House keeping

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Hi all,

I've got a powerbook and lately its being a bit funny, crashing apps, slow apps etc. And I've recently had to hard boot it - ie take the battery out to re-boot it a few times.

Now I don't do any house keeping - naughty I know - but I honestly don't know what I need to do and how to do it.

Would appreciate some advice.
 
J

jn4jenny

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Small giraffe said:
Hi all,

I've got a powerbook and lately its being a bit funny, crashing apps, slow apps etc. And I've recently had to hard boot it - ie take the battery out to re-boot it a few times.

Now I don't do any house keeping - naughty I know - but I honestly don't know what I need to do and how to do it.

Would appreciate some advice.

Firstly, you need to back your important data up ASAP. These things could just be signs of a minor mishap like the need to repair disk permissions or something, but it often means your logic board or hard drive is on the way to failure. And when it goes, it'll go fast.

My best advise is to download AppleJack and run it right after you back up your stuff. Onyx and Cocktail are also great for doing general housekeeping tasks while your Mac is still ticking, and they can do almost all the things that Applejack can do + a few more things that Applejack CAN'T do. But once you can't get into Mac OS X anymore (and that might be coming based on the symptoms you're describing), then only Applejack can help you. Applejack runs in single user mode outside of Mac OS X, so you can still get into it even after OS X is no longer loadable. Onyx and Cocktail only run if you can boot OS X.

Applejack also saved my butt one time by essentially telling me, from the errors that it spat back, that my hard drive was failing. http://applejack.sourceforge.net
 
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Sounds Nice, but I can't seem to download the app. The page just blanks out.

Got it through Version Tracker
 
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Thank jn4jenny, I've downloaded applejack and onyx and have run through applejack, so hopefully everything should be running fine now.

One thing tho (and it may be a silly minor thing, but I can't figure it out) I'm trying to install something and it says that it can't install on a locked volume. I've looked at my hd info and changed the ownership from system to me and unlocked it. It still would't let me install so I restarted my machine and still it won't install cos it says its locked - even though I've just gone and unlocked it again (clicked on the little padlock to open it)

Please can someone help me, urgently - thanks!
 
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Try dragging the installer to the desktop and installing it from there.
 
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Yep that worked Mr Bobbins - thank you.

I've never had to do that before though - how strange!?
 
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Some installers always try to install at the same location so if it was on a CD then it's tried to install onto the CD and not your harddrive.

Glad to be of help. :cool:
 
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The ONE thing that seems to fix 99.9% of Mac problems like you described is Repairing Permissions.

Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities), select your harddrive and click the REPAIR PERMISSIONS button.

Anytime I have strange behavior with applications or crashing, this does the trick. I recommend running this after installing software and once a month.
 
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also, boot from your restore cd and repair disk, helps a lot too.
 
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Small giraffe said:
Thanks for the advice GLJones.

What does permissions mean exactly anyways?

It's the permission that a file is given so that it can be opened and used. Every file has a permission which can be set in different ways, like user access only or system access, read only, read and write access. So if the permissions are set wrong and lets say locked then the system will not be able to open that file and will work badly.

Permissions are also vital for the security of your system. That's also why it's important that they are set correctly.

If you click on a file once, goto the finder and click on file/Get info (or keyboard shortcut-APPLE i ) then a window will appear where you can view the permissions of that file. :doctor:
 

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