What would you do? What should I do?

Question

My iBook was getting slower and slower. Programs would quit working because they could not find their data files.
1. I started from the install CD and ran Disk Utility and asked it to Repair the volume. It did fix hundreds of errors. But at the end it had the dreaded -9972 error. (The underlying task reported failure on exit.)
2. I went to my local Apple store and plunked down $99.95 plus tax to buy DiskWarrior.
3. DiskWarrior struggled for 11 hours and finally said it had a good directory. The process was slow due to disk malfunction. ("Speed inhibited due to disk malfunction.)
4. I asked DiskWarrior to replace the directory and I restarted the system. And good news, bad news. The good news is that some unreplaceable pics were found. (There was no backup.) The bad news is that some text is now in Asian languages. Some places it looks Japanese, other Korean, etc. For example, in Finder, in the bar on the left, Applications, and Documents are in Asian fonts.
After I finish typing this post, I will backup the data to DVD by copying the folders.
Now for the questions:
I don't trust the condition of the computer because there could be all kinds of other things waiting to bite me later. So, I am planning to format the hard drive with zeros and then re-install everything from scratch.
Do you agree that it would be prudent to reformat and reinstall due to the unknown traps that may be sprung later?
My install disks are 10.3.2 (I think...). I downloaded to another computer the 10.3.9 combo update.
So, reformat, reinstall, combo update.
How about Security Updates? Do I let Software Update tell me what to install?
How about iTunes and QuickTime? Let Software Update tell me?
Your comments will be appreciated.
Roberto

Answer 1

Well first off, I must say that really stinks. Sorry to hear about your issues.
One thing you might consider, much easier than DVDs, is getting an external Firewire hard drive for backups. First thing to do is use a program like SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc. and clone your internal drive to the external drive. This will make a complete backup and if you need to get back to where you were, you can always clone the external back to the internal. Also if your internal is physically having issues, perhaps Disk Warrior might be able to repair and recover even more stuff if you run it on the cloned backup, which should have a good drive, just badly written data now.
As to updating, once you install OS10.3.9, do NOT let Apple updates update QT to version 7.x.x. Perhaps it is now sorted out, but all the earlier version of 7.0.x had issues with OS 10.3.x and it was suggested to stick with the last version of QT6. In fact, Apple even has a few "uninstallers" they released that allow users to downgrade from various versions of QT 7 back to QT6 for this very reason. I think that last one I noticed was they were still making uninstallers for up to version 7.0.4 of QT.
As for iTunes, I think it depends on what you do with it. If you don't have an iPod, then I suspect whatever version of iTunes that is on your restore disks is fine. Most of the iTunes upgrades were not fixing anything, but instead adding features like iTunes Store stuff or to support new models of iPods (like the video iPod). Some version did have some issues with OS 10.3. I think version 6.0.2 or something like that had an issue, which may have been fixed with a later version. I think I stuck with iTunes v4 (I think that is what came with my 10.3 eMac) and allowed software update to update to newer versions of iTunes version 4, but I didn't allow going to v5 or v6. The only reason I finally upgraded to v6 was because I got a video iPod. But then after upgrading I never bothered with any of the updates since those updates were to support new iPod accessories and iTunes Store stuff, which didn't care about. So bottom line is, my suggestion is to only upgrade iTunes as much as you absolutely have to. If early versions work for what you need it to do, stick with those earlier versions.
Patrick