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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Would Like to Reformat Hard Drive And Reinstall Osx.

rimawa - Apr 4, 2005 - 5:38 am

Hi there. I am glad to have found this forum! I have posted a question in the forum before I found this area so apologies if I repeat myself:

I have a 1.5GHZ Powerbook G4 with 1GBSDRAM and 80GB hard drive. I have been using it for nearly a year, installed and uninstalled some programs and used the internet quite a bit and now I would like to start afresh, and just have what I will be using on the machine and nothing else. I will be using Logic Pro 7 and would like to optimize things...
I feel it may be best to reformat the drive and reinstall OSX and then run Software Update until all is current, and then install all my software. I don't know how this is done though.
I would really appreciate a guide to doing this.

Secondly, there are some other issues with my otherwise wonderful powerbook:
-sometimes when I shut the computer down it tell me that I have to press and hold the standby key to do it rather than just switching off.
-sometimes when I have turned off the machine the caps lock key and USB power remain active.

Maybe these issues will sort themselves out when I reinstall everything, but any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Rich

Jmassey79 - Apr 4, 2005 - 9:04 am

Hi Rich,
Reinstalling is pretty easy but you want to make sure you backup. I would start with your home folder/ folders depending on how many users you have. Then Backup any files that you do not have saved to a disk. ( I would use an external hard drive but CD or DVD will do depending on what your PB can burn).
When you have finished backing up your machine it is time for a reinstall. Insert you OS X cd 1 and boot up the machine, if for some reason your machine does not boot from the CD the first time, reboot and hold down the C key while the machine starts up. This should boot you into the installer for OSX. There are some hidden options here, In the installer pull down menu there is an option to "Open Disk Utility" If you want to do a full erase/reinstall of the software or you would like to setup partations on the machine, this is the place to do it. ( I would be happy to walk you through this if you need). After you have your disk setup you can quit disk utility and start running the installer for OSX.

As you make your way through you will choose which disk gets the fresh install of OS X, once you choose the end location for the OS you you could click on customize and take out anything that you need on the system. If you feel like saving alittle space you can take out any languages that you dont speek/need on the system. This dosent save the world but will give you a few hundred mb's back to Logic.

Once you are through the wonder install process the machine will restart, and you will be greated with apple's first boot screens where you setup up your machine with an account name and internet access. Just follow instructions here, However if you take down anything in your settings before you start it may make things easier on you.

Once through this you can start to move things back to to the HD and run software update.. I would suggest Updating first then moving your data back once the machine is current again.

Hopefully this will all take care of your Hardware problems at shutdown. But if not you could try resetting the Pram, HOLD the ( apple, option, P, and R ) keys when the machine starts up, and keep holding them until the machine chimes 4-6 times. This may help it may not but let me know ither way.

-John

P.S. please let me know if there is any more help I can give you in this

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rimawa - Apr 6, 2005 - 6:08 am

John-- thank-you so much for you helpful reply.

If you could please walk me through the Open Disk Utility part. This is where I can format the whole hard drive? And with partitions, I think I have been persuaded that there is not much need for that in my case.
I think I have been persuaded of the need for an external hard drive, that is faster than my internal drive. Is firewire best? Any recommendation? Portability and ease of set up is key.
Once I have this, what is the suggested use amongst the two drives. Do system files and all programs go internal and data on the external>? Or is there a better way to use two drives?

Tell me more about the 'Pram'. Also I can see which is the apple key but none of them says 'option'.

Lastly am I right in thinking that as long as I have the OSX firewall on then I do not need to worry about viruses? I have heard that there are no viruses for OSX, but it is hard to believe? It would be good to know then I can feel that all 'preserved' data on this changeover is definitely safe.

Thanks for all your help- I feel more questions round the corner, but it really is a pleasure to be learning my way around OSX- I do not miss my PC for a second.

All the best

Rich

Jmassey79 - Apr 7, 2005 - 9:16 am

Ok Rich here we go.
1. To open disk utility when you boot off of the OSX install cd (hold 'c' at boot if you need to) all you need to do is go to the finder bar (white bar at top of window) and under "Installer" you should see and option to 'Open Disk Utility'.
2. When you have disk utility open you will only need the second and third tabs to do what you need 'Erase' and 'Partation'. You will want to erase or format the disk first and then setup your partations. To erase the disk first select the whole HD in the side bar that is on the left ( this should display the total size of your HD as well as some other drive info ( i think it is what the cpu calls your total HD even if you are only using one partation, not totally sure). Anyway you will want to click on the erase tab ( or partation depending on what you are doing) and format the drive, I would say you only need to do a quick or normal format in the options. If you are going to partation the drive i think you can skip a format and just use the slide bar that is inside the HD view in partation and then format both. It has been some time since i have done partations, sorry.

3. Once you have the drives setup the way you want, you can quit disk utility and keep running the installer normally, your drives will be ready to go.

If you are planning on getting another drive for your system, I would use Firewire, However some people will tell you to go with USB 2.0. Honestly, USB 2 is alittle faster than fire wire but i like using fire wire for Hard drives because I have had some bad luck with usb 2. Im not totally sure what would be best here for you, but I use between 3-4 firewire drives on different machiens all the time and have very little problems with it.... But now on to what to put where. Yes you are correct, I would much rather run my apps of the machine with my data on the removeable drive. Think of it this way you can always reinstall the app, but you cant always get all of your stuff back if something goes wrong, with your data on the FW drive you should be in good shape, or you could use the FW drive for backups of your data depending on the size drive you get.

PRAM, is not the same as firmware but it does hold most of the settings that are in memory for the machine not your OS. Pram keeps track of things like time and other hardware related issues. No option key is odd, but on all of the keyboards i have used it is right next to the apple key it could also be 'alt' on my apple wireless keyboard the 'option' key has 'alt' listed on it as well. So to reset the Pram you will need to hold the 'apple' 'option' 'P' and 'R' keys and just sit and wait, about ever 10-15 seconds the machien will give you a chime just like a boot chime, wait for this chime to sound about 5-6 times and you have cleared Pram.

Good luck and happy hunting, let me know if this was not enough to get you going.

-John


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