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General discussion

archive install

Apr 10, 2006 11:52AM PDT

My powerbook g4 has been freezing quite a bit recently for no reason. I was wondering if anyone knows a way that I can reinstall tiger (which is what I have) and still be able to keep all my files. Or if someone could just give me the steps for an archive install or whatever that would be awesome, thanks.

Discussion is locked

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Archive and install
Apr 10, 2006 8:01PM PDT

Boot from the Tiger installation CD, run the installer and you will see that the default option for Type of Installation is Archive and Install.
Make sure it is selected and then follow the instructions


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previous system
Apr 11, 2006 4:22AM PDT

I did the archive install and I was going to delete the previous system folder, but I wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do. Would I still have all my data (pictures, songs, etc.)? Because it seems like it would free up a lot of space to delete the previous system folder.

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Previous System
Apr 11, 2006 6:02AM PDT

Once you are happy that you have everything that you used to have, you can delete the previous system.

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thanks!
Apr 11, 2006 6:49AM PDT

thanks for the help. unfortunately my computer has frozen again since i did the archive install. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, maybe bring it in and get it checked out. thanks again.

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Transfers from Previous System to new System?
Feb 17, 2008 8:40AM PST

I had to do an Archive and Install when first my printer didn't respond to my request to print and then I seem to have messed up some setting. When I did the reinstall, Spotlight seemed to find the printer (Laserjet 4ML, an old dandy) in several places in the folder called "Previous System 1." If I just use the new system, my printer and its driver are nowhere to be found, despite there being a driver for that printer in Tiger. Go figure!

I read mrmacfixit's reply to "Previous System," but I have further questions. There seem to be items in my own Previous System folder (G4 Mac running latest version of Tiger, 10.4) that are not in the folder called "System." I can't put anything into the Library folder, right? But that is all that is currently in System. "Previous System" has folders for Applications, Library, mach.sym, private, System and Users.

And if I can transfer some of these to the folder called "System," how/where do I do it? I have looked through the forums here, and through my Tiger book (by David Pogue and called The Missing Manual) and can't find any answer. Can someone help me?

As to why the printer wasn't responding, despite many attempts to figure it out, that is a matter for another time, along with other questions I'm eager to ask.

Many thanks,

jenny

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That Previous System Folder
Feb 17, 2008 8:55PM PST

should be left alone. Nothing in it is being used.

The missing drivers for the printer should be installed in the same way as they were originally, or you could download a set from the HP site.
They claim to have drivers for this printer, even for 10.5

Another route would be to use the Tiger install disk and load the HP drivers that are included with the disk.

Remember, most of the items in the System folder are invisible, my 10.5 system folder contains only one folder!

If you have all the applications in your application folder that you had before the A & I, then you are good to go

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Well. . . .
Feb 18, 2008 12:00AM PST

OK, I guess I'll have to install them via HP, if I can (though that didn't work when I tried it, a week ago). It was a really perplexing, difficult business, the first time out, when I installed Tiger the first time.

I can't just install the Tiger drivers from the Install disk, because my disk doesn't give me the option of a custom install. Way back, it became apparent that the disks I got probably weren't the real thing, even though they looked, for all the world (to me) like it and were described as such. I had never seen genuine Apple OS X disks for Tiger, had gone to what was recommended to me as a legitimate online source. By the time I became aware that there was something fishy, I couldn't return them. They don't take them back, anyway.

That may be the reason that the files for my printer aren't in the folders where they appear for the previous system. When I used Spotlight to find those files, there were more than a dozen for my printer model?mostly nestled into various folders and sub-folders in the Library folder.

I downloaded the latest driver installer for my model from HP, but when I installed the software on the "MacintoshHD"?the only place I was offered?it either didn't put all the files in, or they went to the wrong place on the hard drive or. . . . All I did was follow the instructions! That's why I hoped that I could transfer the files from Previous System 1, where Spotlight found them, to the new one.

Well, I'll try HP again and download the drivers installer again. Can't say I know what I'm doing, exactly, but maybe this time it will "take."

Thanks. Wish me luck.

jenny

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The Installer,
Feb 18, 2008 3:08AM PST

should put all the necessary files in the correct places.

Once that is done, you have to use printer setup to get those drivers attached to that printer.

That part does not happen automatically.

So, before you download the driver for the second time, take trip over to the Printer Setup and try again

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Yes, I know
Feb 18, 2008 6:40AM PST

Dear patient mrmacfixit,

Yes, I know that I use the installer and the rest; it's just that the last time I did it, the driver didn't show up in the printer setup thingy. I'll try again.

Thanks,

jenny

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HP driver for printer
Feb 19, 2008 8:08AM PST

Well, I reinstalled the drivers that I got from HP for my Laserjet 4ML, but when I tried to do the whole printer setup thing, the printer still didn't show up. In fact, the only printers that do are those on a network to which I belong.

Unfortunately, the printer does show up in Previous System 1. I did a search with Spotlight and found lots of hits for it, located in various parts of that old System.

As I said, it's very odd that the new System seems to be only a small part of a complete System. It is the same as the folder called System that resides _within_ the previous, archived System folder, the one with a Library folder in it that holds Automater, Caches and so on. Could I have downloaded only _part_ of OS X when I did the archive and install? (It was indeed a weird download, with the installer asking incessantly for disk 2 but finally going on to disk 3).

