Clean install

[sandman42]

Forgive my ignorance; from the discussion around here I get the impression that this is basic knowledge for most, but how does one go about performing a 'clean install'?

I'm curious to see if it improves the performance of my computer at all, and I'm also interested to see if it frees up any hard drive space.

Would someone mind telling me how I'd do it, including how I'd archive and restore all of my data, or point me toward a resource that would explain it? Thanks!

 

[Nermal]

You've got two options. When you install Panther, there's a step when you choose which drive to install it on. On the same screen, there's a button called Options or Customise or something, click it. You will then have two options presented to you:

Archive and Install - This makes a completely new System folder, and doesn't pull anything across from your previous System folder. Your home directory and applications are left intact, so you don't have to reinstall anything afterwards. This option should be safe, but I recommend backing up anything important first, just in case.

Erase and Install - This option will completely wipe your hard drive, and install a brand-new system. If you choose this option, you will need to back up and reinstall everything afterwards.

Hope this helps!

 

[YS2003]

Erase & Install OS X

I know Erase & Install does the fresh copy of OS X in the hard drive. But, is it necessary to erase the hard drive first for a "complete and thorough" Erase and Install? The HD was written from outer (or inner) edge of the disk and work its way to the center (or outer edge) as it writes data on itself.

If you have OS X already in the HD and if you do "erase & install," does HD start writing it over the old OS X data? Or, does it start writing a new OS X copy after skipping the areas which used to be occupied by the old OS X copy?

The reason I am asking this is to find out if Erase and Install fixes up fragmentation (even thought fragmentation is not much of an issues as OS X does defrag on the fly for less than 20 MB data).

 

[mac57mac57]

I would recommend an erase and install for a clean result. Your computer configuration may have some bearing on this. In my case, there were several HDDs in my PowerMac G4, one with Tiger on it, so I booted that one, used Disk Utility on it to completely reformat the target hard drive and then I installed Panther via CD onto the reformatted hard drive. Panther thus became essentially a dual boot with Tiger.

I have always been a fan of "clean installs" - this way, you never bring any "bad stuff" over from an existing install, which could easily have been degraded over time with bad app installs, virus', etc.