Rebuilding desktop on OS X...?

Does one need to rebuild the desktop on OS X as was needed when using Classic ?

Generally, there should be very little maintenance necessary for Tiger.
As Klaus mentioned, run Repair Permissions after install and updates. Also a "Verify Disk" before updating
The system runs periodic scripts to clear log and cache files in the wee hours each morning. If you do not leave your Mac on 24/7 you may want to run them manually now and then.
Also, there is usually no need to optimize or defrag in OS X.
In short, the less you do, the better. Unless you have a specific problem.
-mj
[email protected]
Message was edited by: macjack

Similar Messages

Finder Unexpectedly quit error message when rebuilding desktop in 9

When I try to rebuild the desktop, I am still getting the Finder Unexpectedly Quit error. This is happening with my iMac G3. I'm running OS 9.2.2 and 10.4.3. I followed all the directions in the Apple Help file here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2344
but it is not rebuilding the desktop at all. Every time I do I get that error message at startup even with extensions off. Is something wrong with my computer?

Nevermind. I figured out the solution. I ran Disk First Aid and it showed a lot of catalog problems so I just clicked Repair. When I tried to rebuild the desktop again, it worked. But if anyone else gets this error they can look at this thread.

Icons generic, Cannot rebuild desktop - what to reinstall?

Hello,
The power supply on my MDD has recently been replaced, and I've noticed freezing in OS 9. The repair shop tech suggested some fixes:
1. rebuilding the desktop
2. trashing finder and system folder prefs
3. archive reinstall
On trying to rebuild the desktop, I got a flashing dialog box saying the finder needs your attention and to restart. This happened several times, so I assume I somehow can't rebuild the desktop. (And Alsoft Disk Warrior won't let me rebuild the Mac HD, as it is the start up drive)
And 2. I tried trashing the system prefs. - and included the desktop startup prefs.(I think) Since I was led to believe these would regenerate on the restart...though I may have trashed one that didn't) Because evidently my video files (Quicktime, and the 3rd party video editing system application that uses them, no longer show up in the file list as icons, but as generic document (page with corner turned down) icons.
How can I restore the icons and also be able to rebuild the desktop? I certainly don't want to lose my video files (there must be thousands) or have to replace all the applications, so I think I have to do an archive and install (???).
It's been so long since I did that, and that was back in the Apple Care support days, so could someone please advise? I have all the discs that came with the computer, and I'm thinking I need to do this from one or more of the Software Restore discs, 1-4
Many thanks.
Keith

Hey Tex,
(First off, the other guy's reply here has nothing to do with my issue..)
OK, so I checked out your advice and spent hours trying to recover the icons and rebuild - - no such luck.
I finally got my icons back by reinstalling the NLE program but now, since I tried the first suggestions in the Apple doc., and after it said to turn off the extensions, create another set and what not, that caused more problems than I started out with. I think I rebooted about 25 times...so if there was ever a grown man close to tears, it was me.
The only thing I don't have now is DV in and out in OS 9. I have spent more hours trying out different extension sets that I had - some of which used to work fine, but now I'm unable to get a picture on my monitor or even an exchange with my camcorder when either are connected via firewire. And I'm not even getting the external drive to show up on the desktop - but it does in OS X - so I know there's some extension that needs to be tweaked, but I'll be d**ned if I have to go through all those settings turning them on and off for another 4 or 5 hours...
Help please OR ANY ONE!! I'm at my limit...and so discouraged. The solution's probably something incredibly simple. If anyone had once told me I'd end up as a slave to a computer I would never have believed them

Avoid sign-in when I restart / rebuild desktop

used my MAC OS X g-5 for about a year: 1. now whenever I restart I am required to sign in with my user name and password -- how do I fix that so I go right to my desktop on restart? -- 2. been using MACs since 1991, all had a way to rebuild the desktop -- now, when I PRAM for 2 chimes I get just a desktop, but no little block asking me if I want to REBUILD -- also, if I wish just to rebuild the desktop, nothing happens, no little block to OK rebuiding -- please advise -- thanks, Dudley

now whenever I restart I am required to sign in with my user name and password -- how do I fix that so I go right to my desktop on restart?
Open the Accounts pane of System Preferences and set up automatic login for your user account. If you can't do this or it doesn't work, open the Security pane of System Preferences and verify that the checkbox to disable automatic login isn't checked and that FileVault is off for that account; you cannot automatically login to an account protected by FileVault. If you still can't log in automatically, run the Repair Permissions command in the Disk Utility, which is in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder, and try again.
now, when I PRAM for 2 chimes I get just a desktop, but no little block asking me if I want to REBUILD -- also, if I wish just to rebuild the desktop, nothing happens, no little block to OK rebuiding
Mac OS X does not have a desktop database outside of the Classic environment. If you are using Classic, you can rebuild the desktop from the Classic pane of System Preferences.
(19435)

Finder Quits Upon "Rebuild Desktop?"

