Start afresh, Imac running 10.6.8

Hi Guys
I have had my imac now for a few years, its getting slugish and the wheel icon keeps going and going and I can wait for simple tasks ages for it to do something.
I cannot dont want to move to Lion just yet as I have my accounts on this Mac and no way of moving these to lion.
Could anyone give me pointers on how to do this. I had a issue once with iphoto and tried to restore from backup on time machine only to be told that I dont have authorisation, so obviously dont want that to happen with all my files
Although thats the thing I dont want to delete everything and pop an exact copy right back on, I want to choose what gets reinstalled, so I can get rid of some software I dont use and mkae my IMAC run faster as it once did

A couple of questions:
1. What size is the internal HD and how much is stored on it?
2. When you run Activity Monitor (Applications-Utilities-Activity Monitor) and check the System Memory tab how much Free RAM does your computer have?

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I have an iMac running Lion and W7 with boot camp . It has been operating flawlessly until I went to reboot into Mac tonight. Screen went black, and system is unresponsive. I've tried force quitting and turning power off. Hard drive starts but that's it..

I have a 5 month old iMac running Lion and W7 with the latest version of boot camp . It has been operating flawlessly until I went to reboot into Mac tonight. Screen went black, and system is unresponsive. I've tried force quitting and turning power off. Hard drive starts, there's a small amount of drive activity and that's it.

Hi Jane, your info may still be there, look in the Users folder at root of the drive, how many users are there there?
It sounds like this may have happened...
Return to default desktop, apparent "loss" of home directory, (it can happen spontaneously too)...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107854

Why does my 27" iMac running OS 10.6.8 hang on the grey screen at start up?

My 27" iMac, running OS 10.6.8, has started running slowly when loading Apps and when running Safari. Also, when powered, on It has started stopping on the grey screen before the Apple logo displays. To get past this I must turn the Mac off and then back on. Does anyone know what would be causing this behaviour and what I should try for a fix?

It could be a sign of an impending harddrive failure. If you don't backup regularly, I would strongly suggest you start. Don't run ANY anti-virus software as it really messes with your system and if you do regular software updates you'll be fine there.
OnyX for MAC is a good application to clean out those cob webs:
OnyX for Mac
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11582/onyx
http://helpdesk.hsc.unt.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Mac-OS-X-10.6-run-OnyX.pd f

My iPhoto starts up and freezes. I have tried rebuilding and using iPhoto Library Manager. I have an iMac running 10.7.3. It was working before recent updates by Apple. How can I troubleshoot?

My iPhoto starts up and freezes. I have tried rebuilding and using iPhoto Library Manager. I have an iMac running 10.7.3. It was working before recent updates by Apple. How can I troubleshoot?

