Reinstall Mac OS X 10.6.x

[Lazaaro]

I have lots of applications like iPhoto crash (often), google earth (often) and iTunes from time to time (it depends if the iPhone is connected). Restart the mac book pro is useless, the app crash anyway. I bought Snow Leopard 10.6.4 and follows, all updates are performed. I wanted to know if it is possible to relocate to Snow Leopard without having to format and uninstall my apps? And then the system is too heavy, it feels that it is slower in its infancy.

[Gonzo]

First of all welcome to MB Before launching into a heavy procedure and probably useless. First you should try to check / repair disk and permissions ... either by booting from CD / DVD that came with your mac or by fsck. If this does not reinstall the latest update combo Otherwise you're poking around in files or on your system.

[Regina]

The best solution is to create a clone of your first volume OS X on a partition on your external hard drive (see tip "and OS X Backups" on this site). If this is not done that, I would strongly advise you to buy an external hard drive (firewire or USB 2 but bootable OS X) and invest in a cloning software to help you create a clone. It is without doubt the best safety net you can have.

[Simond]

If you have a clone, then start on this clone (by selecting it as startup volume in the panel "Startup" in System Preferences). It will now simply start your cloning software from this clone and clone to clear (the clone then) back to your main volume. Again click on your volume "OS X" in the main panel "Startup" and presto! Voila! Everything is as before!

[Macarenas]

If you unfortunately do not have a clone / backup, then the only solution is to bring your installation DVD of Mac OS X, initialize your entire partition / volume OS X (after having backed up your data) and reinstall OS X from the installation DVD, then run "Software Update" (in the Apple menu) to get your system up to date.

[Lambard]

Reinstall your applications, files and personal documents etc. Keep in mind, as and when they become available, the various up-to-day of your software in order to stay up to date with the latest versions of these. It is even advisable to download these different SHIFT to have them always under the elbow, if need be!

[jesse]

Also make regular backups of your applications and your documents (On DVD-RW or FTP server for example, or even using the cloning technique shown above), so if you are missing, for some reason or another, an important file, you can always retrieve your backup and thus avoid possibly a re-installation.