Preparing for clean reinstall

I want to backup data and download OS to have a fresh system.
I'm aware that I need to back up docs, etc, but wondering if there are system things I must attend to. (Or to which I must attend if you are one of thos snoonty Englsh majors) Ha.
Thanks for your kind attention.

Very kind of you to offer.
I've been running Disk Utility, Permissions and repair, and find strange stuff. Incorrect printing info for instance when I have not changed or used other printers in years. And, all kinds of problems with languge permissions and I never use anyting but US English. (I deleted all the other languge options). Things would get VERY slow, at all programs, and only by running Disk Utilty could I correct it....and then only brielfly sometimes. Some programs would not stop an I had to force close them. I deleted all the APPS I downloaded but never used and then deleted all instances of the files from the library. (as far as I know) That seemed to help. I had been using Firefox and switched to Safari (don't know if that helped or not)
Whatever....I'm now back to about normal speed and not many strange things going on. Yet.
That's a brief overview. It just seems that a "clean reinstall" would be a good solution. But, I see your "background" here and note you are a long time user who seems to have stellar reputation and I'd gladly (and thankfuly) be happy to hear whatever you have to offer rather than the clean reinstall I'm considering.
Thanks so much for your kind attention,
Wonky

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Hi,
I'm using an Apple MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.6.3 (Snow Leopard).
I have installed Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium and Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium.
As written in my other post (http://forums.adobe.com/thread/650516?tstart=0), I am unable to find a solution to reinstall my Adobe printer driver.
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Hi Larry,
thanks for your message!
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Hi,
Please use the following tutorial for new HDD:
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**Click the KUDOS thumb up on the left to say 'Thanks'**
Make it easier for other people to find solutions by marking a Reply 'Accept as Solution' if it solves your problem.

How to backup with Time Machine for complete clean reinstall of OS

My iMac has been getting slower and slower as the months go by and with each new software update. It used to be a lot faster than this when it was new.
I'm thinking the best solution might be to do a complete clean reinstall of the OS. My question is, if I have Time Machine backing up of all the users Documents, Email, Address, Book, iTunes Library, and iPhoto Library files, can I just go ahead and blow away everything on the machine? That is, after reinstallation, can I just plug in the hard drive, turn on Time Machine and get all those data files back in the right place without difficulty?
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slegge,
This might give you some ideas.
Using Time Machine to Restore You Entire System
Q: Can I restore my Mac from a Time Machine backup?
A: Yes, you have several options: (In all cases Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is required as previous OS X versions will not work with Time Machine backups.)
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*Full Restore Via Time Machine Only*
Alternatively, you can use the installation DVDs to do a full system restore. Insert the installation DVD. When the welcome window appears, go to the Utilities menu and select “Restore System From Backup…” and choose the drive that your Time Machine backups are on. Then select the date of the backup you would like to restore from. This will completely erase your internal drive and restore your system to a relatively same condition it was in on the date of the backup you choose. (See this article for a list of files that TM does not restore, http://shiftedbits.org/2007/10/31/time-machine-exclusions/) The advantage here is that you retain many of the personal preferences/settings that had been established with the previous system. Additionally, no further installation of 3rd-party software is required. The disadvantage is that BECAUSE you retain many of the personal preferences, settings, and system files that had been present with the previous system, you run the risk of reintroducing problems you experienced with the previous installation, including any issues that necessitated the OS reinstall in the first place. Using Disk Utility at this point to repair any permissions issues is advised as well.
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Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338)
Hope this helps.
Cheers!

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Hello all,
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Cheers,
Mo

Not only was I looking to regain performance, but also HD space again.
Reinstalling your system won't recover much HD space, if any, if you just load all the same apps and documents back onto it. Better to address the issue by moving some files to an external drive or replacing your current drive with a larger one.
There are no "problems" but I know it's been recommended to do a fresh restore once(?) a year.
You should immediately ignore all further advice from anyone recommending that. There's no need to do that without a specific reason.
But really...drastic? Is it that drastic?
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HT2474 I did a clean reinstall of mountain lion and for some reason the dock keeps osx lion format

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Tks

Try doing a Dock restart using the following Terminal command:
killall Dock
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If you prefer to make your user library permanently visible, use the Terminal command found below.
http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/04/show-library-directory-in-mac-os-x-lion/
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I have had to do a clean reinstall on my mac and it will not accept the first installer disc for my

I have had to do a clean reinstall of mac osx leopard and when I try to reinstall my version of CS3 from the first installer disc it keeps getting rejected. Can I get round this somehow please?

if you follow all 7 steps, you can dl a cs3 trial here: http://prodesigntools.com/all-adobe-cs5-direct-download-links.html
use your serial to activate.