Thank you. Might be a bit more than 50 but close.
Date/Time:       2012-04-09 12:46:07 -0400
OS Version:      10.7.3 (Build 11D50d)
Architecture:    x86_64
Report Version: 9
Command:         iPhoto
Path:            /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Version:         8.1.2 (8.1.2)
Build Version:   8
Project Name:    iPhotoProject
Source Version: 4240000
Parent:          launchd [142]
PID:             980
Event:           hang
Duration:        1.81s
Steps:           19 (100ms sampling interval)
Pageins:         0
Pageouts:        0
Process:         iPhoto [980]
Path:            /Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto
Architecture:    i386
UID:             502
Thread 0x50630
User stack:
    19 ??? (in iPhoto) [0x3172]
      19 ??? (in iPhoto) [0x124b80]
        19 NSApplicationMain + 1054 (in AppKit) [0x9c5eb261]
          19 -[NSApplication run] + 911 (in AppKit) [0x9c357675]
            19 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 113 (in AppKit) [0x9c35b306]
              19 _DPSNextEvent + 678 (in AppKit) [0x9c35ba9c]
                19 BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 88 (in HIToolbox) [0x90129356]
                  19 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 381 (in HIToolbox) [0x901294e7]
                    19 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 318 (in HIToolbox) [0x9012217f]
                      19 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 120 (in CoreFoundation) [0x99dce328]
                        19 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 332 (in CoreFoundation) [0x99dce47c]
                          19 __CFRunLoopRun + 1112 (in CoreFoundation) [0x99dcec68]
                            19 __CFRunLoopDoSources0 + 246 (in CoreFoundation) [0x99da4d96]
                              19 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 15 (in CoreFoundation) [0x99da53df]
                                19 __NSThreadPerformPerform + 503 (in Foundation) [0x9ac96e40]
                                  19 -[NSObject performSelector:withObject:] + 65 (in CoreFoundation) [0x99e2dde1]
                                    19 ??? (in iPhoto) [0x50792e]
                                      19 -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 92 (in Foundation) [0x9ac45012]
                                        19 _CFXNotificationPost + 2776 (in CoreFoundation) [0x99de3a38]
                                          19 ___CFXNotificationPost_block_invoke_1 + 275 (in CoreFoundation) [0x99e18cb3]
                                            19 __-[NSNotificationCenter addObserver:selector:name:object:]_block_invoke_1 + 49 (in Foundation) [0x9ac59e25]
                                              19 ??? (in iPhoto) [0x5c2a86]
                                                19 -[NSLock lock] + 185 (in Foundation) [0x9ac4c826]
                                                  19 __psynch_mutexwait + 10 (in libsystem_kernel.dylib) [0x93b74876]
Kernel stack:
    19 hndl_unix_scall + 281 (in mach_kernel) [0xffffff80002d7f39]
      19 unix_syscall + 472 (in mach_kernel) [0xffffff80005ca448]
        19 psynch_mutexwait + 1403 (in mach_kernel) [0xffffff80005a043b]
          19 ksyn_block_thread_locked + 67 (in mach_kernel) [0xffffff800059a7d3]
            19 thread_block_reason + 299 (in mach_kernel) [0xffffff800022f39b]
              19 thread_continue + 1661 (in mach_kernel) [0xffffff800022f11d]
                19 machine_switch_context + 361 (in mach_kernel) [0xffffff80002c0939]

I am unable to start up my iMac running on 10.4.11 - the startup disk is installed and will not start up eben when I hold down the "C" Key. I do get the apple, but then it disappears.

I am unable to start up my iMac running on 10.4.11 - the startup disk is installed and will not start up eben when I hold down the "C" Key. I do get the apple, but then it disappears.

Query by serial number
Apple's warrenty database will identify the type of Mac you have. Your serial number is securely sent, but you get only the name of your machine.
https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do
This site provides more information, but lacks security.
"A serial number is a unique, identifying number or group of numbers and letters assigned to an individual piece of hardware or software. It's used for various things depending on the product / brand but what is your Mac's serial number for and more importantly... what is it hiding and what can it do for you ?"
http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php
or
This site provides more information, but lacks security too.
"A serial number is a unique, identifying number or group of numbers and letters assigned to an individual piece of hardware or software. It's used for various things depending on the product / brand but what is your Mac's serial number for and more importantly... what is it hiding and what can it do for you ?"
http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php
http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html
( hint by K Shaffer )

I am running OS X Yosemite on my four year old MacBook Pro which has become progressively slower and is loaded with applications I no longer use. I plan to start afresh by formatting a new 1TB SSD as a boot disk and reinstalling Lightroom 5 and PhotoShop

I am running OS X Yosemite on my four year old MacBook Pro which has become progressively slower and is loaded with applications I no longer use. I plan to start afresh by formatting a new 1TB SSD as a boot disk and reinstalling Lightroom 5 and PhotoShop CC.
Is there a list of the files and/or folders that contain Settings and Preferences which can be copied from the old system to the new?

with your cc apps you should try to use the sync feature. that's never worked consistently for me, but when it does work, it's helpful.
there are preference folders and presets and settings that you could copy but you're better off installing fresh because a common problem for people with adobe program issues is a settings issue.

Mid-2010 iMac running Lion Won't Start Up?

