New Snow Leopard install and problems

[David Hall]

Jim, there is a Utility available from Apple’s site called Ejectlet that might be of some use as a workaround. I have included the link to it below.

As for the issue itself, if you go into System Profiler and click on either ATA or Disk Burning under Hardware, does the system recognize the second optical drive? Was this a problem before you installed the new OS?

https://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ejectlet.html

David Hall

Support Technician
New Media Hollywood

Apple Certified Technical Coordinator 10.6

[Jim Scott]

Thanks for the reply David.

Yes, the drive is recognized in System Profiler, and no this was not a problem on Leopard. I’m beginning to think that there may be more going on here as I am having increasing problems with hanging programs. For example, when I first tried to access the System Profiler in order to answer your question I got a spinning beachball and had to Force Quit and restart in order to finally access it. I have had a similar experience with Disk Utility as well as some Adobe CS5 programs. Interestingly enough after the restart there was a recovered file in the trash – com.adobe.dynamiclinkmanagerCS5 – which I have seen before after restarts. I have also seen a set of fonts (the same 7 ttf fonts) in the recovered files folder several times after a restart. Something is amiss.

Since I have heard that bad RAM can cause odd behavior I ran a RAM test with Rember. It took four hours and showed OK when it was complete. I have four 4gb Crucial RAM sticks, plus two 1gb Apple sticks.

Thanks for your help.

Jim

[Steve Modica]

Do you have extensions in /System/Library/Extensions that are older than the snow leopard install date? If so, those may need to be removed/upgraded. You don’t want old drivers laying around.

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications

[Jim Scott]

Thanks for the input Steve.

As far as extensions go my folder has 224 of them, most of which show dates much earlier than my Snow Leopard install. When installing Snow Leopard I did choose to have “settings” moved over from my old system so I assume the extensions came along then. As far as which ones to keep, and which ones to get rid of… I haven’t a clue. Do you?

[Steve Modica]

[Jim Scott] “As far as extensions go my folder has 224 of them, most of which show dates much earlier than my Snow Leopard install. When installing Snow Leopard I did choose to have “settings” moved over from my old system so I assume the extensions came along then. As far as which ones to keep, and which ones to get rid of… I haven’t a clue. Do you?”

There’s no way to know for sure since they may be from other manufacturers. Drivers generally don’t come along when you upgrade. I’d do the archive/install thing and let it go from scratch.

Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications

[Jim Scott]

Thanks again Steve.

[Jim Scott]

After testing all my memory and running the Apple Hardware test with no problems noted I took my Mac into the Apple Store and had them run some diagnostics. They say my lower DVD burner is bad and have ordered a replacement. Hopefully that will fix the problem.

Thanks all for your input.