Mac Maintenance and Troubleshooting Tips

[mrcqm]

Proper maintenance and a few common sense preventive measures can make troubleshooting unnecessary or at least far easier.
A condensed version of this is a work in progress and will be posted shortly.

• Keep a backup of your Mac.

• If you are using Leopard, Time Machine does a great job. Choose a backup drive that is at least 50% larger than the drive you are protecting. For instance, if your Mac's primary drive is 500 GB, choose a 750 GB or larger backup drive. Time Machine not only stores the most recent version of your files, but also previous versions and deleted files. It does this in an efficient manner - for example, it will not store multiple copies of an unchanged file - but it still requires extra space for full functionality. If your backup drive is too small, you will not be able to 'travel' as far back in time as you might want to.
• A bootable clone is a terrific backup method as well. While a clone will give you just one point in time to restore to, you can easily boot from it for a very fast restore. Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner are two excellent choices here. Both are free to use for basic functionality with modest licensing fees for full functionality.
• Verify and repair permissions periodically. Open Disk Utility, select the volume in the left margin, and click the "repair disk permissions" button.
• When attempting a change on your computer, consider how you'll recover if the change does not go well. Try not to paint yourself into a corner. For example, if you are using Boot Camp and have trouble getting Windows to fully boot (blue screen), it is not a good idea to select your Windows partition as the primary boot volume. There are usually ways out - for example, you can hold down the "option" key when booting your Mac to select a different startup volume - but you'll probably waste more time trying to find out how.
• Download the appropriate firmware restore image for your computer from Apple's support site. A quick Google search for "apple support firmware restore" should lead you to the correct file. Read the list of applicable computers to verify you have the correct file for your computer.

Troubleshooting techniques

Many of the following steps require a modifier key at boot, for this to work a wired USB Keyboard must be used. If you have activated Firmware Password protection then it must be disabled before you can use a boot modifier key (if you don't understand this sentence then ignore it )

• Kernel panics involve a deceptively friendly looking screen that simply says you need to hold down the power button and restart your computer. A blank folder with a question mark in it indicates a corrupt Operating System (OS) or that the OS cannot find essential files. These are bad boots and indicate something has gone wrong in the system. Think about what just changed. Focus your efforts on fixing the problem around whatever just recently changed.
• Try rebooting. It might work fine. If it does, repair permissions and spend some time ensuring your backup is up to date «just in case».
• Try booting into ‘Safe’ mode by holding down the SHIFT key at boot, this is a very slow process and can take up to 15 minutes as the OS verifies the system files. If successful shut down and do a normal boot.
• Reset PRAM. Resetting PRAM is a good first step for troubleshooting, since it restores many minor settings to their defaults, such as screen resolution, time zone and volume level. It is not a cure-all, but it can sometimes fix strange hardware problems like the internal iSight camera not being recognized. Make sure you aren't wearing headphones when you reset the PRAM, because your Mac's startup chime will play at full blast. To reset the PRAM, hold down ⌘(command) OPTION P R when booting the computer and hold until you hear the second set of startup chimes.
• If hardware recently changed (i.e. just added memory), remove the new memory and try again. Maybe the new hardware is faulty. You can also test for faulty hardware by running the Apple Hardware Test - insert the Mac OS X Install DVD (Disc 1) that came with your computer. Reboot, hold down the "D" key (D for diagnostics), and the hardware test will pop up. Run it to see if something is wrong with the physical hardware of your computer. If the computer is under warranty and you have Apple memory, then take your Mac to an Apple Store and they will fix it. Note that Apple does not service third-party memory - you will have to go directly to the vendor or the manufacturer for replacing bad third-party memory. Other hardware issues (bad logic board, etc.) generally must be serviced by Apple.
• Third party commercial software such as Diskwarrior and/or TechTools can often repair a disk when the Apple diagnostics fail, if you have a copy available then boot using the CDR (C at boot) and follow the on screen instructions.
• Reset firmware. In cases where you have just upgraded the firmware (specifically "firmware"; no other update applies) and the computer has kernel panics after the upgrade, you may need to reset the firmware to factory default settings. Obtain a firmware restore image from Apple's support website. Burn it to cd. Start up your computer by holding the power button until the power / sleep light flashes quickly. If your computer has a cd tray, it will open at this point. Insert the firmware restore cd.
• Restore from backup.

• If you have another Mac available, place the two computers close to each other. Start up the problematic one while holding down the T key. This will launch "target mode" and you will see a firewire logo on your problematic Mac's screen. Connect the problematic one to your good Mac using a Firewire cable. From the good Mac, open the problematic Mac's drive and, if you have space for it, back up the entire volume. If you do not have space for that, at the very least grab anything important and save a backup. You can also do simple stuff from here such as repairing permissions.
• If you are running Leopard and are using Time Machine, insert the Leopard install disc and power your computer up. Follow the install prompts to restore from a Time Machine backup. Should be straightforward and relatively simple.
• If you are restoring from a cloned disc image (Super Duper, Carbon Copy, etc.), connect the backup drive and boot while pressing option. Select your backup volume and continue booting. This will run your Mac directly from the backup. Now clone from your backup drive to your primary volume (reverse the backup direction). If your backup is old and dated, a common sense first step here is to copy at least your user directory from the primary volume to some other location prior to performing this restore.
  
• Archive and Install. Insert the OS X install disc and power your computer up. During the install process, select Archive and Install. This will store a copy of your old applications and such in your user directory. It consumes space so once your computer is fine again, check that "prior system" folder to see if there is anything in there you need. Trash the rest.

[Reed]

Open Disk Utility, select the volume in the left margin, and click the "repair disk permissions" button.

What about 'Verify Disk' and 'Verify Disk Permissions?
Do these too ??

[mmkerc]

You can but it finds something you have to repair permissions. By selecting repair is does both verify and repair at the same time.

[justahaze]

Any tips on how to make my computer boot as fast as possible?

[mrcqm]

Originally Posted by justahaze

Any tips on how to make my computer boot as fast as possible?

Limit the number of applications that launch on startup to as few as possible. If you do not need to turn it off, don't. Just put it to sleep. Give it the maximum amount of memory allowed in your computer.

[justahaze]

Thanks mrcqm. A tiny tutorial on the memory allocation and startup processes would be nice - feel free to email me some links and screenshots too.

[Mikef]

Originally Posted by mrcqm

Limit the number of applications that launch on startup to as few as possible. If you do not need to turn it off, don't. Just put it to sleep. Give it the maximum amount of memory allowed in your computer.

....and keep your Desktop uncluttered. I regularly haunt ancestory sites and take many screenshots of useful information. After a heavy session I often add 30+ screenshots to my Desktop, if I shut down without tidying up the next boot session is much longer. If you must have many items on your Desktop then create a folder and put them inside that, three or four folders on a Desktop as against 40 icons will certainly make a difference to the boot speed of the Mac.

[niksimpson]

Limit the number of applications that launch on startup to as few as possible. If you do not need to turn it off, don't. Just put it to sleep. Give it the maximum amount of memory allowed in your computer.

Originally Posted by Mikef

....and keep your Desktop uncluttered. I regularly haunt ancestory sites and take many screenshots of useful information. After a heavy session I often add 30+ screenshots to my Desktop, if I shut down without tidying up the next boot session is much longer. If you must have many items on your Desktop then create a folder and put them inside that, three or four folders on a Desktop as against 40 icons will certainly make a difference to the boot speed of the Mac.

.... and if you perform heavy read-write operations such as large video files editing on your Mac probably defragmentation on boot drive can fix your problem.