Suddenly I can't rebuild my desktop anymore on OS9 because every time I try to rebuild it, the Finder quits about 10 seconds into the process.
Any suggestions??

Hi, Gina -
If you have not been turning extensions off before rebuilding the desktop, try doing that. Here's how -
To rebuild the desktop safely, restart - immediately hold down the Shift key until you get the "Extensions Off" message; then release Shift and hold down the Command and Option keys until you get the splash screen asking if you want to rebuild the desktop; click yes (or okay). Once that's done, restart to turn your extensions back on.

Long desktop rebuild

I recently purchased a refurbished iBook G3. It came loaded with OS 9.2 and 10.2., as well as the OS CD's for both systems. I also received a CD containing AppleWorks 6, which I decided to install. Before the installation was complete, a message appeared that the desktop was being rebuilt. This took an hour to complete!
I was told by the company I bought the iBook from, that possibly a desktop file was corrupted, causing the long rebuild. They suggested reinstalling 9.2, from the CD which they supplied, and this would get rid of the corrupted desktop file(s). After that, a desktop rebuild took about 5 minutes. So far, so good.
Then, the other day I downloaded TechToolLite, and wanting to be sure everything was up to par, I used TechTool to rebuild the desktop again, the idea being that a TechTool rebuild is more thorough, because it actually deletes the desktop files and rebuilds them from scratch.
I'm 45 minutes into the rebuild and the "rebuilding desktop" progress bar is only about a quarter of the way complete. This has made me nervous.
Does anyone know why the rebuild should take so long, based on the above info?
Thanks for any thoughts on this.

I'm chiming in here too, I use Disk Warrior although I have tt pro too I still prefer DW... another little tool I use in between Disk warrior use is called Trashdesktop.
It is free and is really great for desktop rebuilding. You instal the program, reboot to ensure it is working then when the desktop is reached you simply drag/drop the closed hard drive icon(s), if more than one or partitioned then restart once more.
It doesn't look like it did anything but what it did do was deposit the invisible database file into the trashcan. When you reboot it recreates brand new ones from the things you have installed on your computer and touches nothing else.
Then you can use DW for an even more thorough cleaning once a month. I use Trash*Desktop once a week because I edit docs constantly for a website i administrate at and my own plus artwork, you may not need to use it as often depending on how many times you adjust docs and such.
http://mypage.bluewin.ch/opus/freeware/td/
to download it you need to go to the bottom of the page.

