[hudson1]

I'm at the point of facing a likely system reinstall and I'm trying to research the process to make this as painless as possible.

My first criteria is that I can't use an Archive and Install because my machine came with 10.1.4 and my 10.2 Upgrade CD does not allow for this. I've backed up the Users folder with Carbon Copy Cloner to another partition on the same disk (make a disk image on that partition).

After erasing the current boot partition and installing the old 10.1.4, do I want to find a way to end the install process without creating a "user"? My preference is to go this route because I theoretically can reinert the backed up Users folder. Is this even possible or do I have to go through a Users folder replacement process instead? Also, I'm not entirely sure how that works (log in at Root to accomplish?). One piece of info that might be relevant is that there are two users directories, both backed up together in the same disk image.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

[suthercd]

If you install a new system you must have a user to enable login.

Why not do the install. Then selectively copy from your backup Home folder to the new Home folder. Do the same with /Applications and /Applications/Utilities. Might take 30 minutes after the install, might take an hour, but then you have a new system, stable, restored data and apps and you won't have to do that again unless you mess it up.

Craig

[OpenStep]

tip; if you hit open-apple and q at the registration screen you can skip right to creating a user and save time.

[CharlesS]

You can skip creating the users, but you're going to need to either have an alternate boot disk or know how to use single-user mode. You're also going to need to back up this folder in addition to the Users folder:

/private/var/db/netinfo

Note that this folder needs to be copied as root, or else the permissions will get messed up.