clean install questions

i have a '09 Macbook pro that has been getting the spinning beach ball on pretty much everything I do. I am planning on doing a clean install and I have all of my stuff backed up on my time capsule, would it be pointless to re-put all of that back from the time capsule onto the computer, would that just put me in the same slow boat as I am in now? the plan for now is to put my pics and music on my external and re load that from there but I'm nervous that i will forget an important app or something else that I am going to need. any help is appreciated

There's probably a reason for the spinning beach ball that can be fixed via other methods. If you're talking about wiping your hard drive & reinstalling the OS...that will get the job done as well. But Apple computers are not like Windows computers (because of virus's, malware, bloatware, etc.) where reinstalling the OS is the solution to everything that causes "slowness".

Some examples that can cause your Mac to be slow (spinning beach ball) are:

- permissions need to be repaired
- hard drive may be too full
- too many applications open at the same time
- for me I sometimes find that if I haven't restarted/rebooted my computer in a while (because I usually just put it to sleep) that helps

If you decide to do the OS install...just make sure you have the proper OS install disks to do it. Other folks have wiped their hard drives...later to find out they don't have the proper OS install disks...then they're stuck!

- Nick

And to add to Nick's good advice, you might want to download and use the free OnyX maintenance utility. Download from here.

Read the instructions before using. POL guy? Nothing smells worse than JP4 spilled all over your fatigues. Be careful over there....