Can't log in - desktop won't load

Hi, and thanks for reading this. I hope someone here can help me.
I have a G4 flat-panel iMac, running 10.2.8. Bought brand new in 2002 and have had no problems, with the exception of the hard drive going out a few months later and replaced under warranty. (Apparently a few of the dual-boot machines had this problem.) They also upgraded the OS to 10.2.8 and the computer has run beautifully ever since. Until the other night.
I was online and the modem disconnected but Internet Connect kept displaying "Disconnecting". This happens on occasion and the only way out of it is to shut down the computer and restart. So I did, and when the computer restarted I could not log in. The computer started as usual and seemed fine, the log-in screen appeared, I entered my password, the computer said "logging in", a blue screen appeared briefly... and then kicked back to the login screen. The desktop never appeared.
After several tries of that, I decided to reset my password (with the system CD). It let me reset my password and the computer recognized the fact I had changed my password. (You know how the log-in screen "shakes" to signal a wrong password - that never happened.) I tried to log in again and it said "logging in"... and returned to the log-in screen. The same thing happened when I tried the root user account.
I was able to start up from my Norton CD and changed the startup disk to 9.2. In 9.2, I can see the contents of my hard drive including my User folder in OS X and everything that had been on my desktop in OS X is right there in the "desktop" folder for my user name. I can move, copy, and delete things there. It's all there; the desktop just won't load when I start in OS X.
I don't know if it helps, but in 9.2, the computer recognizes my ZIP drive, CDs, and my Wacom tablet and mouse.
I have gone through the discussion boards and articles here and cannot find where anyone else has had the exact same problem. I have tried the possible solutions below, and none of them have changed anything:
* Norton Utilities (Disk Doctor) - fixed some minor errors, then ran it again and no problems were found.
* Safe Boot - I couldn't get the mouse to work, and when I figured out the keyboard "shortcuts" to log in, I got the same thing as before... "logging in" and then getting kicked back to the log-in screen.
* Disk Utility (from the Mac OS X install CD) - it fixed a couple things then said that my hard drive appeared to be okay.
* fsck (single-user mode) - it said that "Macintosh HD appears to be OK". So at least the hardware seems okay.
* Rebuilding desktop - a long shot but I figured it was worth a try; nothing changed.
* Reset privileges (single-user mode) - as far as I can see, nothing changed even after doing this.
* Startup items (folder) - nothing seems out of place.
* Disable log-in items - I still couldn't log in
* In single-user mode: when trying one of the suggestions from an article here, I typed "cd/Users/{my user name}/Library, then mv Preferences Preferences_old, and received a message stating "no such file or directory."
Looking through the contents of my hard drive, I can see that there is a Desktop icon for OS 9, but not anything for OS X. In theory, shouldn't there also be a desktop icon for OS X? Has my computer somehow lost its "connection" or "map" to my OS X desktop? I ran fsck again today so that I could look at logs/parse failed/plist/etc (an article I found here on apple.com) and following those steps, I noticed there was a line that said "root device is mounted read-only." So I can only assume that has to do with the fact my OS X desktop doesn't load.
So, with all that being said (it's a lot, I know, and I hope it all makes sense) ... Is this problem something simple that I can fix myself, or do I need to take it into the shop and have a technician look at it? As you can imagine, this is all getting very frustrating, with limited access to an old version of Photoshop, SimpleText, and a very old web browser that only works on a few sites (and thankfully Apple.com is one of them). I miss my OS X.
Thanks again for reading this, and for any advice/assistance you may be able to provide.

Thanks, Anna. Excellent work. Everything seems fine, except, of course, the booting OS X part.
First try Resetting the PRAM
• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously later.
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command + Option + P + R keys immediately after the startup chime.
• Hold keys down until you hear the startup chime for the third time.
• Release the keys and immediately and allow computer to boot.
The fact that you can boot in Safe Mode suggests that you may have a Login item that conflicts with the startup process. If resetting PRAM does not work try this:
Boot computer in Safe Mode.
If you are able to get into the Login items (Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items) make a note of all the log in items (write it down). Then delete them all by selecting each one in turn and clicking the minus sign under the list. Shut down and try booting the computer normally. If you are able to boot successfully add the Login items on your list one by one and try rebooting each time you have added one. This should help you isolate the offending item.
I hope one of these methods works. Post back and let me know.
cornelius

Empty desktop

hi all, (first time around and crying for help...)
my desktop seems to have vanished, volume icons are still there, but all files i had on the desktop have disappeared.
the desktop file itself seems to have changed to a text file (?), dbl-clicking it opens textedit with an email text i was working on when this happened (???).
yes, i was saving from email (eudora) as text, but to another volume, most certainly not to my desktop file!
there was no crash, no kernel panic, everything works fine, i only lost all tutorial pdf's i collected in the last days all over the web for my actual job (this kills me!), they were on the desktop waiting for backup
after searching the forum:
i did not rename or anyhow fiddle with my home directory.
file vault is off.
i am the owner and have read/write access to my desktop file.
i didn't zap the pram (yet?), should i?
i did delete my "com.apple.desktop.plist" file to no avail.
listing all desktop files gives ". .. .DS_Store .localized Desktop", nothing else.
i tried repairing permissions, they were ok, several restarts and force-qitting the finder didn't help, rebuilding desktop isn't osx-ish, is it? made backup of desktop file on another volume, trashed the original, restarted - no change, so i put the copy desktop back in place.
how can i rescue those missing files?
and what was this, so it doesn't repeat by accident?
tia,
rdmax
G4/450 dual, 10.3.5

thanks for answering.
tried disk utility, it couldn't repair it, followed all tips from your link and most certainly i had all errors they mention there.
finally used techtool pro 4 which initially couldn't repair it either, but finally did it after 6x trying... only to find that disc completely scrambled, all prefs gone, network+printing not working and some more...
updated this damaged 10.3.5 to 10.3.9, it works now although i won't try it out for long - just backuping everything important and preparing for a full disk sweep with fresh system install.
guess i'm sol on this one...
thanks,
rdm

Tons stored on my desktop - any problems with that?

