View Single Post
  #1  
Old 01-18-2007, 10:59 PM
tintypes tintypes is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 3
Question Reformat HD and re-install OS first -- possible?

I have been having considerable problems with iTunes and an Apple "genius" said her (successful) solution to the same problem was to back up her entire system drive, reformat her system drive, install a new system, and restore all her files (which she did by hand). As things have gotten intolerable, I've decided to follow her recommendation -- except I've purchased a new, larger drive (for my Dual 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5 desktop running OS X v10.4.8) to replace my original system drive while I'm at it.

I read the post "Best process to replace internal hard drive using SuperDuper!" below, which appears to detail most of what I need to know. However, two questions:

I intend to install a fresh, new copy of the OS on the new drive first, since part of the solution seems to be replacing any potentially corrupted OS files (and reinstalling over an existing system doesn't always work). If I do this, and then use SD! to copy all my files back onto the new system drive, will it copy my old system files over the newly installed ones (potentially replacing "good" files with corrupted ones), or will it leave the new system files alone (since, in theory, they should have either the same date or a more recent date)?

Also, I currently use SD! to backup my system drive to a (bootable, fully functional) partition of a much larger drive. Can I run all the preliminary tests described in the above post on the partition, and run the entire procedure using that partition to hold my backup files? Or should I delete the partitioning, erase and reformat the whole drive, run the tests, and backup to the unpartitioned drive to make sure everything works flawlessly? (The latter would be a real pain, for the other partitions hold other files -- but it would be doable.)

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance.
Reply With Quote