Formatting/Restoring OSX

[TangoJuliet]

I've had my mac now for about 6 months and its starting to run a little on the slow side. I am hearing the hdd being accessed a bunch lately and I get the beach ball every now and then.

I'd like to format the system back to the original factory settings using the OSX install disk but before I do I had some questions.

How exactly do I export all of my emails so that when I re-install I can just copy/paste them back into mail?

All of my photos should be stores in the pictures directory under the iphoto library, right?

I just re-organized all of my music so that they have the correct tags and whatnot (took almost a year to do that) so I am just going to move them to my external drive and then back on.

One of my most used apps is VisualHub. I know that they went out of business - will there be a problem re-loading that app back?

I don't want to restore the OS using my time machine backup(s) because there are some huge files on there (all my old music and some movie rips) that I don't need/want on the drive. Also, there are some apps that I downloaded and just didn't use or like (SimplyMedia).

I also had the drive partitioned for boot camp but I almost never use any win applications any more so I plan to restore that partition and never look back.

Anything else I should know/do before I do the restore?

 

[TangoJuliet]

anyone?

 

[Kmax82]

In Mail, you can right click on the Mailbox you want to save and then Choose "Archive Mailbox". I believe you have to do that for every Mailbox (Sent, Inbox, Trash, etc.. ) depending on what messages you want to keep. The other method is you can go to /Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail and grab all those files. You will still have to readd your email account settings when you restore but that will bring over your emails just like they were before you formatted.

If you are using iPhoto, then all of your photos are stored within the file, iPhotoLibrary under Pictures. If you back that up you will be fine.

Same with music, if you are using iTunes, you can backup the whole iTunes directory in Music and then just copy that back over and it will keep all your playlists, podcasts, etc... and you won't have to reimport all that stuff.

I don't know about VisualHub, I did a format a little while ago and Handbrake 0.9.3 had just come out and haven't had a need for VisualHub anymore.

I would do a Time Machine backup of your whole drive before you format. There are always those one or two rogue documents/setting files that you potentially could miss and if you have a full drive backup, you can just copy the stuff over. That has saved my butt many a time when I've reformatted.

Good luck.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
In Mail, you can right click on the Mailbox you want to save and then Choose "Archive Mailbox". I believe you have to do that for every Mailbox (Sent, Inbox, Trash, etc.. ) depending on what messages you want to keep. The other method is you can go to /Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail and grab all those files. You will still have to readd your email account settings when you restore but that will bring over your emails just like they were before you formatted.

If you are using iPhoto, then all of your photos are stored within the file, iPhotoLibrary under Pictures. If you back that up you will be fine.

Same with music, if you are using iTunes, you can backup the whole iTunes directory in Music and then just copy that back over and it will keep all your playlists, podcasts, etc... and you won't have to reimport all that stuff.

I don't know about VisualHub, I did a format a little while ago and Handbrake 0.9.3 had just come out and haven't had a need for VisualHub anymore.

I would do a Time Machine backup of your whole drive before you format. There are always those one or two rogue documents/setting files that you potentially could miss and if you have a full drive backup, you can just copy the stuff over. That has saved my butt many a time when I've reformatted.

Good luck.

Thanks for the tips! So once I "archive" the mailboxes I can save them individually to say the desktop?

If I cant get VisualHub to work then I'll give handbreak a try. I really like VH and its ease of use. I use it a ton to convert movies and tv shows to my iphone all the time.

I have all of my files saved on my external 1TB RAID drive that I don't really see a need for the TM backup. There is just too many deleted files on my TM that I don't need. I added/deleted my entire music directory a couple of times until I got all of the songs/tags correct.

 

[TheStu]

Handbrake is, if anything, easier to use than VisualHub. Plus it is fast, fast, fast. They have put a lot of time and effort into getting the x264 encoding speed up with every release starting with .9 I believe since that was also the first one to be Leopard only. Handbrake is also still under active development, and release 1.0 is supposed to blow the doors off.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Thanks for the tips! So once I "archive" the mailboxes I can save them individually to say the desktop?

If I cant get VisualHub to work then I'll give handbreak a try. I really like VH and its ease of use. I use it a ton to convert movies and tv shows to my iphone all the time.

I have all of my files saved on my external 1TB RAID drive that I don't really see a need for the TM backup. There is just too many deleted files on my TM that I don't need. I added/deleted my entire music directory a couple of times until I got all of the songs/tags correct.

Yea.. it saves the individual mailboxes as their respective names, in whatever folder you choose. Then you can reimport them once you've formatted your drive. Just choose "mbox" import.

 

[Jack Flash]

Have you tried running Onyx?

 

[AnthroAndStargate]

Originally posted by: Jack Flash
Have you tried running Onyx?

Is that safe/good to use? Does it actually make a difference?

I just read reviews that said programs like that and Cocktail are a waste of space and time and don't fix or speed up your system at all and can actually harm it. Also some people said you can do the same easier with *nix commands...

I dono though, I'm always looking for ways to speed up OS X so I'm curious. I format like every six months cause my system always slows down...

 

[quackagator]

Originally posted by: AnthroAndStargate

Originally posted by: Jack Flash
Have you tried running Onyx?

Is that safe/good to use? Does it actually make a difference?

I just read reviews that said programs like that and Cocktail are a waste of space and time and don't fix or speed up your system at all and can actually harm it. Also some people said you can do the same easier with *nix commands...

I dono though, I'm always looking for ways to speed up OS X so I'm curious. I format like every six months cause my system always slows down...

Try it's free nothing to lose,

 

[scootermaster]

Heh. Wipe.

 

[Kmax82]

I tried Onyx before, and wasn't all that impressed with what it offered. You can restore permissions, delete User Cache, etc... but it didn't seem to really benefit my system at all. When my system starts to slow down again, I'm hoping that Snow Leopard will be out and I'll be able to give that a go.