I have a mid-2010 iMac running OS X Lion. It was running slow one day so I restarted it. When I restarted it, the iMac went to the white apple logo screen and had a small loading bar at the bottom. After it loaded it would not start up. I have the Snow leapord install disk but I have a wireless keyboard, so I cannot press C to get to the reinstall menu. Any ideas that could help?

Probably your hard disk is damaged. Apple has called some iMacs bought between October 2009 and June 2011 for repair because they have damaged hard disks, so see if you've one of those Macs > http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive
Press C key after the startup sound to boot from the disc, go to Utilities > Disk Utility and repair the disk

I have an iMac running with Parallels. Last year, my System Updates from Apple started popping up on PC side and I cannot find a way to link them back to the Apple side of machine. Cannot update iTunes to latest version where I use it.

I have an iMac running with Parallels. Last year, my System Updates from Apple started popping up on PC side and I cannot find a way to link them back to the Apple side of machine. Cannot update iTunes to latest version where I use it.

Hello, do you mean the files end up on the PC side, or the notifications?
On the Mac side try this...
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Possible to create system software disc on USB flash drive to start Apple Hardware Test on mid 2009 iMac running OS X 10.9

Is it possible to create a system software disc on a USB flash drive to start Apple Hardware Test on mid 2009 iMac running OS X 10.9?

Hopefully, those dvd's are the correct ones. If not, it's possible to download the AHT for many models from Apple, & either make a bootable drive, or replace the files in the hidden /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics folder.
see Download and run Apple Hardware Test (AHT) from a USB drive.
There are additional download details in the comments for some later models.

21in. imac running Mountain Lion will not start just get grey no entry sign

21in. imac running Mountain Lion will not start just get grey no entry sign

David,
Please carefuly read what Apple says in how to troubleshoot this issue. Also PLEASE complete your profile,we don't even know what iMac you have or the version of OS X it is running.
Gray screen appears during startup

Imac running 10.8.2 often does not start up with firewire drives connected

I have a mid 2007 imac running osx 10.8.2 and it will nit restart with two firewire drives connected if it has been running for sometime. If i disconnecr and restart and then connect the drives and then restart again it will restart.

a brody's guess is a good one. Please also look at what Apple says in Gray screen appears during startup

Why does my iMac run fine in Safe Mode but has many problems when it isn't?

If you take a look at my previous posts you will see that I have had the usual problems that many, many other iMac G5 1.8 20" Rev A owners have been recently experiencing (Kernel Panics, Screen Blurs, Screen darker at top more than bottom, etc)
I have discovered that the only way to stop all the numerous problems that I have been having is to start the iMac up in Safe Boot Mode
In this mode it has been running Perfect! No Crashes! No Screen Problems! It's been wonderful to get it back to normal after all the peristant problems I have had! The only thing being that you can't use sound in or out or the DVD Player with Safe Mode!
So the question I would like to ask is:
So does this mean that the problems I had before were just Software conflicts/issues and not Hardware ones?
Cheers for your help
Bob
iMac G5 1.8 20" Mac OS X (10.4.3) 2 Gig RAM

When you start up in Safe Mode various things aren't loaded at startup, Bob.
Have a thinbk about which of the following may be involved in your own case:
It forces a directory check of the startup volume.
It loads only required kernel extensions (some of the items in /System/Library/Extensions).
It runs only Apple-installed startup items (some of the items in /Library/StartupItems and /System/Library/StartupItems - and different than login items).
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger only: It disables all fonts other than those in /System/Library/Fonts .
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger only: It moves to the Trash all font caches normally stored in /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/(uid)/ , where (uid) is a user ID number such as 501.
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger only: It disables any Login Items.
(from http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392)
Have a look at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464 for some more possibilities.
You may find it worth while using System Prefernces/Accounts to creat a new admin user account and see if the problem persists with it. THis may help you narrow down the problem further.
Cheers
Rod

