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Spring Cleaning for Mac OS X
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 / OS
Spring has arrived, and for some people that means a frenzy of housework. For me, spring has always been about getting my Mac OS in order. My suggestion is that everyone should take some time about now and follow some simple steps to getting a streamlined Mac. Your system will run faster and you’ll have more hard drive space because of it. This is the annual procedure I have used ever since there was a Mac OS X.
To start with, you’re going to need a copy of the Mac OS X 10.4 install DVD. You can also use a 10.3 installer with a 10.4 upgrade DVD, but it’s going to add an extra step. You are also going to need a external FireWire hard drive that’s the same size or larger than the data on your Mac Boot drive (A USB 2.0 drive will work if your Mac supports USB booting). If you need to find out how big an external hard drive you’ll require, just hold down the “Control” key and click on your main hard drive. Then mouse down to “Get Info,” which will open a new window. Look under the “General” section at “Used.” That number will be the minimum size drive you will need. I would recommend that you buy a drive that matches or exceeds the total size of your main hard drive; which will be listed next to “Capacity.” This way you can always use this one external drive for a backup drive no matter how full main hard drive gets.
The next step will be to make a backup copy of your system. This is a good process to do every six months or so. I will recommend that you use Mike Bombich’s Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) but you can also use Disk Utility. Both are free, but CCC is by far the easiest to use. Format your external hard drive if you need to (it will have to be in Mac OS Extended Format; most commercial drives are formatted for the PC). Now from an Administrator account, turn off all applications and launch CCC. Select your main hard drive from the “Source Disk” pull down menu and select your backup external drive from the “Target Disk” pull down menu. Click on the padlock button. Enter your password and click on the OK button. After the padlock button shows an unlocked icon, click the Clone button. Cloning can take some time. Just let it run for a few hours and come back to it.
After the cloning has completed, restart your computer holding down the “Option” key to get to the boot loader. From the boot loader, select your external drive and click on the forward arrow. Once fully booted off the external backup of your system, check to see that everything is there just as it was on your system hard drive. Once you know you have everything backed up, you can launch Disk Utility and erase your computer’s internal drive. After the internal drive is reformatted clean, you can insert the install DVD and shut down your computer. Disconnect the external drive and restart your Mac. It will boot to the install DVD on its own. Work your way through the install process, but after selecting the destination click on the “Options” button. This is optional, but you can save disk space by not installing printer and additional language packages. Just unselect the items you will never use. Continue with the installation.
If you are installing 10.3 and are going to upgrade directly to 10.4, then there is a little known secret you can use. You can upgrade without first setting up a user account. After the 10.3 install has finished, just eject the install disc from the keyboard and insert the 10.4 upgrade DVD. Restart holding down the C key and go through the upgrade installer. This way of jumping the OS will allow you to use the Migration Assistant to move over your old user accounts.
The Migration Assistant, included in Mac OS X 10.4, has simplified the spring-cleaning process for me immensely. Prior to that, I had to move my user account files over manually and with a great deal of hassle. Now when you start a new version of 10.4, it will ask you if you have anything to move from another computer. In this case you have your old data to move over from the external drive. When the Mac OS setup screen asks if you have data on your old computer, indicate that you do. Then when it asks you to target disk mode your old computer, you will instead turn on and connect your backup hard drive. Then, after a minute, it will find the drive and ask you what you want to bring over. You have the option of moving everything back over from the backup drive, including all users, applications, documents, and network settings. I would recommend, however, that you only bring back your user accounts. This will give you the best cleaning. Your user accounts should have all your important data. It will be tempting to move over all your applications… fight that urge. Your system was undoubtedly clogged with unused applications and remnants of partially deleted programs. Instead, starting fresh will get you better performance and a slimmer system. Also by starting clean, device drivers will not be installed on top of old versions, but instead be the correct versions for only what you have. It will be as your computer was, when it was new.
Even after you have reinstalled all that you had before, you will notice that you are using less of your hard drive as you had been using before. Your computer should also seem snappier and more stable. So even though spring is here, spend some time cleaning out your Macs OS before you run outside. Your computer will love you for it.
