big reinstall of OS X :-(

Hi all,

I own a 2008 macbook pro which has been slowing, slowing, slooooooowing... to the point where I almost can't work with it - opening word or iphoto literally takes several minutes. I already did several spring cleanings, checked for viruses, etc... to no avail. The lads at the Apple store recommended reinstalling everything. I was hoping to avoid that, but it looks like it's time.

So I know how to create a bootable USB drive (I run Lion btw) and how to back up all my stuff, BUT... I have a couple of questions:

1) should I (can I?) take this opportunity to replace the hard drive with a larger one? I currently have a 250 GB, and I was thinking about putting a 500 GB or even 1 TB in its place.

2) if that's an option, are there any specs i should be aware of, or can I use any semi-decent 2.5-in hard drive on the market?

3) specifically, can I buy an external hard drive, take it out of its case and put it in the mac, and put the "old" mac drive in the case, so as to be able to directly access all my files on the now external drive, once OSX is reinstalled?

4) a specific software question: I own iWork 09 and use it all the time. However, since I bought the CDs I moved, and the CDs are now somewhere in a box, in a storage several countries away. Am I screwed, or is there a way to re-install it from the AppStore without having to pay for it again? (I registered the software when I installed it and entered the s/n, of course)

5) anything in particular that I should be aware of?

I'm not looking forward to this, so any help to make this a little less painful would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Cheers
Axel

buy yourself a 2.5" hard drive, the capacity of the drive is your choice, get the largest one 1tb the better, get the new drive as an external one, then using carbon copy clone (free software from web) then copy over the whole old drive to new drive.
Boot up from external drive see it works ( boot up when chime sounds, press option key and
boot from your external drive)
Then if okay, out with the old drive in with new.
you are in business as simple as this.
In case you want to upgrade your ram might as well do it this time. Kill 2 birds with one stone, your macbook should be faster.

^ If his configuration is messed up such that Apple's recommending reinstalling everything, then why would he want to clone that configuration onto a new drive? Would it not make more sense to put in the new disk and start installing everything from scratch -- and pull over data files only from backups?

since our poster wants 'little less painful', this is the cleanest way I can think of.

G'day OP and welcome to the forums.

Suggest staying away from cloning as that will transfer over any corrupt file problems you may already have. How much free space is on your current hard drive? Drives need a minimum of 15% free space to work anywhere near efficiently.

Do you use a cleaning utility such as Onyx which is great tool for the Mac and is freeware? A months;y run over your computer is a good thing using the default settings.

If you purchased Lion from the App Store you can go back in, hold down Option and hit Purchases and Lion will come back up. Double click and download again f.o.c. Do not run the Installer but follow these instruction for making a USB thumb stick which will be bootable.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/08/make-a-bootable-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-installer-from-a-usb-flash-drive/

You certainly can do option 3 in your list. First up follow the Lion USB thumb stick suggestion.

painless but...

Shikarnov said:

^ If his configuration is messed up such that Apple's recommending reinstalling everything, then why would he want to clone that configuration onto a new drive? Would it not make more sense to put in the new disk and start installing everything from scratch -- and pull over data files only from backups?

Click to expand...

That was kind of my thinking as well... I fear it's really messy and I would rather start clean. I agree that it would undoubtedly be the easiest solution, but all that would do is increase the storage space - not clean up what's in it.

I will take this opportunity to increase the RAM though, thanks for the suggestion!

Cheers
Axel

gotcha

harryb2448 said:

G'day OP and welcome to the forums.

Suggest staying away from cloning as that will transfer over any corrupt file problems you may already have. How much free space is on your current hard drive? Drives need a minimum of 15% free space to work anywhere near efficiently.

Do you use a cleaning utility such as Onyx which is great tool for the Mac and is freeware? A months;y run over your computer is a good thing using the default settings.

If you purchased Lion from the App Store you can go back in, hold down Option and hit Purchases and Lion will come back up. Double click and download again f.o.c. Do not run the Installer but follow these instruction for making a USB thumb stick which will be bootable.

Make a Bootable Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installer from a USB Flash Drive

You certainly can do option 3 in your list. First up follow the Lion USB thumb stick suggestion.

Click to expand...

ok, cheers. Note to self: get an external HD with screws - I have a WD MyPassport and I have no idea how to open the **** thing

Thanks for the link to the thumb stick instructions. So with a blank HD in the machine, I can pop it in, it will boot, format the drive, and install enough of the O/S that I can go into the app store and install it "for good", or will it install the entire thing?

i'm getting nervous just thinking about this... ack!

