Will erasing and reinstalling the OS help?

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Will erasing and reinstalling the OS help?

Ok MAC techies...all applications and software is up to date... None of my Word/excel/power points will open without instantly crashing,Safari sometimes will crash and others will just open to blank white screen and "think" forever and I will have to Hard Close it and restart. I backed up all pictures and movies and important docs to an external hard drive. I ran a Hardware Test on it and it said no problems found... Running OS 10.5.8.... Do I erase and reinstall the OS? Upgrade? Or is this beyond a reinstall and should break down and take it in... 🙂 Thank you!

iMac (20-inch Mid 2007), Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 17, 2012 5:21 PM

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Answer 1

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Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Mar 17, 2012 5:32 PM in response to Judd167

A complete erase and re-install is a very Windows thing to do. I have never had to do so in six years.

Instead consider an Archive and Install, which preserves all your own files and settings:

How to Archive & Install:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710

and this also:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2196?viewlocale=en_US

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Answer 2

Judd167 Author

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Mar 17, 2012 5:36 PM in response to Klaus1

Thank you for the suggestion 🙂 I haven't had any problems in 5 years with this computer and have no idea how to troubleshoot 🙂 I have the install dics but didnt want to jump and do anything too quickly... I will try this! Thank you!

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Answer 3

Mar 17, 2012 5:47 PM in response to Judd167

Doing a fresh or clean install on a mac is a very rare thing to do, but it will get rid of any software related issues. Should be done as a last resort.

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