software
Tech Tip: Diagnosing software issues Part III
One you have determined that your problem is related to your System and not your User then follow these steps to replace your system only. This will not erase your personal files but you may need to reinstall some drivers and such.
Performing an Archive and Install:
Step 1: Insert your Original Install Disk or The disk you used to upgrade to another version of OS X. Restart your machine and hold down the ‘C’ key on your keyboard. NOTE: If you do not have the correct disks you will need to obtain replacement disks from Apple.
Step 2: Click past the Introduction/Language Selection screen and any successive screens until you reach the area where it asks you to choose the Volume to install on.
Step 3: Click on your hard drive (most likely called Macintosh HD) and notice the exclamation point hovering above the icon.
Step 4: Click the ‘Options’ button on the bottom left hand corner of the window and select ‘Archive & Install’ with ‘Preserve Users and Network Settings’ checked. Click the ‘Ok’ button.
Step 5: Continue with the install as normal.
BONUS: Resetting your password:
Step 1: Insert your Original Install Disk or The disk you used to upgrade to another version of OS X. Restart your machine and hold down the ‘C’ key on your keyboard. NOTE: If you do not have the correct disks you will need to obtain replacement disks from Apple.
Step 2: Click past the language selection/introduction screen. Notice the menu bar that appears at the top of the screen.
Step 3: Click the ‘Utilities’ menu and select ‘Reset Password’.
Step 4: Click on your hard drive (most likely Macintosh HD) and choose the user to reset the password for from the drop down menu. Enter your new password twice and click save.
Step 5: Restart the machine.
OPTIONAL Step 6: The user account password is now changed but your keychain password is not. This will cause OS X to bug you for this password (which you do not know) whenever it tries to read from the keychain. You will need to generate a new login.keychain to solve this issue.
A. Go to the ‘Go’ menu from the Finder and select ‘Home’. Navigate inside the ‘Library’ folder to the ‘Keychains’ folder.
B. Delete the login.keychain file.
Before bringing in a machine, one will usually call us and ask us if there is any way possible to fix the machine before bringing it all the way down to the shop. These were a few simple ways to fix some of your most basic problems. Everyone hopes that their problem will just be a quick fix, but honestly most of the time there isn’t a cut and dry solution. If you want to avoid bringing in a machine then research your problem, someone has likely had the same issue as you before.
Tech Tip 11/13/08.1
Troubleshooting Software Issues Part 1: Users
Software problems can be a pain to diagnose but they are often easy problems to fix at home. If I have determined that a particular problem is software but I am unable to isolate the issue right away, the first thing I do is create a test user. Creating a test user helps to determine whether the problem is related to anything inside the problem system’s user account. For instance, if there is a corrupted preference file that is causing a program to crash when launched, you will notice that the problem is not reproduced in the new user. In this case you could just go ahead and delete the preference file, however you will find that some user-related problems can not be solved that easily.
Test User
Once you have successfully isolated the problem with a test user, how do you fix the original problem? Read part two to find out.