And problems gone (knock wood).

If you’ve been following this topic, you know that I was having hard disk problems and decided to resolve them by reformatting my hard disk and reinstalling all my software from scratch.

After some problems getting Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to install properly — I think there were scratches or dust on the disc — I was finally able to start installing software on my hard disk. iLife ’06 went first because I needed to work with iWeb for a project and I wanted to get my iPhoto library back online. One by one I pulled out the original program discs for my big software products: Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and InDesign. And then I pulled out the archives I use to save the original installers for downloaded software like Fetch, Nicecast, Audacity, and others. It took me most of the day last Wednesday to get the job 75% done. I’ll do the rest as I need to.

One thing that disappointed me was that I couldn’t find my original Auto F/X Photographic Edges disc. I use that product to add interesting edges to photos on wickenburg-az.com. But I poked around on the Web and found an old article (and here’s another one) that explained how to add interesting edge effects with various built-in Photoshop filters. I created an effect I liked, turned it into a Photoshop action, and can now apply it without the overhead of the Auto F/X package.

It took quite a while to get all my music and photos from the backup hard disk to my nice, clean hard disk. But everything transfered over without problems and I can access everything just like I could before the reformat.

The result of all this work and worry? My computer is running great, with no unexplained pauses, unexpectedly quitting applications, or lockups. Was it worth it? Of course it was!