Hi,

A friend of mine was given a laptop, (MacBook) some time ago, and she asked me to have a look at it over the weekend, as the trackpad click wasn't working. I fixed that straight away but noticed something else. The hard drive is almost full... of crap, but not knowing a lot about how the Mac OS works, I'm not sure if just uninstalling software and deleting files will be more effective than that course of action would be on a Windows PC. BY which I mean not very effective, due to the registry, etc.

She has managed to lose the system CD, but I was wondering... if I managed to find another OS X DVD is there any way I could get the installation number from the current setup and re-use that, (thinking about it, does OS X require you to enter a CD Key when being installed?)

Any information or hints/tips would be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance

No. You're OK as long as you can find an install disk.

You should really find the install disk that matches the model of Mac you've got. If you've got no chance of that, any retail copy of Mac OS that is newer than the Mac itself will work with it - Installer disks for OS versions older than the Mac probably won't work, as they won't have the correct drivers.

If it's a pretty new Mac it might even have a 'restore partition' you can use to basically factory reset it - try booting it up holding down the 'option' key (the one with the symbol that looks a bit like a four leaf clover) that should give you a list of bootable partitions on the drive. If you see a recovery partition, boot to that and see what it offers you.

If you go to the apple menu and select 'about this mac', what does it say?

Thanks Jon. I tried the option key, but nothing happened. According to Google, this is a 2009 machine and can run anything up to OS X 10.8.

I'll give it a try and let you know how I get on.

That's the command key.

If there is a restore partition, you could reboot by holding command+R. The Mac will boot into a limited OS with just the options to run the disk utility stuff.

If there is no restore partition, insert a system disc and reboot holding the C key. It sometimes takes a while, but eventually the machine will boot from the optical media.

There is no defrag option, but a quick run over with Disk Utility should find any discrepancies. If it fixes errors, it's usually best to run it again a couple of times to ensure it has cleared everything.

Deleting programs and files is simply dragging to the trash can in the Dock (usually at the bottom), unless a program requires a proper uninstall. If the latter, there's usually an uninstall app next to the application itself in the Applications folder, though to be honest most programs these days don't need to be removed in this way unless they are specific utilities that add stuff deep in the system in some way. Don't forget to empty the trash (Finder menu > Empty Trash).

It may well be worth making a full backup of the hard drive before starting all of this. Use a cheap external USB drive of sufficient size, and look on the interwebs for Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. These are free programs that will literally duplicate an entire system to an external drive, and keep it as a bootable partition. If you just drag-copy the hard drive to the external, most of the system files won't be copied.

Have fun. </irony>

While Heather is correct about dragging and dropping apps to the Trash, this only delete the app, and not all the gumf they install in various Library folders.

I use the free app App Cleaner to remove apps. It hunts out all (or at least most) the extra files and deletes them too
You can either drag and drop the apps onto App Cleaner, or find them in App Cleaners menus.

Also, as far as Carbon Copy Cloner goes, to clone the drive PLUS its recovery partition, have to use the block copy option.

Thanks for the replies everyone. The lady who owns the laptop told me that "everything can go" so I just installed a new copy and it seems to be fine now. Just installing updates, but apart the the charger, (I've told her she needs a new one as the cable is split - I think the exact phrase I used was "It's a bloody death trap!") it seems like the job's a good 'un.