get a 1 TB 7200 RPM Buffalo for < $140.
Message was edited by: donv (The Ghost)

Need to do a clean install on my new iMac

I have a new iMac and after migrating everything from my old one, I am getting some strange problems. Things like not being able to shut down without doing a forced shut down and some other small things here and there that Apple have not been able to figure out. I thought I should do a clean install instaed of a full migration and I wonder if anyone has any tips on doing this in the most efficient way, while migrating all my data and info and such, but making sure that I don't just bring back the same problems. I have everything on a Time Machine back up.

CDs are no longer required, in fact no OS X version has been available on optical media for three versions now.
To erase the disk or to reinstall OS X use OS X Recovery: Hold ⌘ and r (two fingers) while you start your Mac. Your iMac has a Recovery partition already on the disk, and if you need to replace that disk with an empty one, your iMac has firmware that conveys the ability to download OS X directly from Apple's servers, and create a new Recovery partition on the new disk.
For a more thorough description addressing all options start with the following, courtesy of the late Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini: 19. I got a new Mac, or a new or erased internal HD -- now what?
Beware of any incompatible software that Migration Assistant may transfer from Macs running earlier OS X versions.
Anything you purchased from the Mac App Store or the iTunes Store can be downloaded and installed again on as many Macs as you own, as often as required, assuming the purchased items remain available from their respective stores.

Despite recent macbook with GUID, still needed re-format with clean install

Apple must have their hands full fielding thousands of calls from fathers with mac book endowed children who ran to the Apple store on the first day of availability, enduring the long pay lines and expense of Leopard only to find that the hope and expectation for a simple, hassle free upgrade was not to be.
They have or will eventually learn that afterone or more failed install attempts, the HD icon was flagged with an exclamation and that the only option was to reformat the hard disk. They will then freek out due to lack of backup for the HD contents including mail, itunes, imovie, documents, safari settings, etc., and will have to scramble to backup the data if they can.
If they are lucky and patient, they will be able to eventually speak to an Apple rep who will try to walk them through this frustrating and time consuming precess, but more likely the que will be full. The rep will check your HD and partition settings with you and state that they are not sure why you have to re-format as you already seem to be running the latest GUID format.
I hope that something can be done to alievate the pain of these poor unsuspecting parents!
It is too late for me!
Sufice it to say the a clean install did work.

It is obvious that a clean install on a blank disk will always work.
It is also obvious that not everyone will have a backup or clone before upgrading, trusting that Apple did their job well.
On anything but a plain vanilla box, it seems that the upgrade may not work or may not work properly.
I am sure that most of the installs are flawless and here we are seeing, as it should be, the words of those who need help.
We certainly do not need the gloaters, who by their nature are helpless.
We need good data as to what installs worked and what failed, and why and how to fix it so the next person does not have to suffer the same problems.
I have three boxes to upgrade this week. I may keep one or two at the Tiger level until the X11 stuff is straightened out.

Need to do a clean install of FF31 after bad sectors on HDD caused installed FF to crash Windows upon opening.

After running MRT update on Windows XP SP3, I rebooted my PC, and CHKDSK found and repaired four bad sectors on my HDD. After this, starting Firefox 31.0, even in Safe Mode, would cause Windows to freeze at the point the FF window appeared. No menus, no toolbars, just the window with the basic frame, but nothing inside it. All input devices were non-responsive, forcing me to do a hardware restart of my machine.
Upon restart, everything else worked fine until I tried to start FF - then the OS froze again.
Searching Firefox support, all answers I could find suggested deleting old (possibly corrupt) profile data with Profile Manager before reinstalling FF - but, if FF freezes the machine upon starting, there is no way to do that.
How do I MANUALLY delete all old profile data, other Firefox data files, and registry entries from my PC so that I can do a clean install of FF 31.0?
NOTE: The information given about my browser under "More System Details" is mostly WRONG. I am currently using the only browser that works - the outdated Orca Browser v1.2 with a Firefox 3 core. It is FF 31.0 that I am asking help with.
Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to provide.

You must totally remove Firefox. It sounds like part of it's programing
was corrupted. Then '''[http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/ Download Firefox Full Installer All languages]''' {web link}
After installing, try FF. If your user file are okay, Great!
*1 Download the Full installer and put it somewhere.
*2 Rename your current '''C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Maintenance Service''' and '''C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox'''. Add a '''X''' in front of the name (for example).
*3 Run the disk check '''AGAIN''' just to be sure.
*4 Now get the full installer and run it.
*5 After the installer is done, then try out FF.

Help I need to do a clean install on my MacBook 17 Pro Early 2011

Hi
I have a external backup and online server.
I have Lion 10.7.4. I have dard drive 750gb. I transfered tons of junk from old XP computer.
I would like to buy lighting bolt external hard drive SSD and transfer all the important files and start over.
Can you make folders like iTunes, Iphotos, documents and send over in folders?
I might buy the MacBook Pro 15in retina, but the screen is to small for $4000 and October_Janauary they will have a 24-32 in retina screen. I do love my IPad 3? I learning disabled so I need a list of what to do.
Any suggestions
Thanks Mark

I'm getting accustomed to the MacBook Air and have gone through all of the available Apple Support tools and schooling. It has helped quite a bit. Having been an employee of an unnamed computer mfr. for several decades, I must unlearn many 'tricks of the trade'. As far as the permissions problem: I needed the help of an Apple Tech. that remotely examined and used the disk tools to repair the damage I caused. For those of you that read my problem, I appreciate your interest. Now, call me and my problem "Fixed".

Need to do a clean install only have OSx for iMAC disk

Cant find original OSX disk but have OSX that came with my sons iMAC but it will not work?

Remote installation of an inappropriate system still results in an inappropriate system. As others have indicated, Burton needs to find or replace his original disk and abandon any thoughts of using his son's iMac disk.
Burton, note that you can call Apple customer service and request a new set of disks for a small shipping and handling fee. You just need to have your machine handy to give them the serial number.

I need to do a clean install of leopard:

Please tell me a way to backup so my settings and data remain the same thanks!

Basic Backup
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):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can buy a complete FireWire drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.

I think I need to do a clean install...

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