Problem Installing Leopard - am Forced to Erase and Install... :-(

- MacBook Pro
- Mac OS X 10.4.11
- Used Disk Utility from the Tiger Install to repair, and S.M.A.R.T is all good.
- Did a full bootable backup onto an external disk
Now, when I start installing Leopard (Version 10.5.6), a problem emerges. While I would like to start with Update and Install (to preserve my current bunch of programs as they are), the following happens:
1. My disk is shown with a little yellow triangle on it.
2. When I select it as a destination for install, I get the following message at the bottom of the screen, just above the buttons:
"You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume without changing your installation settings." And tells me to click Options; when I do, I get the following:
"Destination disk must be erased for installation of Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" (which is strange, because this is what I have installed).
Would appreciate any suggestions or ideas...
Thanks,
Simon

Well, miracles do happen...
The woman at the Apple store found out a strange thing on my machine - it was showing 2 mounted disks. Both the same name, both boot the same, both don't show in Disk Utility (only one). We figured there is really no other way other than Erase and Install. She did mention the migration step, when configuring Leopard, which is what I did during the install.
A couple of hours later, my whole system is migrated and looks like it works. All Microsoft Office 2008, Firefox and Opera (with all the bookmarks and all), all my system setups, preferences, key chain, and passwords. iWork. Little Snitch and Peer Guardian. Even HamachiX. Seems as though everything is here. Have not yet checked Adobe, as I have heard they don't like to migrate... might have to be a reinstall.
Looking good, it is, and I am impressed. No more fear of Erase and Install... I say, go for it, while having a full bootable external disk, just in case.
Simon

Similar Messages

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    I installed Leopard into my 17 In MacBook Pro and the 92 Gig HDD is now half full and I only have about 14 gig of music on the HDD.
    I would figure the OS take about 14 to 18 gig max, so my question is, did the installed keep the old stuff and if so how do I reclaim the HDD space back.
    Hope someone and point me in te right direction
    Thanks
    Newport Tom

    If you did an Erase and Install then nothing should be on the drive except what you installed. You might try this:
    Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
    Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.
    If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

  • Unknown User Permissions - Erase and Install Backup Plan

    Hi everyone,
    I upgraded from Tiger and therefore have the unknown user permissions problems. I'd like to erase and install my system and am writing to verify the following:
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    Thomas,
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  • Fewer problems with Leopard if bought on new iMac rather than upgrade?

    I bought a new iMac (my 1st Mac ever) just before Leopard came out, so I have Tiger 10.4.11 now and love it. I've had no problems whatsoever and really don't plan on upgrading to Leopard because of all the problems I keep reading about. My brother is thinking about buying an iMac but hesitates because he's heard so many problems about Leopard. Question for you guys - do the Leopard problems seem more common if you've done an upgrade from Tiger, or are the problems just as common if you buy a new iMac with Leopard installed? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    I bought a new iMac (my 1st Mac ever) just before Leopard came out, so I have Tiger 10.4.11 now and love it. I've had no problems whatsoever and really don't plan on upgrading to Leopard because of all the problems I keep reading about.
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    This is a "how long ago did yo stop beating your wife question" - Problems are VERY uncommon in either case. With new systems they are highly unlikely since there is no previous damage to the system and NO incompatible third party software on the system - but problems are extremely uncommon in either case
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    LN
    Message was edited by: LarryHN

  • Can't erase and install SNow Leopard on old MacBook Pro

    I am trying to erase and install Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro3,1. I boot up with the installation disc, get to pick a language but then a window pops up that says "Mac OS X can't be installed on this computer" and gives me the options to Restore from Backup or Restart.
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    You need a retail Snow Leopard installation disk. Available for $29 USD. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MACOS_XSNGL
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  • Erase and install?? a few problems...