Cheers
Axel

The Slowness could also be the old hard drive slowly dying. Just a thought.

probably true

dtravis7 said:

The Slowness could also be the old hard drive slowly dying. Just a thought.

Click to expand...

Yep, likely - another reason to replace it rather than just doing a clean re-install on the same hard drive...

A re-install of OS X is actually very rare and generally unneeded. Unlike Windows, OS X doesn't "get messy" without some very deliberate (and dumb) moves by the user. You don't seem the type to me.

"Slow" hard drives are, in my experience, almost always one of three things:

1. You're running out of hard drive space (ie very little free space left)
2. Your hard drive is starting to fail.
3. You've never done even the slightest bit of maintenance.

If the only thing that is "wrong" with the system is that it's running slow, replacing the hard drive with a larger one would appear to me to have a very good chance of removing all three possible problem causes in one whack.

And you should probably buy an external drive for Time Machine backups while you're at it. And run OnyX or MainMenu every once in while.

Thanks for your vote of confidence - I *try* not to be dumb, but I can't always guarantee it

I've cleaned up mad amounts of pictures, audio, etc to free up some space, to get up to about 30 GB of free space (out of 250), and it hasn't changed a thing. I know it's borderline and I should really have 40-50 GB free, but it becomes increasingly difficult to come up with space...

So in your opinion, the clone solution suggested in answer #1 would probably solve the problem (AND keep everything intact)?

Worse case scenario, if I see little improvement, I can always do the full install, I'll already have a hard drive available anyway...

In the meantime, i will do another round of maintenance and cross my fingers.

Thanks for the advice!

Cheers
Axel

Mneh. I ran OnyX, which found some disk problems, which I repaired with Disk Utility, scanned again, then ran Maintenance (which I got on the same site as Onyx), then MainMenu... I suppose the speed has increased, but only very marginally.

In any of the three aforementioned apps, is there something in particular that I should be aware of that I may have omitted and that may make a big difference?

Thanks again for all the advice everyone!

Cheers
Axel

My two cents… reinstalling OS X is very rarely necessary, but a number of us have actually found that doing a clean install of Lion has resolved a number of ongoing little quirks we had been experiencing. In your case though, I do believe you need a bigger hard drive at the minimum. It does sound like you are pushing the limits on free space available, which does force the cache to be more "scattered" on the drive, leading to increases in read/write times.

You didn't mention how much RAM you have, or I overlooked it perhaps. With Lion especially, you really need at least 4 GB of RAM, though honestly I would recommend more for more optimal performance.

It is simple and easy just copy over your old drive to new one and see how it reacts. Obviously the ram should be bigger and will help.
Installing lion osx to the new drive will be much easier with the lion osx created on media via USB, sdhc or dvd, It is a matter of clean install over the existing osx.
The whole process from copying to new drive, to install to new drive,upgrade ram and should not be over 2 hours.

ok, I'll give all this a try and keep y'all posted. Thanks guys!

harryb2448 said:

G'day OP and welcome to the forums.

If you purchased Lion from the App Store you can go back in, hold down Option and hit Purchases and Lion will come back up. Double click and download again f.o.c. Do not run the Installer but follow these instruction for making a USB thumb stick which will be bootable.

Make a Bootable Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installer from a USB Flash Drive

You certainly can do option 3 in your list. First up follow the Lion USB thumb stick suggestion.

Click to expand...

harryb2448,

How can I make one from preinstalled lion on my MBP?

Thank you

aestable said:

ok, cheers. Note to self: get an external HD with screws - I have a WD MyPassport and I have no idea how to open the **** thing

Click to expand...

Is this one that looks kinda like a slim book with a plastic piece that goes along the 3 edges? If it is, it's not too hard to open, but it might not go back together. If you pry up one edge of the "book cover" part then you can pull out the plastic piece and HDD part.

Yes you can assuming you purchased Lion from the App Store originally.

Go back into the App Store and hold down the Option key and hit Purchases and Lion should come up. Double click and download again and follow thumb drive instructions.

harryb2448 said:

Yes you can assuming you purchased Lion from the App Store originally.

Go back into the App Store and hold down the Option key and hit Purchases and Lion should come up. Double click and download again and follow thumb drive instructions.

Click to expand...

But I didn't purchase it from app store. It's preinstalled when I bought it. How can I make a bootable thumb drive out of it, as you described earlier on you post.

Thanks