Mac pro 10.4.11 to 10.5 hesitation freeze problems

Question

Mac pro 2,1 5GB RAM one 500G HD. It's been having all kinds of glitches so finally attempted erase install of the two original mac pro discs. HD seemed bad after all kinds of trouble sometimes after successfully installing the 10.4 os x. it would freeze then not restart, making a patterned click click whurr sound apparently in the HD. Multiple hour and days wasted. Finally bought new 500GB HD. Two disc install went fine. multiple software updates later seemed to be working fine (but didn't try to do much due to time constraints) But couldn't access my Time Machine backups (my whole music collection and all my photos) or navigate my kids' favorite web sites very well so got the 10.5 OS X install dvd from my ex wife and did an upgrade install. Now all **** has broken out, mouse cursor freezes then go then freezes again repeatedly. This causes you to realize that actually everything is doing the freezing. Tried the many software updates, it would freeze go freeze go the whole time but seem to do them but afterward still the same. Restarts are very slow and start grey then apple then waiting wheel then blue forever blue then finally start and freeze go freeze go. Unusable. once wouldn't start from 10.5 os x dvd   Should I start all over skipping certain 10.4 updates (if I can even get 10.4 running again)?

Answer 1

Hi, and a warm welcome to the forums!
Forced power downs can mess up the HD.
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try 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."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot.
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, is if Permissions are not fixed before & after every update, with a reboot... you may get a partial update when the installer finds it doesn't have Permissions to change one obscure little part of the OS, leaving you with a mix of OS versions.
Some people get away without Repairing Permissions for years, some for only days.
If Permissions are wrong before applying an update, you could get mixed OS versions, if Directory is the slightest messed up, who knows!
If many Permission are repaired, or any Directory errors are found, you may need to re-apply some the latest/biggest updates again, or even do an A&I if you have enough free disk space.
An Archive & Install, which gives you a new OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120