Hi guys,
Short Version: I'm running the latest version of Tiger. My machine is having problems. Before I attempt a full reinstall, is it possible for my machine to simply reinstall Tiger (i.e. all applications and files stay intact) to see if some system files have gotten corrupted? I have the original 10.4 install discs. Thanks!
Long Version: Yesterday evening my 12" Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz began exhibiting problems while starting up. From a cold start, the machine gets to the grey screen with the apple and spinning cog, then freezes and the darker grey screen that says "you need to restart your computer" appears. I hold down my power button to restart the machine, and it starts up fine. From within OS X, if I restart the machine, or shutdown and then restart the machine, it goes through the same process. Thus, I'm having to start/restart my machine twice every time to get it functioning.
My father, who maintains several unix servers at his job and is fairly fluent and competent with such things, looked through my logs and otherwise did some general troubleshooting. We found several older items that had been uninstalled or erased earlier (third party applications) that were still listed on the plist and that were failing, seeming to set off a chain of events that would make the machine fail to get to the login process. He removed those items from the plist, but it didn't make a difference. We also reset the PRAM.
Right now, the machine seems stable enough, I just have to start it twice each time I want to use it (I'm fully aware that that's not "stable" lol). I'm currently planning a full reinstall on Friday (that's the first time I have time to complete a full reinstall), but was wondering if it's possible to troubleshoot my system by sticking my original Tiger install disc in and telling the machine to replace the current version of Tiger with what's on the disc, assuring that there are no corrupted system files, etc. without losing any information/applications.
Probably a silly question, but I'm just brainstorming for things I can do before initiating a full reinstall.
Thanks!
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