Can i restore my macbook pro (OSX) to a certain date?

moorele

Hi,

My macbook has started acting very strange today (think i may have downloaded a dodgy music file earlier) and I was just wondering can I restore it to a certain date? E.g. it was working fine yesterday so I can I restore it to then?

Have tried using disk utility to fix any problems but no luck so far! Main issue is cant download anything. Download just stalls and colorwheel appears & also itunes wont work either - have tried to reinstall but cant download latest itunes as no downloads work!

All suggestions welcomed! I'm a bit of a techno retard so the more details the better! Thank in advance!
moorele is online now Report Post Edit/Delete Message

nialler

What operating system are you using and if you ARE using Leopard pray that you have activated Time Machine. And dodgy music files DO exist but the macs aren't that susceptible to them.

Give us the symptoms in as clear english as possible and the operating system, found under the blue/grey apple menu top right in the white bar that says about this mac.

Just read that again, have you tried repairing permissions under disk utility?

moorele

Ok mac os x v 10.4.10 processor 2.33 GHZ intel core 2 duo memore 2gb MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

Yep first thing i did was repair permissions on disk utility.

I downloaded a music file and the computer started acting funny straight after that. When i open itunes it just freezes and i cant force quit it - i physically have to switch the mac on & off but it still doesnt work. So i deleted all itunes files apart from ituneslibrary.xml thinking i'd download new version of itunes and import the music library back into it! But when i go to download any file the pop up appears and when i click save the colorwheel appears & everything freezes & again i cant force quit anything i have to physically shut off the mac.

Any ideas?

nialler

ok print this out

Restart mac, hold down the S key (this boots into single user mode)

when you get the black screen that'll frighten the bejayziz out of you type the following when you get the cursor:

/sbin/fsck -f

let it do it's thing

you'll see it checking various bits of the file system when it finishes and it says **MODIFIED** or something along those lines hit the up arrow key on your keyboard, this will bring up

/sbin/fsck -f

let it run again until it says the system appears to be ok

NOW

type

reboot

while rebooting (after the chime) hold down the shift key until your arm starts hurting, this boots into safe mode

once booted into safe mode and signed in, restart.

See how that sorts you out.


BTW did disk utility say anything about SMART status when you highlighted the disk?

moorele

It just says verified beside SMART status!

Will try the above now & let you know i get on!

moorele

Ok i'm stumped at step 1

When i restart holding S down it switches on and asks for my password (normally it would just start right up & go to my desktop i.e. i dont have to put in my password)....

Not getting any black screen! *Hangs head in shame*

nialler

Try apple-S, sorry sometimes they can be a bit tempermental.

moorele

Ok did what you said to do! Got it to reboot in safe mode... logged in & restarted but doesnt seem to have solved in.

Tried to download a pdf file... this time wasnt asked to save file but 2 copies of file automatically appear on desktop then whole thing freezes with the colourwheel... Download box never appeared that usually tells u the progression of a download. Couldnt force quit so had to manually hold the power key to switch computer off as before!!!

When i ran the comands /sbin/fsck -f it said at the end something along the lines of everything appeared ok. cant remember exact phrase!

Totally stumped here! Any other suggestions?

nialler

Moorele

Which version out of interest of safari are you using?

N

also you know there's 10.4.11 available as 10.4.10 was a nightmare due to bugs.

moorele

I am using firefox version 2.0.0.13

nialler

moorele wrote: »

I am using firefox version 2.0.0.13

ok is safari exhibiting the same problems?

moorele

i cant get safari to open at all saying it cant connect to the server... firefox working fine tho!

moorele

apart from the obvious issues!

nialler

ok this may be a silly question, you do have DNS entries in your network settings?

moorele

Eh what does that mean?