I have these really cool icons (stickers) that i keep large so most of my stuff is stored on my desktop. I remember in classic it was a no no to keep to much stored on your desktop - you would often have to 'rebuild desktop'. Is this an issue in OSX? can I put as much as I want on there without performance suffering? Any info would help. Thanks!

Hi Marcus MaColonna;
Yes. Storage a lot on the desktop will impact performance negatively. You should store your things elsewhere, such as Home, if you done want to have poor performance.
Allan

Internal Hard Drives Disappeared, Finder Memory Problem

Hello Helpful Folks,
I recently installed an addional internal Hard Drive, and an additional 1GB SDRAM. This worked great for a day, but the next morning, after powering up, system was extremely sluggish, and after much deadline-induced impatient problem solving, has gone from bad to worse (system refuses to acknowledge existence of internal Hard Drives). I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but as
the devil is in the details, I figure too much info is better than not enough.
Following is a breakdown of my system: AS IT LAST WORKED; RECENT UPGRADES; and MY LAME ATTEMPTS AT PROBLEM SOLVING THAT HAVE MADE THINGS WORSE. Please don't interpret my all caps as shouting, just trying to organize this post for better clarity.
System is dedicated to Video Editing with FCP 3, running under OS 9.2.2. System is "off the Grid", i.e. no network, no internet, no printer, no gaming devices. System was purchased new in July 2001, by a friend. At one point I know this system had an Airport card, which was removed prior to my purchase in 2003. I can't remember what else it may have had installed in its history, but here's what it has now:
SYSTEM AS IT LAST WORKED:
**bold items are upgrades Original Owner or I installed with no apparent problems**
Power Mac G4 "Quicksilver" 2001
867 PowerPC G4, 256 L2, 2MB L3
-1 Stick "ValueRAM - KVR 133 x 64 C3/512" in PC 133 DIMM slot **
- "Virtual Memory" was turned off years ago due to conflict with FCP 3
-2 empty DIMM slots
-1 60 GB internal HD (Maxtor Ultra ATA/100), 1 partition, formatted HFS+, jumpered as "Master" on Internal ATA 2 ID=0 (which as I understand it is ATA/66 speed)
-1 Pioneer "Superdrive" DVD-R/W/CD-R/W on Internal ATA 0 ID=0
-NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB SDRAM in AGP Slot, feeding a 17" Apple Studio Display.
-PCI Display Card "formacGA7" - not attached to any external device, not sure what its intended purpose is.**
-3 Empty PCI Slots
-OEM Keyboard attached to Monitor's rear USB port.
-Microsoft 3 Button Wheel mouse with "IntelliEye" (wheel is 3rd Button) connected to Keyboard USB port (right side).**
-2 OEM FireWire (400) ports
-2 OEM USB (1) ports
Peripherals that have worked in various configurations with this system over the past 3 years:
-3 OWC Mercury Elite ("Oxford Chipset") Externally powered, External FireWire(400) 200GB Hard Drives, 1 partition each, formatted HFS+, daisy-chained to either of the FireWire ports.
-1 Canon GL1 MiniDV camera, attached either to the other FireWire port, or to the last drive in the chain, depending on my urgency/laziness factor. BTW, FCP 3 has worked flawlessly controlling this Cam for logging and Batch Capturing.
Applications on System Hard Drive that I have OEM CDs for:
-OS 9.2 - (I think I remember that OS X was removed from system due to conflicts shortly after original purchase)
-FCP 3
-DiskWarrior (version unknown, purchased from Alsoft in 2003)
-OWC Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools ver 3.5
Other CDs I have:
OEM CDs for Power Mac G4:
-Software Install, OS 9.2, CD vers 1
-Software Install, OS 10.0.4, CD vers 1
-Software Restore, OS 9.2 & 10.0.4 CDs vers 1, Discs 1-4 of 4.
-OEM Apple Hardware Test; Power Mac G4, SW vers 1.2.1
Applications on system Hard Drive that I don't have CDs for, that I rarely use, but I'd like to keep:
-After Effects 5.0
-QuickTime Player 6.0.2
-Toast Audio Extractor 1.1
-Toast Titanium 5.0.2
Applications on system Hard Drive I use if my wife is busy on our Windows XP machine:
-Photshop 6.0
-Microsoft Word & Excel
# of other Applications on System Hard Drive I either don't use or may be integral to the system: 260
# of Control Panels:
-Enabled: 34
-Disabled: 0
# of Extensions:
-Enabled: 174
-Disabled: 0
note: a number of the applications and extensions are for AOL, Quickbooks, Microsoft Money and the like, as well as other things I don't use (Airport, USB printers, Networking, etc.)
Smart things I did:
-Regularly made backup copies of my FCP projects to the external drives.
-Bought a copy of MacDrive so I can see what's on my External Drives on the XP machine.
-Printed out System Profile before I installed upgrades.
-Thoroughly searched this discussion board for and gathered as much info as I could before upgrading.
Dumb things I did:
-Made a copy, but not a clone, of my System Folder to one of the external drives when I first got it.
-Didn't keep any sort of separate log of what's on the External Drives.
-Never ran any sort of Disk Maintenance, even after one of the Externals crashed (DiskWarrior saved my butt on that).
-Ignored some of the advice on this discussion board.
Really dumb thing I did without even realizing it:
Captured all media for a rush job onto my internal system Hard Drive, as well as storing and using massive jpgs for the same job on that same drive...
Which led to painfully slow rendering times, and crashes caused by "Error: Out of Memory", which I interpreted as "Must buy more memory" and not "must make sure I'm not trying to edit media stored on system drive, especially with massive jpgs that I should reduce"
RECENT UPGRADES:
Here's what I did, and how I did it:
Turned off system, disconnected all External FireWire Devices, disconnected Monitor, opened case, touched various metal parts of case and power supply to discharge any Static, unplugged power cable.
-Installed 2 512MB sticks of "Lifetime" PC 133 SDRAM; total System RAM is now 1.5GB, all 3 DIMM slots now occupied.
-Installed 1 Maxtor "DiamondMax" Ultra ATA/133 100GB Hard Drive (8 MB buffer) as "Slave" (no jumper) in top of U-Carrier above System Hard Drive; attached to middle of original Apple ribbon cable, attached available power plug.
