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Though some would have it otherwise, Macs do sometimes experience issues. I am not a Mac user for too many years to help much at all so I am compiling tips together from some recent posts. I will likely add to this list as I catch helpful hints.

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dvdhawk, post: 355879 wrote: It seems unlikely that simply removing a plugin would affect anything across the entire system. Weirdness can also be sign your internal Lithium battery might be losing some start-up data if the machine is of a certain age.

But, Even before Plan A, if you haven't already - clear your parameter RAM.

1) Do a Restart and as soon as it goes black press and hold down all four of these keys at once [ Command (Apple)] [Option] [P] [R].

2) Keep holding the keys down.

3) The machine will partially start up, play the start-up chime, and re-boot again. It's OK to let it do this a couple times before you release the keys. Done.

This is one of those things that may/or may not help, but it can't hurt. It clears a little cache of start-up parameters. If it resets your clock, I'd be especially suspicious of the Lithium battery.

http://support.appl…"]Apple Support Doc.[/]="http://support.appl…"]Apple Support Doc.[/]

dvdhawk, post: 355879 wrote: Purging the P-RAM was a lot more common back in OS 7, and became increasingly less necessary with each OS since. But it's a good first response housekeeping step if you notice anything at all odd about your mac's behavior.

ccking,
You should have a System Restore or Update that will bail you out. It's highly unlikely you would have to do a complete reformat. If you can't update the OS that way, you might have another option. Do you have any other macs running the same version of OSX? If so, you can always hook the two together in "target mode" and compare System Folders / Libraries / Extensions and see what's missing from the areas you were poking around in removing files.

To start the non-healthy machine in "target mode":

Start the working machine first.
With the non-healthy machine still off, connect the two via firewire
Start up the non-healthy machine while holding down the [T] key
You'll see the Firewire icon on the screen of the non-healthy machine and it's drive will be mounted on the desktop of the working machine just like an external drive.

Then it's an exercise in comparing the working OS to the non-working OS.

thatjeffguy, post: 355876 wrote: A simple solution would be to download from Apple the appropriate "combo updater" for your system version and install it. It won't disturb any of your files but will likely put back whatever might be missing.

Comments

Jeemy Sun, 10/31/2010 - 15:41

In Disk Utility - Repair Permissions on drives. This should be done every month.

Its also advisable for admin machines to use Diskwarrior - the small purchase cost far outweighs the trouble that can come from not pre-emptively checking hard drives. YMMV using it on an audio machine but I see no reason not to, and do.

joh6 Fri, 01/21/2011 - 21:55

TheJackAttack, post: 355881 wrote: Originally Posted by dvdhawk
It seems unlikely that simply removing a plug-in would affect anything across the entire system. Weirdness can also be sign your internal Lithium battery might be losing some start-up data if the machine is of a certain age.

But, Even before Plan A, if you haven't already - clear your parameter RAM.

1) Do a Restart and as soon as it goes black press and hold down all four of these keys at once [ Command (Apple)] [Option] [P] [R].

2) Keep holding the keys down.

3) The machine will partially start up, play the start-up chime, and re-boot again. It's OK to let it do this a couple times before you release the keys. Done.

This is one of those things that may/or may not help, but it can't hurt. It clears a little cache of start-up parameters. If it resets your clock, I'd be especially suspicious of the Lithium battery.

Ok just to be clear before i attempt this does this just clear that little bit of start up stuff or the whole drive