Reinstalling a Macbook Pro

specialman

specialman

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Pat MacInnes
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My MBP is running sluggish and generally needs a spring clean so I'm thinking a full erase and re-install is required to get it back to 'as new' status.

I back up via Time Machine to an external drive so everything's stored. Once I've wiped and reinstalled, will my MBP just recognise the time machine back-up and I'll be sorted to get things back to normal? Will it remember network settings, cookies etc from the TM back-up or will I have to redo all that?.....
 
During or after (can't remember exactly) the OS reinstall it will ask you if you want to restore from a Time Machine or other backup, so just have the external backup attached while doing the fresh install..

Or anyway just run Migration Assistant after the install..
 
No haven't tried the reinstall without the wipe. It's running 10.5.8 but came with 10.5.5... with it reinstall to an older version?

So long since I did this (last time was my eMac)...
 
You may be able to get away without a reinstall and still speed it up substantially.

In what specific area is the Mac slow? Always, or just when loading programs? You may need more memory, how much do you have.

If you have a lot of startup items, start by getting rid of most of them - this certainly works a treat on Windows when I give it the Msconfig treatment. I don't have a Mac on hand at the moment but I think startup items are found in the accounts control panel.

Consistently slow operation during hard drive activity, when the memory and CPU are not fully saturated can indicate a failing hard drive, as it tries to remap sectors. Unfortunately as Macs do not have a hard drive activity light this can be hard to diagnose, but keep it in mind.
 
If you restore from TM won't it just put you back to where you are now ie. sluggish Mac? I thought it replicates files from a certain period.

Always make sure you have plenty of harddrive space left too. I use OmniDiscSweeper sometimes as it shows where large chunks of disc space is being used. There can be chunks built up over time like downloads and stuff you put hidden away that you may have forgotten about.
 
Nookie said:
If you restore from TM won't it just put you back to where you are now ie. sluggish Mac? I thought it replicates files from a certain period.
Click to expand...

That's one of my main concerns. I've always used TM as a safety net just in case of the worst. I want to do fresh installs of software etc but be able to access network settings (etc) through TM so everything gets set up as it was, albeit on a fresh machine.
 
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