Taped spare jumper to inside of empty drive bay, noting origin and date. Did NOT push PMU button. Carefully closed case. Reconnected Monitor, did NOT reconnect any FireWire devices. Powered System on, but did NOT perform PRAM reset.
I don't remember the exact order of what happened next, but I think: System booted up normally, a window popped up saying a new drive had been found, would I like to intitialize it?, which I did as Mac OS extended, and then named. If I was instructed to restart, I did so, otherwise did not. Clicked on "about this Mac" and saw that it now showed 1.5GB RAM. I then went about moving Media/Render files off the System drive (and one of the Externals) onto the Internal Drive, with a combination of FCP's Media Manager, and dragging from the Finder. After files had copied, dragged Media/Render files from System Drive to Trash. Opened FCP project, had FCP re-link to new locations of missing files. Saved, closed, and re-opened project, set Capture/Scratch disc to new internal Drive. At some point I changed FCP's Memory Allocation from whatever it was to 512000KB Minimum, and 900000KB Prefered (and I hope I got all those zeroes right). Did NOT restart after changing Memory Allocation, unless a window popped up instructing me to do so, in which case I did. Re-opened my project, rendered a few thing at a noticeably increased speed, saved everything, emptied the Trash, shut everything down, and called it a night as it was 4:30 am.
A few hours later, I plugged the MiniDV and an External Drive into the FW ports and powered up the System. It was behaving extremely sluggishly. I would click on something, the pointer would turn into a wristwatch (sometimes with the minute-hand moving, sometimes not) and like an actual minute later, what I'd clicked on would open. All three drives were on the desktop, still had their files, and "About this Mac" still showed 1.5GB total Memory. So I powered down, disconnected the FW devices, waited a bit, and powered back up. Same sluggish response. I tried to open my FCP project file, and instead got a Window that said something to the effect of "The Application associated with this document could not be found". I think I tried to open FCP from the Applications folder on the System Drive and got the same message (I'd only had 3 hours sleep, no coffee, my client had died, and his family was coming for whatever I had in a few hours).
LAME ATTEMPTS AT PROBLEM SOLVING THAT HAVE MADE THINGS WORSE
Panic had set in, which never solves anything, so I don't remember what order I performed which tasks, between searching for clues in this forum, and convincing myself that that would be faster than trying to compose a question, waiting for a response, etc.
The first two things I did, and I can't remember which I did first (both from Keyboard Commands during Restart):
Rebuild Desktop
PRAM Reset
Neither of those solved the problem, so I continued.
I tried restarting without extensions.
I would get errors that said something like "Not Enough Memory to Open Finder".
I tried booting from Disc 1 of the Software Restore Disk, which only wanted to destroy my data.
I tried booting from the OS 10 disk, with the same result.
I was finally able to boot from the OS 9.2 Software Install Disk, and actually saw both internal drives on the desktop, and the 1.5GB RAM in About this Mac. I tried to allocate more memory to Finder, but was informed that "Cannot Perform Requested Operation. This operation requires versions above 8.0".
I think at this point I decided that I must have too many extensions, and started disabling ones I thought irrelevent to my cause (mostly anything that said "AOL", "Airport", "Ethernet", "Printer", "Modem", "Speakable", and a couple things called "Open TPT".
It gets worse. Then I decided to turn off some "unnecessary" things via the control panels, but somehow managed to disable the control panels themselves: AppleTalk, DialAssist, File Sharing, Modem, Mouse (as I saw that Microsoft Mouse was among the others), Remote Access, Speech, USB Printer Sharing, and possibly TCP/IP.
That certainly didn't help anything (though upon restarting from the OS 9.2 Disc I was able to see the extensions and control panels in their respective "Disabled" folders in the System Folder). But I still wasn't able to get more Memory to Finder.
So, I decided a few more PRAM resets might help, which succeeded in making both Internal Hard Drives disappear. I tried booting up from the DiskWarrior disc, but even the Mighty DiskWarrior couldn't find the drives. I performed the longer, in depth version of the Apple Hardware Tools tests, which reported that everything's fine (including the new RAM), but made no mention of the Hard Drives at all. The deadline having long passed, I shut the system down. I read through more posts and tech articles, etc.
I searched my External drives with MacDrive on my XP, and found the drive that has the copy of my System Folder (which shows all extensions and control panels as enabled); not sure if the Quicksilver will boot from that, I don't know what the Keyboard command for booting from a FireWire drive is (if there is one) and the drive itself only has 900MB of free space.
I can't find any reference to Internal ATA drives anywhere in the MacDrive documentation; if it was possible I'd put them into the XP, get the files off the Mac drives, reformat them and install OS9 from the Discs.
This is where I am now:
The Quick Silver is still powered down. I removed the Microsft mouse and replaced it with the OEM Apple mouse. I opened the case, and removed the PRAM/Backup battery (manufacture date: July 2001). Couldn't find my voltmeter, so took the bat to Radio Shack and bought a new one. Had the Radio Shack guy test the old one: it showed 3.69 volts still. Have not installed the new battery yet. The case is still open, waiting for any advice any of you might have to offer.
Thank you all so much for your patience in perusing and pursuing this.
Sincerely,
Patterson
Power Mac G4 Quicksilver 867 Mac OS 9.2.x 17" Studio Display, 512MB RAM