How to prepare for FRESH INSTALL?

hi all.
i am about 2 years into my move back to mac with a small professional office and i am considering a fresh install of Lion from Snow Leopard on the Mac Pro (1st generation) and a 2009/10 MacBookPro. I believe the Mac Pro shipped with Leopard and the MacBookPro shipped with Snow Leopard but not sure if i am off by an OS release on that.
in any event, it has been a /ton/ of effort in customizing this setup and it includes an install of Mac Drive, Parallels and other software and software settings. I have also edited the registry on windows in a couple of instances and i have run a couple of Terminal customizations on the mac side.
two questions.
1. what should i do to prepare for a fresh install and how much time might be involved in redoing my setup?
2. is it worth all the effort? i mean, i /do/ have a 2 TB hard drive to take the place of my existing 1 TB drive and I could use the extra space. but at the same time i wonder if a fresh install is necessary.
TIA

If I understand correctly, you are still running SL. As I said, I'm not familiar with this when using any Windows install. If it were strictly Apple, then it wouldn't be a problem. But still if you want to do a full clean install, that would require reinstalling all applications manually. Otherwise, you would still be migrating the same files your already have.
Installing Lion over SL will give you a new OS. Unless you have hard drive issues, this should be all that's needed.
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You might also use an application such as ONYX to caches, etc. Repair permissions. Just to get the system as clean as possible.
Once done, you would want to make a current backup. Maybe even a second just in case. You can always do a restore if nessary.
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Clean reinstall procedure?

Hi,
I've been having one or two computer glitches and I am about to do a wipe of the hard drive, followed by reinstallation of everything.
I want to do a clean iTunes reinstall on my computer and also wipe/reinstall iPhone without losing purchases.
Could someone please give me a check list?
In preparation for this, I have deauthorised my iTunes account, and backed up the whole of the iTunes folder.
Although I am still not confident in changing/ reinstalling iTunes, I AM familiar with reinstalling XP. Therefore I have also ghosted the computer and got all my CDs ready.
However.... BEFORE I DO ANYTHING ELSE...
What I think I need to do after reinstallation of my operating system is reinstall a clean 8.2. even though my old one is 8.1.1.10.
I want to also wipe the iphone of all data and reset as new, and then resynch everything.
What I am not sure about is how to wipe the iPhone without causing myself or phone company or my iTunes a problem.
I do not want to lose purchases.
Any help gratefully received!
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Took the bull by the horns.
No problems.
But the key is to backup everything beforehand.

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When thunderbird checks mail, Instead of receiving one copy of an email, I am sometimes getting two and even three copies of the same email. They all have the same date and time. I have tried some suggestions including deleting .msf and popstate.dat files and also making sure that the server is not set to keep emails there. This fixes things for a day and then I am back to getting multiple emails. It's annoying.
I am thinking about doing a clean reinstall of TB. I have the mozbackup utiility and I am going to back up emails and contacts. As far as uninstalling thunderbird completely goes, is there an instruction page for that? Does anyone think this will help?
Thanks!

A note for the future....
Files:- Are rebuilt by right clicking a folder, selecting properties and then repair. It is easier that digging into the file system. The other "index" you refered to with no extension is not an index, it is the actual mail. Inadvertently deleting local copies of mail not on the server can be something of a disaster. Right clicking the folder and selecting compact will clear corruption there. But it may well get rid of corrupt mail as the MSF files are what is used to display lists in Thunderbird.
This add-on make managing duplicate messages much easier. https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/index-en.html#recDelMsg

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Hard drive space is not really the issue, but I can't help feeling that my iMac is not as nippy as it used to be - my basic requirements are:
1) Easy to use. I'm a competent user, but no guru.
2) Will confirm details of what is is deleting, cleaning before it does it.
3) Is reliable and won't crash or bugger-up my system.
4) Actually works - as I said, don't really need to reclaim storage, but would like to speed up my mac
5) Doesn't cost the earth.
You thoughts would be much appreciated.
Cheers all,
Simon.

Do the below and keep your boot drive below 50% filled and not more that 80%, that's about all you can do without a full reinstall of the OS.
12: OnyX cache cleaning
Category: OS X, application and User account software related
Description: Gives OS X, application and user account caches a enema, lets then rebuild again new, resolves strange and unknown issues based on cache files being corrupted .
Only cache files are removed, not users data, files, programs or OS X. Some settings will be set back to normal in Finder and other locations. Spotlight will rebuild a new database.
Problems possibly resolved: Varied: Flash install issues, Dock/Finder/File issues, "ghost files", performance and privacy related
Instructions:
Apple doesn't supply a easy method for the user to self clean the caches, thus we have to turn to third party software.
Use the free OnyX matching your OS X version and run all the initial checks, stop if any give a warning, you have a bigger problem. See #4
Run though all the Maintenance and Cleaning aspects (except don't delete the log files) and reboot at the end (must)
You must be through running all the maintenance and cleaning aspects as this is a "catch all" method and any number of corrupted caches may be responsible for your issues. You need to REBOOT at the end of using OnyX. Canceling the in-between reboot requests is fine.
Read Step #13 and perform the Verify > Preferences before rebooting at the end of using OnyX.
Get the free OnyX here: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11582/onyx More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnyX
Just a few of OnyX many successes:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18377471?ac_cid=sa123456#18377471
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18421933?ac_cid=sa123456#18421933
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18579487?ac_cid=sa123456#18579487

Preparing for clean reinstall

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