[l008com]

My cousin got an iMac for christmas. Hes young, and it was an iMac 350. It worked great at first, but then it started having problems. So we reformatted and reinstalled OS X. Then it worked great for a while then it started having problems again, you couldn't drag thing, like in the finder you wouldn't be able to drag a folder or something like that. So after playing with it for a while with no luck, we reformatted and reinstalled again. It again was good for a while, and now the no drag problem is back again. I can't figure it out for the life of me. I know it has microsoft word on there. Is that known to cause any problems? The only other thing is the Hard Drive, its a 20 GB practically new drive, but it was out of a PC. We reformated it in teh beginning and each time we reinstalled, but still, could that possibly be it? The only thing I can think of is if he buys a new hard drive, but I don't want him to buy one of thats not goona help and the problems are just going to return.
Ideas?

[JKT]

Originally posted by l008com:
My cousin got an iMac for christmas. Hes young, and it was an iMac 350. It worked great at first, but then it started having problems. So we reformatted and reinstalled OS X. Then it worked great for a while then it started having problems again, you couldn't drag thing, like in the finder you wouldn't be able to drag a folder or something like that. So after playing with it for a while with no luck, we reformatted and reinstalled again. It again was good for a while, and now the no drag problem is back again. I can't figure it out for the life of me. I know it has microsoft word on there. Is that known to cause any problems? The only other thing is the Hard Drive, its a 20 GB practically new drive, but it was out of a PC. We reformated it in teh beginning and each time we reinstalled, but still, could that possibly be it? The only thing I can think of is if he buys a new hard drive, but I don't want him to buy one of thats not goona help and the problems are just going to return.
Ideas?

If you are running Jaguar, have you tried repairing the permissions on the disk? Open Disk Utility in the Applications>Utilities folder and click the first aid tab - to the bottom left will be two buttons called Verify Disk Permissions and Repair Disk Permissions - in the left hand pane, highlight your disk and then click the repair permissions button. It'll take a good while to finish... if there is a lot of output, this could be your problem.

You'll find that many third party installations (especially those using the VISE installer) can mess with your file permissions, sometimes altering them on folders such as your Applications folder. I have had this happen to me once or twice and it prevented me from copying or deleting anything in my Apps folder. I highly recommend running the repair permissions after any third party software install.

[I WAS the One]

also, maybe you are in the simple finder option... try to compare with other mac to see if your using that mode, or go to file and change it yourself... sometimes people choose that option because they think is more comfortable that way, but it is a mistake...
anyway, try to check whats going on before buying the new HD.
good luck

[DeathMan]

Its always a difficult thing when something happens to one guys computer that isn't a really common problem.

If you're reformatting/reinstalling like that, you shouldn't keep getting problems unless:

1) There is something wrong with the install disk

2) There is something wrong with the Hardware.

For the first one, you could just to get your hands on another Jag disk, or disk image.

For the second one you could probably install OS9 and run that for a while and see if anything weird happens. Though isn't going to give you a 100% sure answer, if things were acting all weird, you would know that it is probably hardware related.

[booboo]

.... it worked great for a while then it started having problems again, you couldn't drag thing, like in the finder you wouldn't be able to drag a folder or something like that. ....Ideas? [/B]

I had exactly the same thing on my G4/533 DP. I never did get to the bottom of it. However, it has not resurfaced since I upgraded to 10.2.5 or 10.2.6 for that matter...

I have other <<shudder>> problems now, but that's a different story....