Thank you Rodney and John,
The jumpers are correct for both Maxtor Drives.
Rodney, you are correct in that the initial problem (slow rendering/"out of Memory" crashes) was caused by my not realizing I'd stupidly captured several GBs of media to my system drive, and not checking which drives those files were on (as I'd assumed I'd put them on one of my external media drives) once that problem presented itself.
Before I'd determined what I'd done, I bought the extra RAM. After I'd found the media files on the System Drive, and saw that my dedicated media drives were too full to easily move them, I decided to buy an additional Internal drive so that I could:
-Move the Media onto it relatively quickly and finish my urgent project.
-Juggle all my media into a more organized fashion for archiving (as most of my projects are on-going long-term affairs)
-Wipe it, Partition it, and clone my System Drive onto it, as a spare bootable drive in case my OEM System Drive failed.
Copying the Media files onto the New Drive and moving the System Drive's Media files into the Trash worked great: huge improvement in Rendering, etc.
Before shutting down for the night I Emptied the Trash, and was pleased with the amount of space I'd freed up on the System Drive.
My guess is that the System Drive was terribly fragmented, having been subjected to intense use over the past 5 years without any sort of Drive Maintainence, and deleting that massive amount from it in one shot caused my extreme system sluggishness upon Startup the next day.
My subsequent lame attempts to solve the sluggishnes ultimately resulted in my losing access to both drives.
Today, I replaced the Backup Battery, pushed the PMU, re-attached the AC, and Powered Up with the case open as per your suggestion.
It was trying for a few minutes (the gray screen went black at one point, and then returned to gray) before presenting me with the flashing question mark.
There was, however, a quiet but distinct "buzzing" sound that would alternate: 1 sec "buzz", one second silence, one second "buzz", one second silence, etc. coming from the drives, even after the "?" appeared.
I powered down, removed the Ribbon and Power Cables from the new "Slave" drive, and powered up again, with the exact same results.
I powered down, removed the Ribbon and Power cables from the original "Master" drive, reinstalled the Jumper on the New Drive as "Master", plugged the End of the Ribbon and the Power cables into the New "Master" drive and powered up. The screen went to the "?" within 20 seconds instead of 4+ minutes, and no more "buzzing".
I put the Apple Hardware Tools Disk in, ran the "long" test, and everything came out fine.
I have to abandon this for now, but thanks again for your previous advice, and any more you may have!
Cheers,
Patterson

