The reloading of your operating system may be precipitated by one of several events. The most common of those are finishing the repair of a problem that looks like an application software problem but isn’t and when things just go all wrong that requires a reinstallation of the operating system. You know those times when applications are quitting for no apparent reason and all else fails to resolve it.

The process is a little different from the process described above but only to the point that there is an operating system and applications on your boot drive and you would rather not reload EVERYTHING, if you can help it.

 I strongly suggest – for your sanity sake – to backup the contents of your system boot drive before proceeding.

Then, download Carbon Copy Cloner from the internet and go to the Apple Downloads section of apple.com to find the appropriate MacOs X Combo updater that will bring your operating system back to the current dot level that is available. Keep those two items on the backup disk for safe keeping. Fire up Carbon Copy Cloner and choose the from and to disks and copy all the contents of your boot disk to the backup disk.

Start by loading the Install Disk 1 into the CD/DVD drive of your Macintosh and then select from the Apple Menu; reboot. Hold down the “C” keyboard key and this should start off the process. Choose to use the Customize button to select the Archive and Install function of the installation process. Continue with the installation until it is time to reboot your machine. When the system restarts you will find a Previoust System folder on your boot disk. Keep it around for a short time.

Once the system is restarted, you are now running on your new copy of OS X. The Finder will present to you a message asking for the disk #2 an then it will finish the total operating system install.

 After all of the contents of disk #2 are installed, you should install any operating system Combo update files you downloaded prior to the reinstallation. Then, start using your applications. Make sure that they all appear to work properly and if there is some problem noted, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy that application from the backup set to the active boot disk.

You must also consider this: when you have used the Software Updates mechanism to keep your Macintosh updates current, the mechanism uses the System Library>Receipts folder to store information about which updates have been installed on your system. When reinstalling your operating system, you might need to delete all the Receipts folder entries that are relevant to the process of reinstalling previously installed updates.

Your system should be ready to Rock and Roll at this time.!