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December 06, 2004

Happy Mac

Friends, I will now relate the tale of Reformatting my Hard Drive on Purpose:

When I got my 15" PowerBook, it was the fastest machine I had to use. I would hum a little tune as I crashed beta after beta of Dreamweaver, and installed all manner of "productivity-enhancing" tools like menu additions and such for OS X. Eventually, the machine started slowing down. Also, I had broken up my drive into too many partitions and I needed more space for my Tiger install. So, I attempted to back up and restore once I reformatted my partitions. (Warning - Read ahead before attempting - or try Simplified Steps):

Step 0:
Overwhelm your OS with add-ons, hacks, and other operating detritus.

Step 1:
Procure a Backup Hard Drive. In my case, a LaCie FireWire 400 brick. Break it up into properly sized partitions as needed. Mount.

Step 2:
Fire up the Terminal.app. Type cd /Volumes. Type sudo sh, enter password. Type ditto -V [source drive] [destination drive] (-V will allow you to watch each file transfer). Ditto will copy all files and preserve Resource Forks. These are more important than Salad Forks, but somewhat less useful in a kitchen brawl.

Step 3:
Take a break. Read a book. Play guitar. Play station. Read someone's blog.

Step 4:
Repeat ditto for each desired backup.

Step 5:
Unmount your backup drive, insert OS X install disc, double-click to run and restart. Before proceeding with the install, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Reformat your drive into neccessary partitions (in my case, Panther and Tiger). Leave at least 6 Gigs for Tiger (in my case, 20 Gigs for OS, files, and the occassional disk image).

[Step 5.5:
At this point, I used ditto to copy back over the stuff from my backup, and then restarted. I encountered several Framework errors, and it basically didn't work - probably because Apps had been installed on a different partition. So, I endeavored to restore vital bits by hand, see below.]

Step 6:
Return to installer. Cross your fingers and desalinate your shoulder as you select install options and choose "Erase and install".

Step 7:
Revisit Step 3. Add Simpsons and Futurama as needed.

Step 8:
Do a little dance as the OS X setup music plays. This part is very important!

Step 9:
Setup and configure your OS: Stop the icons from bouncing in the dock, set your folder views, configure Expose. Run Software Update at least twice. Restart as prompted.

Step 10:
Restart your Mac, holding down the "T" key. This will place your machine in Firewire Target Disk Mode. Mount your old drive. Copy over vital bits from:

Step 11:
Reinstall vital apps. In most cases, this will involve simply copying the program folders and keying in the license when you run it for the first time. In some cases you may need to install from the original program disc. Pepper your old preference files into ~/Library/Preferences to avoid lengthy configuration.

Step 12:
Spend a few hours futzing with your music collection in iTunes, because it was scattered around in various places. Agonize over moving some music off of your machine in favor of fresh tones.

Step 13:
Recovery! Notice your Mac running faster. Install Tiger. Notice many new and amazing things, break them, report bugs to Apple. Go about your business and try not to imagine what this would have been like on a Windows machine!

Posted by at December 6, 2004 11:43 PM