OSX Install - 14 hours from USB

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OSX Install - 14 hours from USB

I copied the image of my OSX 10.6 disc to an 8GB USB drive and ran the install on a new 640GB Western Digital 5400RPM drive. At first I stopped the installation after an hour. When I restarted the install I let it run overnight and all day while I was at work. When I woke up the install said about 18 minutes remaining. When I came home at lunchtime it said about 10 minutes. Then when i got home at 5PM the install was just finishing.

I also installed windows 7 pro through boot camp. Windows is running fine with no performance issues, but OS X is sluggish and I see the beach ball whenever I try to do anything.

15" mbp Unibody, Mac OS X (10.6.2), Win7 Pro on boot camp

Posted on Jan 27, 2010 5:51 AM

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Answer 1

sdschramm

Level 3

524 points

Jan 27, 2010 1:28 PM in response to Dano66

Don't install from USB.
Install from the DVD like your supposed to.

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Answer 2

eww

Level 9

53,028 points

Jan 27, 2010 1:37 PM in response to Dano66

As you've discovered, flash drives are unbearably slow.

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Answer 3

Dano66 Author

Level 1

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Jan 28, 2010 10:09 AM in response to eww

The reason for installing from the flash drive is that the disc is scratched so bad the mbp won't boot from it. It can view the disc in osx, but not install. 😟 I copied the disc to a blank DVD-DL and tried to install this morning, After work I will see if the performance has improved.

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Answer 4

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,994 points

Jan 28, 2010 10:41 AM in response to Dano66

Why don't you just call Apple they will send you a replacement media for a nominal charge.

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Answer 5

sdschramm

Level 3

524 points

Jan 28, 2010 5:58 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Snow leopard is only $29 anyways, so if you have to, just buy another copy.
Make sure you make a backup DVD once you get it! And make sure you do it with Disk Utility via a disk image, DON'T use a third party app like TOAST as you will run into errors. (I think this because I had to do the same thing)

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Answer 6

Dano66 Author

Level 1

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Feb 7, 2010 4:58 AM in response to sdschramm

I bought a retail OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard disc last night. I tried a new install, formatted the partition and then installed. It took about 6 hours and the operating system is sluggish again with the beach ball coming up whenever i click anything :\
Seems weird because my windows partition runs fine. I even tried installing OS X onto a single partition using the full disc. Windows installed again in about 25 minutes.

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Answer 7

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Feb 7, 2010 5:10 AM in response to Dano66

Did you zero out the partition? You may have bad blocks. It should not take that amount of time. Have your hard drive checked out.

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