Squeaky Clean Install of Ventura 13.2.1?
Hi:
Our new Mac Studio suddenly started acting really squirrely about a week ago, crashing “reliably” within 30” to 5’ of restarting every time with a “Your computer was restarted because of a problem” error after 6 months of flawless service.
I didn’t change or update any software (but who knows what happened in the background?).
I set up a test partition with a clean install of Ventura and it ran perfectly from that, so am thinking it is a software issue.
I’ve migrated all the contents from a 7 yo iMac, and then a 5 yo iMac before that, so there are tons of “junk” on the computer.
I’d like to do a complete wipe of the hard drive and reinstall Ventura from scratch. After that point I’ll reinstall the useful apps one by one. Hopefully then we’ll end up with a stable computer without all the accrued software detritus.
Here’s the rub: it is the family computer with 8 log ons. How do I do this wipe and reinstall, yet preserve the 8 log-ons, and each user’s photos and documents, while keeping unwanted software from tagging along for the reinstall?
I guess I could figure out how to drag the “Documents” and “Desktop” folders for each user from the backup, and then figure out how to copy all their photos and music as well. What else do I need to think about? Is there an easy way to do this? Ideas?
Many thanks!!!
Mac Studio, macOS 13.2