    Hello. This is going to be a long one, so you might as well get a fresh cup.
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    So, for a long time I used m$ office 2004 on the lappy. Then I upgraded to 2008. Everything worked fine and dandy. Then I moved over to the iMac. Not so fine and dandy anymore. Word works just fine, but PP and Excel have issues with saving documents. If I email a doc to myself from school, I can open it and view it just fine.
    (on edit: actually, this is not true. I'm going over the details below and realized that I can access a file from a thumb drive, etc, but not email)
    BUT, if I save it afterwards or save it from the email BEFORE opening it, it disappears somewhere into the ether. I eventually found out where this "ether" place is, but that will come later. I tried to reinstall office a couple times, to no avail. So I went to the local Mac store (non-corporate) the other day and talked with one of the techs about it. He told me about some files that needed to get deleted along with the uninstall. I did that a couple times, did a repair disk from the install disk (per the techs request as well), restarted between doing everything, etc, etc. Once convinced all was clear, I reinstalled office 2008. AAAAHHHHHH. SAME THING!!!! I don't get it. I don't want to talk with m$. I tried that once. It failed.
    Now I am wondering about starting ALL over from scratch. I'm not sure how to proceed from this point though. I have a time machine backup (250 gb of stuff from myself and my gf) and I have a bootcamp partion (that time machine has NOT been backing up.) So I guess my questionS are:
    1. can I do an erase and install on JUST the mac partition?
    2. once reinstalled, will I be able to pick and choose stuff off the time machine disk? Or do I have to simply restore completely from it (which at this point I would rather not)?
    3. is step #2 a good idea (bringing in individual files, if possible)? Or will this possibly bring in the corrupted-ness that I am currently experiencing?
    4. is there a way to do this without a clean install?
    Details of office problem:
    1. I open a document (new)
    2. Type anything
    3. Save
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    (this is what I was referring to as the "ether." *WHY IN GOD'S NAME WOULD SOMETHING GET SAVED HERE?* Even though I specified that it get saved in "Documents"?????
    5. Bang head against wall
    1. I ATTEMPT to open a document saved when office worked
    2. 1 of 2 things will happen:
    OR
    (No matter WHAT file I try to open, only the last document I made will open, AND it will be called "juan")
    2. Bang head against wall
    Anyway, if you've made it this far, your are brave. Maybe you have advice. Thanks for listening.
    Dave
    Also, now, after erasing the m$ stuff, when I open a finder window in the user "swanks", the one I mainly use, the window for "swank" shows up. You know, with all the little red circle with white line through it things on the bottom right corner of a folder?? What the heck?

    Before erasing the volume and reinstalling, there are a few things you might want to try first, which are less disruptive:
    1. Force Office to generate new preference files. Go to /Users/swanks/Library/Preferences. Create a folder called "Microsoft_old". Drag the folder /Users/swanks/Library/Preferences/Microsoft into the new Microsoft_old folder. Drag all files in your preferences folder which begin with "com.microsoft" in there as well. Relaunch PowerPoint and test it out. You may find it was just a wonky prefs file causing the behavior. If you aren't seeing it in any other application, this is pretty likely.
    2. Test the opening/saving behavior of powerpoint in the new user account. If it is fine, then you can just move your files over from one user to the other. There are a few ways of doing this, but the simplest is probably to put everything you want into the /Users/Shared folder and change ownership to your new user account via the Get Info window or the Terminal, if you are comfortable in the command line (using chown -R is usually faster and more reliable than using the Sharing & Permissions section of the Info window, in my experience). Also, you can use your girlfriend's account to test this - does PowerPoint work as expected when she is logged in?
    If a new user account behaves the same way, then you probably have deeper issues than just preference problems. At that point you may want to consider rebuilding the OS.
    To answer your questions directly:
    1. can I do an erase and install on JUST the mac partition?
    Yes. You do not have to touch the Boot Camp partition when reinstalling Mac OS X. When booted from the install disc, you will have
    2. once reinstalled, will I be able to pick and choose stuff off the time machine disk? Or do I have to simply restore completely from it (which at this point I would rather not)?
    Yes. When you browse your Time Machine Backup (with the fancy space-warp background), you can select individual files/folders to restore. It will prompt you to select a location where you want to restore the files.
    3. is step #2 a good idea (bringing in individual files, if possible)? Or will this possibly bring in the corrupted-ness that I am currently experiencing?
    I don't think you are dealing with actual file corruption, more likely broken preferences or damaged defaults. I wouldn't be worried about bringing over any non-OS files.
    4. is there a way to do this without a clean install?
    See above. Those are the things I would try first, before you do a clean install.
    I hope this helps. If you have any questions, post and I'll try to answer.
    Message was edited by: Duncan Wright