HardwareKey corrupted when I login as standard user on my x10.3.9???

Hi all intelligent guys,
Need your help here....
The problem is: I just created a Standard user with some limite on x10.3.9,then when i launch Preps v4.7 (running in Classic9 environment), it shows me that:" Hardwarekey maybe corrupted......". But when I re-login as Administrator it is O.K. How & Why??
Many thanks & have sweet Valentine's Day!!!
Jane

Try repairing permissions have you tried that?
Go to Applications/Utilites/Disk Utility/ Then Select your HD and repair permissions.
Then repair OS 9 Permissions by going to System Preferences/ click Classic/ then Advanced/ Rebuild Desktop/ Also try starting without extensions.

Unable to load HP printer driver-Error message!

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone can be of any assistance.
I recently purchased a HP Photosmart 2575 all-in-one printer and installed the necessary software, which said it was successfully installed. However, whenever I boot up the G3 I keep getting the following message 'Unable to load the printer drive, open the applications Get Info dialog and increase the preferred memory size. If this does not help try quitting all other applications or reinstalling the printer software.'
After clicking ok on this message about four times the message goes and I am able to print fine. Just wondering why this is happening. I have increased the memory allocation and also turnt on the virtual memory to see if this makes any difference, but all to no avail. I have also uninstalled and then reinstalled the software to see if this makes a difference, but that didn't help either.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance
PS: The printer is connected via ethernet on my router to enable me to print from another machine

Use Techtool Lite or Trash*Desktop (TD may delete Finder comments )to rebuild your desktop w/extensions off. Does a better job than manually & you avoid all the finger gymnatics. You just have to hold down the shift key to shut off extensions.
Restart to turn the extensions back on again.
If you want to rebuild manually, see KB article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=10182 Rebuilding Desktop File and Icon Recovery.

Can I transfer system from old macbook to new macbook using same OS with time machine?

I have a MacBook running snow Leopard. Thinking of getting a new Pro but want to just transfer my entire desktop and system to new MacBook using Time Machine restore. Is this possible? If not what are my other options so I do not have to rebuild desktop?
Thanks!

You can do it either directly from the older MacBook or from Time Machine. Your new MBP is unlikely to boot to the system on the MB as the newer Pro will have a later OS build and different hardware drivers among other things.
Just use Setup Assistant. When you boot the new MBP, after the welcome video you'll be taken into Setup Assistant; you'll be asked if you want to transfer your Applications, Home Folder and prefences from another source. Choose either 'from another Mac' or 'from a TM backup' as appropriate, and connect the Mac (by firewire) or the TM drive when prompted and let it do it's thing.
That will ensure you get one account with no permissions errors and all your stuff should work just as it did on the MB.

Weird behavior in Classic or not?

It has been a long time since I've needed to use Classic (on 10.4.something) Today I needed to do something that could only be done in classic. I thought I saw some weird behavior so I tried a couple of other classic apps.    All started Classic just fine, brought up their document window and menu bar. But there was no classic desktop under the app's window and while the menu bar showed "finder" as an open application that could be switched to (the right-most menu item) but when I switched to it I got the OS X finder, not a OS 9 one.   Occasionally I can get what looks like a Finder menu bar, but that's on it are the Apple and Help and the app switcher.
Recently I've been playing with Sheepshaver on a Snow Leopard system, which brings up an honest-to-goodness OS 9 desktop.
Now, I am misremembering how Classic works (in effect, no desktop and no finder) or is something wrong. I checked all three of my systems running Tiger and they have the same behavior.   (A G4 -- that will still boot into OS 9, a powerbook G4, and a mac-mini.)
Ted Lee
Minnetonka, MN

