Computer Still Reeling

Well, as I noted last weekend, I cloned my old hard disk and switched to a new one after some odd crashes occurred and the old disk started emitting peculiar noises. I thought the problem was solved, but the system kept crashing. And started crashing more frequently. So I disconnected the old hard disk completely (previously, I switched to booting from the new disk, but left the old one connected).

Problem solved. Or not. Things just kept getting worse. Soon my system was freezing in a specific pattern four or five times a day. I placed a terminal window running top on the side of my screen so that I could try to see what was happening at the moment of the crash, but nothing terribly useful was yieled in my quest for the problem. So, I am now attempting the final, most severe attempt at eliminating all software-related problems: I wiped my new hard disk clean and have now completed a fresh install of OS X, redownloaded all of the updates using Software Update, reinstalled iLife '04, reconfigured Mail (partially — still working on that), recopied my data (which I stored on my iPod to the extent that I could fit it on there), synced with .Mac to bring back my address book/contacts/calendar, and so on. The system is almost back to where I had it, save for a few applications I have not yet copied back over (MS Office 2004 and jEdit, for instance). Frustratingly, to keep this test from being compromised, I cannot simply copy my entire old home directory back in place, which would restore all of my settings (afterall, Mac OS X is UNIX-based); thus I have the need to reconfigure everything, just incase the settings files of my user account where corrupt at all.

And now I wait. I wait to see if it crashes. I am hoping this will solve the problem, leaving me in the same position I thought I was last Sunday of simply trying to prove to Apple to give me a new hard disk, rather than searching for other problems too. I am guessing the cloning procedure was corrupted by the fact that the old hard disk had/has a problem and that this ruined the integrity of the data to enough of an extent as to cause crashes, but I do not know that for sure.

I do know that if this works out, I will be installed OS X again on Friday or Saturday. This time, though, I'll be installing Tiger (10.4, which comes out on Friday), not Panther (10.3), and I will be doing it to gain new features rather than hunt down odd bugs.