  • IMac still broken after 10.5.7 problems and Erase and Install

    I had written the following at the end of a "solved" post when it was suggested that I start a new post instead. So here is what I had...
    Ok. I think my iMac was turned into a giant paper weight by 10.5.7.
    Here's what happened with the Archive and Install. The screen said "Calculating Time Remaining" and stayed there for over an hour. I searched the boards and found that I should try to create a partition with Disk Utility and then try again.
    So, I hard reset the computer and reboot off the Leopard DVD. I tried to make the partition but couldn't figure out how. Turns out I needed to click on the actual hard drive icon, not the existing Volume icon (which I discovered later). So, I checked the drive for repairs and it still checked out ok. I decided to erase the drive and go from there.
    While tinkering in the Utilities I noticed the Restore from Backup option. So, I plugged in my Firewire Time Machine drive and began a restore from the last time my System was using 10.5.6. The restore completed successfully and I was hopeful that things would be ok.
    I restarted the machine and it immediately went in to Open Firmware and the fans start spinning at full. So, I shake my head and decide to reset NVRAM. It tries to reboot and I have to hard restart it 3 or 4 times (as usual lately) and was able to reboot again off the Leopard install DVD.
    That's it, I thought. I'm going to erase and install OS X.
    I go back to Disk Utility and figure out how to partition the drive. I create a single partition and begin the process of Install OS X. It says starts fine and in about 40 minutes it is complete.
    Restart with fingers crossed! New OS, wiped drive... it HAS to work, right?
    Nope.
    Same problems... freezing on boot, fans loud, etc. I reset PRAM and SMU(SMC).
    Luckily I don't have any pressing work on my computer - someone who did would be quite angry with Apple that this was happening.
    For my part... I now have a wiped hard drive... all iTunes content, iPhoto content, all my apps, games, docs... GONE. I do have the Time Machine backup... but did it really have to come to this? I suppose my hard drive could be failing... but wouldn't the multiple disk checks have shown something?
    If there are any suggestions I'm all ears. I have reached the limits of my troubleshooting knowledge.
    Thanks,
    Jon
    Follow-up:
    After the computer had been off for several hours over night I decided to start it up again to see what would happen. At first it looked encouraging... got the startup chime, the Apple logo, the progress wheel.... then kernel panic.
    Several hard restarts later (to get the Leopard DVD out of the drive) and the iMac now sits, packed in it's original box, ready to go to the Apple Store.
    My question is this... does anyone think this might be a power supply issue?
    The reason I ask is that I exhausted ALL troubleshooting procedures that I can think of. These include:
    Replacing RAM, both DIMMs
    Reset PRAM and NVRAM and SMC
    Check hard drive using install DVD - OK
    Restore 10.5.6 from Time Machine drive - did not resolve issues
    Erase and Install OS X - did not resolve issue
    Plug iMac in to wall outlet versus power strip
    Removed all peripherals
    etc, etc
    I just can't believe that upgrading to 10.5.7 would hose my hardware. The iMac was working fine until 10.5.7 except the occasional crash of Halo on the larger maps.
    Totally stumped.
    Thanks,
    Jon

    Hello Joanne:
    A suggestion - reset the SMU:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1767
    If that does not help, let me try to answer your questions.
    Wondering if I should roll back to 10.5.4 which is what I had, and, if so, how to do it?
    If you have Time Machine, use that (a copy before the problem). If you do not have TM (or a bootable clone) the way to go back is to do an archive and install:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710
    Also, I've downloaded the Safari update, which I know won't run on that, so would I even be able to get the old Safari back?
    The archive and install will do that. By the by, Safari 4 should run just fine on your system. It is faster than Safari 3.
    Barry

  • My Mac is three years old and has crashed about 10 times. I have had to erase and re install Snow Leopard every time,yet it keeps happening.

    I have communicated with apple care every time and they keep telling me there is no problem,so why does it keep crashing. I took it in for repair under warrenty and they told me there was nothing wrong with it yet it crashed again two weeks later and has crashed another 5 times since then,I have to erase and re install each time. It has now crashed again , i have re installed snow leopard and all i get is the spinning wheel and nothing loads..Im over it. I have several mac products including two other imacs that are running fine..

    Run Apple Hardware Test on your computer, the next time your machine crashes try running disk utility on the hard drive.  You shouldn't need to reinstall the OS each time your system crashes, if that the case then you could have a bad hard drive. 

  • Leopard 10.5.7 refuses to launch applications after "erase and install"