Slow Finder on iMac running OS 10.8.5

Hey Apple gurus!
I have a problem with my iMac running OS 10.8.5. It started from nowhere. All the software is running absolutely fine but as soon as I get to a finder and trying to open a folder and/or move between files in a folder within the finder or click a preview, a movie or a photo, it takes 10-15 seconds for a computer to "wake up". It just spinning until it finally catches is up and eventually it does what I want. Than I can browse in the finder between files with no problem until I pause for few minutes and when I am trying to navigate through folders again the same "wake up" problem. Its very annoying and really slows me down. I went through Apple utilities few times, I thought maybe its going to fix the problem, but it made no difference. I thought maybe its my USB devices and disconnected them all but still the same problem. Any suggestions how to fix it.
Thanks.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take one of the actions that you're having trouble with. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

I used Target mode to transfer files to a new iMac running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 from an older Dual core Intel machine (EMC 2105) also on 10.6.8. but originally Tiger 10.4. The operation was successful and I ejected the disk icon from the new machine and po

IS THE SITUATION HOPELESS
I used Target mode to transfer files to a new i7 iMac running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 from an older Dual core Intel machine (EMC 2105) also on 10.6.8. but originally Tiger 10.4. The operation was successful and I ejected the disk icon from the new machine and powered down the old machine. When this was restarted the next day there was a grey screen with flashing Mac symbol alternating with a 'no entry' sign and occasionally a question mark.Keyboard and mouse were unusable so k inserted the original instal disc (No.1 for 10.4. with installer 1.0.4) which came with the machine in 2006 in an attempt to boot from this. The ensuing window said this was not possible and now it cannot be ejected.I have tried everything ! It offers Disk Utility and other options like Terminal but that doesn't work either.I 'repaired disk' and that was pronounced o.k. None of the various keystrokes at start up will work, and the computer will only offer the installer disc continually.The only option would seem to be is to erase the hard drive completely from the disc in the machine.I don't want to do this as there is still material which I need to recover. I think the drive has in some way been corrupted by using it in target mode, and I don't know if there are any other options to try.
Please tell me how to get this disc to eject !

Graham Giles wrote:
Have you seen this type of problem before? I think it could be a serious issue for anyone in a similar position.
No; but then, I've not had occasion to use TDM. I've been using firerwire drives for over 10 years, both FW400 and FW800, with no issues except a bit of instability using a B&W G3 machine.
TDM should be safe. Using cautious, manual copying of files from the Target machine to the Host machine should not result in unexpected loss of files or damage to the Target drive's directories. It should behave exactly the same as if it were an external (to the Host) firewire drive.
• I don't suppose there is anything I can do to 'put back' lost items from a separate Time Machine drive which has an up to date backup on it.
There is probably a way to do that - seems to me that's one of the reasons for a Time Machine volume.
On the other hand, if the Time Machine volume is rigidly linked to the now-absent OS on the original drive, there may be no way to effectively access the files in the TM archive.
I know that using a cloned drive would work well in this instance.
I have no experience with Time Machine, so perhaps someone who has will chime in with suggestions.
With the machine in TDM with the other machine, have you tried running Disk Utility to see if you can effect repairs to the drive?

How do I create a bootable Snow Leopard partition on my iMac running Lion?

Hi.
I have recently bought an iMac running Lion. I also have software such as Office 2004 and CS2 which I believe I can run using Rosetta, however I think I need Snow Leopard for this. If I purchase Snow Leopard from the Online Store, how do I install this 2nd OS within another partition on my iMac (yet to be created) and how do I switch between Snow Leopard and Lion on start up? Will my Lion software and data remain intact as I don't have any Lion disks should I need to reload this? Can anyone help with a step-by-step instructions as I'm not incredibly confident with the repartitioning of my nice new iMac?

To resize the drive do the following:
1. 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.
After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.
Boot From The Snow Leopard Installer Disc and Install:
Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
Restart the computer.
Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
Wait for installer to finish loading.
Install Snow Leopard on the newly created partition.

Start afresh, Imac running 10.6.8

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