IN NEED OF DESPERATE HELP WITH COMP! (almost in tears)

[The Golden Shark]

okay serious problems, i love OSX becasue of its awsome stability, but lately things have gone wrong.

i can't open applications, (other than apple made products i.e. iTunes, Safari) and the finder will just quit, leaving me with the dock, and a blank screen, or the application im running, then it will try to relaunch, and it will just keep reluaunching a quiting.  it has also been not displying text correctly in alot of its alert windows..... i have several screen shots of some of thsese problems, if some could help me i would greatly appreciate it. other wise i think im gonna try and burn everything i wanna keep, on to a few disks and erase, and reinstall OSX.

please do not hesitate to email me with any advice.....

jwarno@comcast.net

email for SS's pictures are worth a thousand words.

[Jeb]

OsX isn't can either be a few problems which are fixed with a repair of permissions, or it could be a massive problem thats not fixable.

If you want to try to fix it by repairing permissions go to Disk Utility (apple's default disk app), select the disk with your os on it, and click repair permissions. Another useful thing to do would be to "verify disk" which checks the disk for errors ect.

A good app to get is disk warrior, the app doesn't have that many functions, but it protects disks, and can repair fucked up directories.

Burning stuff to a disk can be a last resort, i had to do this about a year ago. Make sure you use the Backup app to back your keychain, and all that other good stuff to your idisk if you have one, its a lifesaver.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Does OS X still make use of the PRAM? In 9 that was one of the ninja-level techniques for fixing weird-ass problems. If X still uses it (I assume it does), then you should zap it by restarting and immediately holding down Command-Option-P-R, and continuing to hold them until the computer restarts four or five times or until the screen flashes a funny color right as the computer starts up.

[JN]

Easy, FORMAT FORMAT FORMAT.  Everyone should do it at least once a year, why  not do it now, back up your shit, and reinstall.  should only take you a couple of hours.  Or you can do this.  instead of Formating HD, just reinstall OSX that way you keep all your apps....if that doesnt work, a clean install is the best idea.  This is a last resort.

JN

[BTs_Lee.Harvey]

You could also try norten utilities.. fixes alot of probs some times!!!

[The Golden Shark]

yeah i just got fed up and backed up the shit i wanted to keep, and then clean installed. everything is fine, and there is plenty of room. But i noticed my system seems slower than before. It can run games okay, but finder preformance seems to be slower, as well as my internet connection.  Any comments?

-OH thnx a bunch for all the previous support. there were alot of things that i hadn't even thought of.

Mrt.

P.s - have system optimizer and broadband optemizer

[BFG]

Mrt, couple of things.

Your speed decrease may be due to Defragmentation? have you checked so see how healthy that harddrive is? If its looking a bit bitty (exuse the pun) i'd suggest either running Drive or Norten. they can both fix it (i prever Drive..)

And or the other thing is make sure you've got the apple system updates that you may have had updated before reinstalling everything. a couple of the 10.2. somthing updates did some big speed differences to my comp. The finder being a bit slow might be the key to this one - several updates have dramatically inproved finder speeds.
Internet connections.. did you have some sort of net optermiser installed before hand? There shouldn't be much differnece - although again an update may have adressed modem issues...

any help?

[The Golden Shark]

yeah turns out all i needed to do was ZAP the shit out of my pRAM... Thanx for the support any ways.

[Mr. Lothario]

     I win!

[Brain]

ph34r loth's 1337 ninja level sniper skilz

[dr. letum]

yeah i just got fed up and backed up the shit i wanted to keep, and then clean installed. everything is fine, and there is plenty of room.

I format once every 3-4 months! .  I do some recording using ProTools so I kinda have to.  My best investment was an 80g external harddrive.  No more backing up with CDs.  Quick and easy and you can archive stuff too.  Highly reccomended.

[kami]

Letum, that kind of sounds like somewhat of an overkill. Once a year should be enough if you desperately need to feel clean.