    I have an older iMac G5 (1.6Mhz PPC, 2 Gb RAM) born with Panther OS. I wanted to update some applications so I could have a secure browser and other apps. I upgraded the RAM to 2 Gb as a first step. The additional RAM really perked up the old iMac so the next step was to update the OS to 10.5.6 using a DVD that was printed in Jan '09 and sold as part of a bundle pack with the new iLife 09 and iWork 09.
    I thought I could get away with an overwrite installation and I knew there were risks in doing that. The result was a really bugey computer with frequent terminal views, kernel panics and even hard shut downs. Apple issued the 10.5.7 update and that helped stabilize the system somewhat.
    I still had problems with instablility of the OS and with Safari 3.2.3, Firefox 3 and other applications. I decided to reinstall Leopard using the archive and install procedure. The 2nd install stabilized the OS but I still had problems with browsers and Open Office refusing to launch.
    I did lots of troubleshooting using Onyx, MemTest OSX, repair permissions in the Disk Utility, etc. I created a new user account and the problems persisted. I decided to try a third install of the OS using the Erase and Install procedure.
    The system now has Safari 4.0.1 but after a few page views Safari crashed and now it crashes as soon as you launch it. A freshly downloaded Camino browser does the same thing. iTunes, System Profiler and a fresh download of Onyx also refuse to launch. All of them crash while launching.
    I can launch an ancient version of IE and Firefox 3 from the desktop.
    After the last OS X install, I noticed the system did not accept the first attempts at downloading the Leopard updates and the Safari update. A second attempt was successful for both. I am reluctanct to proceed with installing anymore applications until I can fix what I believe is a problem with the OS. The OS worked well after the archive and install procedure and I am thinking it should be able to work at least as well after the erase and install.
    I live in a rural area and the nearest Apple "genius" counter is about a 5 hour round trip. Is there anyone out there that has encountered this problem?

    The Internet Explorer came with the iMac and I never used it. I had it on a disk so I put it on the desktop to get a download of Camino after Safari failed. It's so old that most websites can't render for it unless they have some html default page.
    Here is what the Crash Reporter log had. The iTunes was on the OS X install disk. The Camino browser was downloaded from Caminobrowser.org.
    Process: iTunes [275]
    Path: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes
    Identifier: com.apple.iTunes
    Version: ??? (???)
    Build Info: iTunes-8202301~15
    Code Type: PPC (Native)
    Parent Process: launchd [67]
    Date/Time: 2009-07-04 21:34:25.644 -0700
    OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.7 (9J61)
    Report Version: 6
    Anonymous UUID: 17FE9D2E-ED3C-44C8-BD16-23C937CA83AE
    Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
    Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x000000008fe0105c
    Crashed Thread: 0
    Dyld Error Message:
    Symbol not found: __ZN7WebCore11RenderLayer18gAlignCenterAlwaysE
    Referenced from: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/WebKit
    Expected in: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/WebCore.frame work/Versions/A/WebCore
    Process: Safari [118]
    Path: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
    Identifier: com.apple.Safari
    Version: ??? (???)
    Build Info: WebBrowser-55301800~1
    Code Type: PPC (Native)
    Parent Process: launchd [67]
    Date/Time: 2009-07-04 21:14:45.039 -0700
    OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.7 (9J61)
    Report Version: 6
    Anonymous UUID: 17FE9D2E-ED3C-44C8-BD16-23C937CA83AE
    Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
    Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x000000008fe0105c
    Crashed Thread: 0
    Dyld Error Message:
    Symbol not found: __ZN7WebCore11RenderLayer18gAlignCenterAlwaysE
    Referenced from: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/WebKit
    Expected in: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/WebCore.frame work/Versions/A/WebCore
    Process: Camino [361]
    Path: /Volumes/Camino/Camino.app/Contents/MacOS/Camino
    Identifier: org.mozilla.camino
    Version: ??? (???)
    Code Type: PPC (Native)
    Parent Process: launchd [67]
    Date/Time: 2009-07-04 22:14:43.753 -0700
    OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.7 (9J61)
    Report Version: 6
    Anonymous UUID: 17FE9D2E-ED3C-44C8-BD16-23C937CA83AE
    Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
    Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x000000008fe0105c
    Crashed Thread: 0
    Dyld Error Message:
    Symbol not found: __ZN7WebCore11RenderLayer18gAlignCenterAlwaysE
    Referenced from: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/WebKit
    Expected in: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/WebCore.frame work/Versions/A/WebCore

  • Startup problems, even after erase and install

    Hi, i have a polycarbonate black macbook (I think its of the last black ones that were sold), I used to have leopard 10.5.8, and windows xp on it with refit as the boot menu, recently I removed refit, and updated to snow leopard, around that time i started having problems at boot time, either i got stuck at the grey apple screen, or got a prohibitory sign, or most commonly, a kernel panic, that leaves no log by the way. About 1 in 5 tries actually boots up, so I thought I should go the windows way and erase and install. And the problem is still there, I ran a memtest from single user mode, and all ram ended ok.
    I have since reinstalled rEFIt, and the problem at least changed, when I turn on the mac, at least the rEFIt logo comes up, sometimes it does load fine, and after that if i choose mac os its exactly as before, if I choose legacy os I get the no boot disk found error (which is what i expect since the computer only has mac os x)
    As an aditional note, when the computer does boot, everything works completely normal, the only problems are at boot up time.
    EDIT: Just to add that I cant seem to run Apple hardware test, it just doesnt boot holding the D key from either install disk, not before having installed refit, nor after
    Hope someone can find some insight in this, im really worried that this could be some logic board failing, I really cant afford such an expense. Thanks, and sorry for the long post, I wanted to detail it as much as possible
    Message was edited by: carlosjoan91

