Archive and Install

Thinking I would solve a problem I was having with PowerPoint (it didn't), I reinstalled Leopard (I had been using Snow Leopard), choosing Archive and Install. What a mess! Is it possible to restore everything that's been archived? If so, how? Help, please.

Qualified answer - yes, you can restore, but it depends on what, and what you describe as "a mess". More detail please, including your Mac specs (suggest you put them in your profile).

G;day and welcome to the forums.

If your computer, whatever model and processor it may just happen to be, came with SL installed, you cannot go back to Leopard. Otherwise looks like a format of the drive and a clean install coming up. Archive and Install going backwards would be a risky procedure as many components will be incompatible.

[Thanks Harry, missed that bit about going back one OS.]
Before a clean install is used, try booting into Safe mode (hold Shift after the startup chime) to see if you can extract as much non-OS material as possible.

What about booting from the Leopard disk, which I assume from the original post is available, and extracting non-OS files thereafter?

In both the above scenarios, an external hard drive will be required.

Thanks for your answers. I still don't know what I archived or what to do with it, but I have used Time Machine to restore everything I lost by "going backward." At least, I think so.

Oh, and removing Office and reinstalling it solved my PowerPoint problem.

Good work Jean. Make sure you update Office ~ current update released last week is 12.2.5 for Office 2008.