Is there any way to replace the newer folder with the previous one? At least, that one has everything in it, including my printer files.

By the way, I used Disk Utility to repair permissions (the disk itself doesn't seem to need repairs) and I zapped the PRAM. When I have tried (repeatedly) to use DiskWarrior to build a new directory, however, it got only partway through step 5 and then gave up, saying that there was too little memory to continue. I thought that didn't happen with OSX! Oh, woe!

If there's anything further I can do at this point to get back to where I was, I welcome suggestions.

Thoroughly disgusted but hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel,

jenny

Sorry to be such a nuisance. I'm sure that you can understand, though, why I'm pushing this so hard.

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OK, Nothing to lose
Feb 19, 2008 9:28AM PST

Move whatever HP printer stuff you find in the old System folder, into the same folder in the new one.

If you feel up to it, another Archive and Install will not hurt. If disk 2 was required, did you feed it to it?

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Perhaps, I'd better
Feb 19, 2008 11:10PM PST

do another Archive and Install. I can't put the HP stuff into the same folder in the new System because that location doesn't exist in it. As I said, the new System is only one folder with a Library folder in it, and that corresponds to the same kind of folder in the previous System. The rest of the system seems not to have been installed.

Oh, how I wish that I had just gone to the Apple Store and gotten my copy of Tiger there. AppleRescue was recommended (by someone in one of the CNET forums, I think), so I assumed that what they'd send me was legitimate. I guess I was wrong.

Thanks for the help. I assume that if I try to put the HP printer stuff (and anything else that's missing) into the corresponding folder by drag and drop, it'll go in? I tried that with another result of Archive and Install and was told that files couldn't be replaced, but maybe the folder into which I wanted to put it was off limits.

I'll report on my degree of success when I can get to doing the new install. Today won't work, and I may be out of commission for a few days after this, so don't hold your breath. (As though you would!)

Best,

jenny

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Forgot to answer re: disk 2
Feb 19, 2008 11:17PM PST

Actually, disk 2 was in the drive all the time, so of course, I had given it to the install process.

Wish me luck on a new archive and install. As you may have gathered from my message of yesterday, everything seems to be in a muddle!

Thanks again,

jenny

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Just making sure
Feb 18, 2008 7:04AM PST

I awoke at 3 am today and haven't been asleep again since then, so I admit that I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I had to ask this question: If everything that is needed in the System folder is in it after installation, why is there so much more in Previous System 1 than in the new System? All that is in the new one is Library, whereas the other one has several folders and a file: Applications, Library, mach.sym, private, System (which has a Library folder in it with the same files that are the only folder in the new System) and Users. Don't the folders in Previous System 1 belong in the new System folder?

My Tiger book (Pogue) says after doing an Archive and Install, you put back anything that didn't get in. Or I think it does. And if there's nothing in the archived folder, why have an archived System folder?

I am thinking that the Library folder in the new system can't be all that is meant to be kept. Even the two Library folders in the archived System folder have different things in them. Or do all those other folders and the mach.sym file just magically regenerate within the new System folder at some point? That one Library folder certainly doesn't contain all that the archived System folder had.

As you can tell, I'm puzzled and confused and don't want to ditch Previous System 1 until I'm absolutely sure that is what I truly am meant to do. Doing the reinstall was painful (don't ask), and I don't want to do it again, so indulge me, would you, you kind man, and explain? I'd bake you a cake of thanks (I make a fine cake), but it would never get to you intact, and anyway, it sounds like bribery. I think I'd better just thank you, in advance and once again, for your help.

Best,

jenny (more than a little muddly)

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Get the real (Apple's own) Tiger?
Feb 21, 2008 12:33AM PST

One more question about installing Tiger?the last, I hope. Things went from worst to bad (but a little better) when I tried a new archive and install. I've been in a loop or sorts since I began. First, disk 2 (aka "Sleeping Beauty") kept ending in an error message at some point, then it responded but would install parts only just so far (different places, over time) and then require that I reinsert the disk and let it start from the beginning. Then, it began to install a whole lot of what is on the disk, but the installer would quit. I've had to start installing disk 2 again each time.

My question. It became clear, after I bought the disks, that what I got from Apple Rescue is not a true set of disks for Apple's OS 10.4 ("Tiger"). I was able to install Tiger on my computer, but as this saga indicates, that's not enough. I have located two new copies of Tiger from a highly rated merchant selling through Amazon (Apple no longer sells it). I'm willing to pay the $250 or so, including shipping, that the DVD and all will cost me, but do you thing that I'll then be able to install the OS successfully? I'm really at my wits' end, being as how I can't get back to OS X, stalled as I am at installing disk 2 in its entirety. It won't let me install only partially, either. This has already taken up two days of my time for the recent attempts at archive and install, and more before that for the partial one I succeeded at doing before. I can't leave the loop.

Not asking for guarantees that the genuine Apple disk will work; I'm just asking for an opinion.

Many thanks,

jenny

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STOP, Do not Pass Go, do not pay $250
Feb 21, 2008 2:33AM PST

Email me through my profile.


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