[y2kerr]

Hi everyone,

Well I'm running OS X 10.4.1 and I'm getting some mixed results. At times it runs perfectly fine and at other times I'm finding it to be quite slow. This speed issue seems to be seperate from the number of apps I'm running at any one time and so I've decided to bite the bullet and reformat and reinstall. Before I do, though, I want to ask a few things.

First, I've got my hard drive partitioned into two parts. There's the "System" partition where OS X and all my apps reside, and there's the "Data" partition where user accounts and their data reside (Hence the clever names)

I've reformatted and reinstalled Windows machines a bunch of times (one reason for the switch to Mac!) but I've never done it on a Mac. My plan is to simply insert the OS X Tiger DVD and follow the appropriate steps for reformatting the "System" partition annd then installing OS X Tiger on the newly formatted "System" partition.

Is that all I really need to do? All my important data is on the "Data" partition, so I figure it'll be fine when I reformat. Am I right in thinking this?

Another thing is about my user accounts. Once OS X has been reinstalled will it recognize that the user accounts are located on the "Data" partition, or will I have to do something to set them up properly?

I think I've got all the bases covered, but I'd like confirmation and/or advice from the experts (that's you guys) before I go forward with this.

Thanks!

Mike

[andreadeca]

Well, here's my opinion:

First thing: this /system ad /data patition thing is really a thing of the windoze world (I'm from there, too, formats are so frequent that you HAVE to have the damn /data partition!).

However, partitioning in macosX is not necessary, and actually bad for performance: MacOs has a file system that automatically defrags files and tries to put them in the fastest areas of the disk, so if you have multiple partitions, you are actually limiting the places where macos can put your files, hence less disk performance.
So my first suggestion is to get rid of both partitions and merge them. you can do this during the reinstall.

This obviously means transferring all contents of the /data partition somewhere (DVD, external HD, other machine, whatever).

Now for the user profile stuff: unless you have moved home folders and such, all files relative to your users will be in their respective Home folder, which is under /users in the system drive. So you need to copy those folders too before reformatting.
if you have user info on your /data partition it means that you modified some settings (i.e. music folder, picture folder, that kind of stuff), which also means you should be able to do it again a second time.
NOTE: if you copy your user's home directory, do NOT recopy it over the new installation! the home directory has several tens of thousand of library files and junk like that: you will have to selectively choose what to bring back by browsing in the home folders.

As to the reinstallation: just pop in the DVD, select "erase and install" and you are set. Follow the instructions: if you want to merge/modify your partitions, you must do this in one of the first screens in the installation: be careful and you wil note that at one point on the bar at the top of the screen you will have access to the disk utility menu, which will allow you to reformat/repartition the drives.

...and you're off! Doing a complete erase/install is a bit traumatic the first time, you're always afraid you've forgotten something. My best suggestion: try to copy your whole drive contents (both partitions) somewhere. This will make it possible for you to get any file back.

good luck!
andrea

[y2kerr]

Thanks for your advice, andreadeca. I didn't know about how OS X defrags the hard drive and it's a good point.

But I set up the two partitions just in case this situation arose. In theory, at least, I should be able to reformat and reinstall on the /System partition while leaving my /Data partition untouched and ready to go once Tiger is reinstalled. This was the advice given to me on the Apple discussion boards a couple of years ago when I was planning to purchase my Powerbook. (Unfortunately Apple doesn't keep messages that far back archived, or I'd go check them out now!)

Anyway, if might go with your idea (I've got plenty of space on my iPod, so I'll just transfer files there) but I'll have to think about it first.

Thanks,
Mike