    If your hardware test boot device was on the hard drive rather than the installer disc, then installing rEFIt may destroy the boot loader originally used causing the loss of an ability to boot into the test. You would likely need an old version of the installer disc that had the hardware test on the disc rather than on the hard drive.
    At this point the best thing for you to do is the following:
    Extended Hard Drive Preparation
    1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
    5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
    Reinstall OS X and use Boot Camp Assistant to create a Windows volume instead of using rEFIt. You'll have fewer problems.

  • Want to erase and install + upgrade to Snow Leopard and remove virus.

    Hi,
    I'd like to do an erase and install after all these problems on my computer here:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2751511&tstart=0
    I'd like to upgrade to Snow Leopard at the same time.
    I was thinking of making a clone with Super Duper to an external hard disk.
    I was also thinking of making another clone to this Strato 500GB online storage offer here:
    http://www.strato-hosting.co.uk/online-storage-hidrive/index.html
    That way I'd have two backups if one went wrong.
    Is there anywhere I can get step my step instructions on how to go ahead with the upgrade and how to import the files I need afterwards without importing any previous nasties?
    Primarily I need to import:
    1) Various files on my desktop, which consist of Adobe files, Word, Text, PDF and JPEGS etc. (easy, I can do this)
    2) Data for the following applications: (I don't know how to do this and NEED to keep the files)
    My iPhoto Library
    my iTunes library
    my Mail history
    iCal
    Photobooth pics
    my Skype history
    my aMSN History
    "Things" data
    Safari Bookmarks
    Firefox Bookmarks
    Address Book
    Any tips on how to proceed would be much appreciated.
    Many thanks.

    Drag your home folder in /Users/ or elsewhere to another location, restart from the Mac OS X 10.6 DVD, use the Disk Utility in the Utilities menu to erase the drive, install the OS, and drag the items back from your old home folder as desired.
    (56883)

  • I recently upgraded to Lion, and immediately started having consistent problems with Open Office 12 (would hang, and need a Force quit to recover). Has anybody else seen these problems? Any solutions other than going back to Snow Leopard? (I did).

    I recently upgraded to Lion, and immediately started having consistent problems with Open Office 12 (would hang, and need a Force quit to recover). Has anybody else seen these problems? Any solutions other than going back to Snow Leopard? (I did). But I'd like to use iCloud with iPad.

    Hi Pete. The repair of disk permissions can help resolve  any application crashing or misbehaving.
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  • About to Erase and Re-Install Snow Leopard. Anything I should know?

    I'm about to erase and re-install Snow Leopard on my 2009 21.5' iMac. Something got snarled up during the migration process from my old 2006 iMac to this new one and things have been steadily getting more and more "weird" over time, so it's time for a clean slate.
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    My specific questions are as follows:
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    2. Does anyone know how to save Firefox Bookmarks, as it doesn't have an export option like Safari.
    3. Any other things I should be aware of.
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  • Just did an erase and install of Leopard is FCE 2 or iLife 08 or .Mac next?

    I want to add to my fresh erase and install of Leopard 10.5 -- FCE 2, iLife 08 and .Mac and iWork 05 and Quicktime Pro.
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    No.
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  • My 2006 iMac running Snow Leopard won't boot even after erasing and re-installing Snow Leopard (via my MacBookPro), either from the HD or DVD drive.  Can't get it to run Hardware Test.  Disk Utility says disk OK - files are there. What can I do?

    My 2006 iMac running Snow Leopard won't boot even after erasing and re-installing Snow Leopard.   I erased and re-installed by putting the iMac in Target Disk mode and usin my MacBookPro as the host.  But after numerous attempts I still can't get it to boot either from the HD or DVD drive. I just get the white screen after the wheel stops spinning.  I can't get it to run Hardware Test - just get the white screen.  If I use Disk Utility via my MBP it says the disk appears OK. All the Snow Leopad files appear to have been installed. What can I do?

    Hi-NRG Bwoy wrote:
    I erased and re-installed by putting the iMac in Target Disk mode and using my MacBookPro as the host.
    Reet the SMC and the PRAM
     Cheat sheet to help diagnose and fix your Mac
    Perhaps you installed the wrong version OS X onto the iMac, you can't use the disk from another Mac.
    clean the disk.
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    http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
    How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6

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