Need Help AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! Optimize

[Jasoco]

Ok, I totally screwed myself last night by doing a string of things I wish I hadn't.

Bottom line:
I last updated my OS X 10.0 to 10.1 then to 10.1.3. But in the middle of the "Optimizing System Performance" part of the update Software Update crashed. It just disappeared. No error or nothing. I believce it accidentally didn't finish speeding up my newly updated software.

Is there a way to manually optimize the System? Do what it never finished? Maybe that's what is wrong with my computer now.

I dunno. Since yesterday afternoon when I backed up my files and reformatted and reinstalled the OS the computer's been REALLY SLOW. As in Snail. And every little thing will cause it to Rainbow for a few seconds or even a few minutes. In the fifty thousand times I rebooted in the last 32 hours, the OS absolutely would not finish booting to X about 60% of the time. Many times it got to the grey smiling Mac screen, some times to the blue screen before the Desktop appears.

It also seems to not want to remember some little settings. Especially the ScreenSavver settings. I set it to Never and it comes on. I set it to another ScreernSaver and it still shows the default. I set the Hot Corners and they do not work. I do not know what the hell is wrong. 48 hours ago the computer was 100% fine. Now it's like a piece of garbage. And it's NOT EVEN 1 and a half years old! I bought it in September of 2000.

I really need help. Is there a way to optimize the System? I thought there was.

Last night I thought the HD was dead again And I was actually happy because then I could sell it for parts. But not it's worjking. I think. I don't know anymore. The poor little Mac is confusing me.

iMac DV+ 450
20GB HD
392 MB RAM

Please!

[jamerican]

Search Version Tracker for Macjanitor. It basically does the same thing that the software uodater/installer does and you can run it from the dock.

[nkuvu]

I'll repeat what others have said in other posts.

Reboot into single-user mode (command-s on boot), run 'fsck -y' (repeatedly if necessary) until no errors are reported.

Update prebindings:
'sudo update_prebinding -root /' and enter root password.
(If root login is not enabled there is a howto in (strangely enough ) the HowTo section.)

HTH!

[divibisan]

Search versiontracker for xoptimizer it updates the prebindings without having to use the terminal and its good to use too

[Jasoco]

Ding, Dong, The HD is dead.

Optimizing wouldn't do a thing. The HD actually died.

Thanks anyway.