OK, I found an article on rebuilding the desktop and it indicated that while there is a file for the OS9 desktop, in the classic environment it is invisible and can only be found through an alias that is created on the OS X desktop. I suspect I've deleted that alias since I didn't have any particular need for it.   The article tells you how to re-create the alias from the terminal. indeed there is a folder there and it is empty. No particular use for it -- if you select Desktop from an OS 9 app you get the OS X desktop.   I can also see why there's no real OS 9 finder -- anything you could have done from it you can do from the OS X finder -- except the "Apple Menu" and that's why that's under the classic icon on the right half of an OS X menu bar. There still is a "rebuild desktop" in the Classic prefs -- I assume that's so you get the right doc/app association in the classic environment, since I don't think OS X understands the classic creator/type info.
So sounds very much like I'm misremembering!
Ted Lee
Minnetonka, MN

Can you run Tiger and OS 8.6 on the same computer? RE: Repair Permissions

Hello,
I don't fully understand how "Repair Permissions" work and when it is needed and therefore I would like to post this question for some clarification. Using "Repair Permissions" for troubleshooting is a controversial issue. I read this interesting opinion about Repairing Permissions and now I am concerned that it may not be safe for me to install my old OS 8.6 on my OSX installed computer due to a "permission" conflict between OS 8 and OS X.
Could someone confirm this with me please? Could this cause some file permission problems?
I would use OS 8.6 to run my older Adobe Illustrator 8 application and photoshop 6. And then I will boot onto Tiger for everything else. I would switch a few times per day back and forth.
Basically, is it safe to run Tiger on the same computer that has OS 8.6 installed on it? (I am not concerned about making 8.6 run in the Classic environment because I know that doesn't work - I am refering to having separate bootable installs)
[1] http://www.unsanity.org/archives/000410.php
PS I am aware of how to change my startup OS on this particular computer (b&w G3). I would have to have the two OSs on the same volume and launch X by pressing x -key during startup due to the fact that OS 8.6 doesn't have the Startup Disk feature introduced in OS 9. That was an earlier separate discussion that has since been solved.
PS
I could choose to instead use my OS 9.2 but I have reserved that OS for another computer unfortunately. However depending on the outcome of this post, I might have to reconsider.

This is a really difficult issue to resolve! Apple doesn't have much documentation that covers running OS 8 & OS X on the same drive. There are, however, a few things that it might helpful to know:
1. Repairing permissions with Disk Utility in OS X won't touch user-created files. It only repairs things that have a receipt file, which are created by installers. The unsanity reference explains this; you might want to review that part of the article again.
2. Disk Utility has a separate repair OS 9 permissions function (accessed in the menus), but AFAIK, this only repairs permissions on the OS 9 system folder "blessed" by the Classic system pref as the one to use for Classic. I doubt this would be useful for the OS 8.6 system.
3. Of greater concern than mis-set permissions is file system damage. Under no circumstances should you use any disk repair utility on a Tiger drive except those that "know" about Tiger's file structure. This rules out using Disk First Aid from either OS 8 or OS 9, or any OS 8 or 9 third party utilities. (See this Apple document for the details.) I don't know if this also applies to OS 8's 'rebuild desktop' function, but I would avoid it to be on the safe side.
4. If you do decide to reformat or partition your drive for dual booting (as you mentioned in your other thread), do so only with Tiger's Disk Utility & remember to check the 'install OS 9 drivers' option or you won't be able to boot into OS 8 or 9, even if you have a viable system folder for either on the drive. See this Apple document for more info.
5. In light of the above, it is well worth getting OS 9 to use with Tiger on your B&W, as long as any older apps you need to run are compatible with it. (There should be no need to use OS 8/9 with text files anyway, since OS X can handle all the old text formats.) In fact, unless you need to use some peripheral that has no OS X driver, you probably will do just fine by using Classic with the old apps, eliminating the need to reboot completely.
6. If you need to buy OS 9, one inexpensive source is OWC's Mac OS 9.1 - OEM CD. At $35, it is a cheap way to avoid the headaches of OS 8 with Tiger! Note that you can upgrade from this 9.1 version to 9.2.2 for free with Apple's updates available from the Mac OS 9: Available Updates web page.
Message was edited by: R C-R

Rebuilding desktop on OS X...?

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