reformat and reinstall?

[Freyqq]

I have a 1 and a half year old powerbook. After that much time, the computer is starting to run a bit sluggishly. Also, my ins/outs for memory are often in a 1:1 ratio..which i hear is really bad. I use onyx too. Anyhow, it the pc world, I would reformat and reinstall the os and everything to start fresh. I really don't want to though if I can avoid it because it would be a pain. Is this the way to go or is there something I'm missing?

specs: 1.5 ghz ppc, 80 gb hd (33 left), 768 ram, 12" powerbook

 

[Karpfish]

Reinstalling will do it. I did it to my iMac after it started to get bogged down, and it was a lot faster.

 

[Irish Dave]

Nothing Quite Like A Good Re-format

I totally agree, a good re-format will speed up everything.

Give it a whizz ......... your Powerbook will behave like a new computer.

I re-format all my mac's (3 of them) two or three times a year.

Dave

 

[IJ Reilly]

Do not, repeat do not, reinstall. This is almost never required on a Mac, except as a last resort. What else have you tried? Have you run fsck in Single User Mode? Have you even rebooted? Repaired permissions?

 

[IJ Reilly]

I re-format all my mac's (3 of them) two or three times a year.

Please tell me you are kidding. Please?

With proper, easy maintenance, you should never have to reinstall OSX. Never!

 

[Irish Dave]

Do not, repeat do not, reinstall. This is almost never required on a Mac, except as a last resort. What else have you tried? Have you run fsck in Single User Mode? Have you even rebooted? Repaired permissions?

Do you not agree that re-formatting and re-installing generally will speed everything up by getting rid of all the "gunk" that we seem to fill our hard drives with?

I have always found getting rid of the "gunk" works wonders.

Dave

 

[skunk]

There's nothing like the smell of a fresh install. I probably do it on average once a year between 3 Macs.

 

[Freyqq]

I run onyx and reboot once a week.

Will this fix my ins/outs problem too or is that just me not having enough ram?

 

[IJ Reilly]

Do you not agree that re-formatting and re-installing generally will speed everything up by getting rid of all the "gunk" that we seem to fill our hard drives with?

I have always found getting rid of the "gunk" works wonders.

Dave

Sure, you can kill a gnat with a shotgun, but I wouldn't recommend it as the preferred method.

The nice thing about OSX is that unlike Windows, it does not auto-hose. I like my "gunk" -- that's why it's on my hard drive.

With simple regular maintenance, you should never have to reinstall OSX, short of a mechanical failure. I maintain three Macs -- the newest is three years old, the oldest, over six years. None have ever been reformatted or reinstalled, and they all run fine.