At the moment i'm in college using the college network so i log on using my username and password. Is that what u mean?

nialler

Under your system preferences then under network there should be your ethernet connection there'll be a green dot beside it, when you hit configure you'll get

IP Address: 192.168.1.xx (or something along those lines)
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.1.1 (or something along those lines)
DNS: 194.125.133.10
194.125.133.11 (or something along those lines)

DNS (Domain Name System) allows computers to use www.google.ie instead of typing 66.249.99.63 in the address bar. OS 10 sh1ts itself sometimes and bogs down the machine when there's no DNS entries.

moorele

I'm using airport. When i go to system prefs>network under TCP/IP i have an ip address, numbers in subnet mask and router but DNS servers are blank... Any clues?

nialler

try the two 194.125.133.10/11 ones I gave you in the previous post, they're old indigo/eircom ones and I think they still work, yep just got a 16ms ping from them so they're active. Try that and see what happens.

N

nialler

Did that work? Hate when people do not come back and let you know what happened.

Ham'nd'egger

nialler wrote: »

Did that work? Hate when people do not come back and let you know what happened.

Student type, he may have knocked off home for the weekend; that or he is hungover

moorele

Hi nialler, sorry for taking so long to get back to you! Putting in the DNS thing didnt work and my computer went a bit mental and the internet stopped working completely... Only just got it working again but cant use firefox using safari & downloads seem to be working so in the process of consolidating my itunes library. Still having the same issues with firefox tho & i can only use firefox on my work network for some reason so not being able to download might be a bit of an issue!

PS: Hope i didnt appear to be rude... totally not my intention! I really appreciate all your help with this matter so far! Thanks a million I do genuinely appreciate your help!

Thumper Long

If all the previous posts fail to help and the update to 10.4.11 doesn't work either, an archive and install from the original disks that came with the machine will generally solve most of the mysterious problems that can plague you. Instructions on archive and install process are here. Its important that after you perform the archive and install that you update to at least 10.4.10 if you haven't already gone to 10.4.11 as some of the programmes and preference files may be dependent on the previous version. This will provide a clean system folder and library etc.

Simon201

Time for a nice 'archive and install' from your Tiger disk me thinks Moorele

moorele

Ok for whatever reason my internet has been setup so that I can only use firefox in work & safari at home! Safari seems to be working fine at home - have no issues downloading etc... However firefox is still acting up - its very slow, everytime i click the mouse to open an email or click on a link the colorwheel appears and it takes about 30seconds or so to preform every operation! & also theres the existing problem of not being able to download anything!

If i do the archive stuff from the original discs mentioned above will it wipe my computer? In other words should i back everything up first as i havent done this yet with this laptop!

Thanks again for all the help lads! Much appreciated!

moorele

Think i solved the problem by deleting the downloads.rdf file from the firefox profiles folder! I am able to download again and firefox is back to normal speedwise!

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

moorele

Ok i spoke too soon - firefox is still ridiculously slow showing the colorwheel everytime you try to do anything... Downloads are working tho Progress at least....

Any suggestions on how to speed up firefox? Have cleared private data but doesnt seem to have had any impact!

nialler

Hi moorele

Another ridiculous question from moi, firefox is UB (universal binary) isn't it, it's not running under rosetta? You said above the setup for office is firefox, the setup for home is safari. Now when you sit down in the office and plug in, switch on your macbook, do you log into the network via the login screen at startup with an AD login and by default the setup of your network account has firefox as the preferred browser or is it your normal account and the only way to access the net or email is through firefox? Also another one, do you have Flip4mac installed to play .wmv files?

Niall

moorele

nialler wrote: »

Hi moorele

Another ridiculous question from moi, firefox is UB (universal binary) isn't it, it's not running under rosetta? You said above the setup for office is firefox, the setup for home is safari. Now when you sit down in the office and plug in, switch on your macbook, do you log into the network via the login screen at startup with an AD login and by default the setup of your network account has firefox as the preferred browser or is it your normal account and the only way to access the net or email is through firefox? Also another one, do you have Flip4mac installed to play .wmv files?

Niall

I'm not sure about the whole rosetta thing.... When i'm in work I switch on my laptop as I normally would at home and then I connect to the work wifi network by entering my user id and password & then firefox launches! I get a prompt from the proxy to re-enter my user id & password & hey presto it connects! Just gone ridiculously slow for some reason! & yep i do have flip4mac installed.... should i uninstall it?