Print menu problem

[fwegscheider]

I am using a G5 tower with OS10.5.5. I had recently loaded a Norton antivirus program that they supply us with here at school (CSUF). It caused all kinds of problems including crashing the hard drive every few minutes. I finally removed the application and two Virex folder from the library and it quit crashing the hard drive, but now if I hit the "print" option in any application (Word, entourage, safari, firefox, etc.) it crashes the application and I have to do 2 force quits to get out of the application. Everything else appears to be OK. I have an HP 5510 all-in-one printer that still scans & will receive & print faxes so it does not appear to be a problem with the printer software (the software is included with Leopard and HP does not have drivers or software to work with 10.5 so I can't download from the HP website. The Leopard installation DVD does not allow me to install only the HP drivers and I do not want to reinstall the OS unless absolutely necessary--even though I've backed everything up on my external drive I've had crashes while installing before and it took our computer tech guy several days to get my stuff back (he's a PC guy and not very Mac savvy. So does anybody have other ideas other than archiving & reinstalling (I'll do this if it is the only thing to do)
Thanks
Frank W.

 

[Walrus666]

It sounds like you had two antivirus apps on your Mac. That could cause some problems. Have you tried repairing permissions or using a maintenance app like Cocktail, MainMenu, Onyx, DiskWarrior, AppleJack, or TechTool Pro?

 

[fwegscheider]

No, all I've done is Mac First aid so far. I've done repair permissions when I was using OS10.4, but haven't with 10.5 because I'm not certain if I should rep[air all permissions--I've seen some postings saying that you can scrrew things up worse if you do that unless you really know what the permissions are. Is that correct? If you just accept the repair permissions are you generally safe? I'm probably going to get DiskWarrior as I also have problems with some external and one other internal hard drive. Could this software also possibly solve my present problem?
Thanks for your help.
Since my last posting I've repaired permissions but I still have the same printing problem

 

[Walrus666]

Incorrect permissions can cause printing problems among a myriad of other problems if not corrected. Although repairing permissions isn't a panacea for everything that might be ailing your Mac, I have never seen it actually cause damage. I've been repairing permissions and running Cocktail or MainMenu (free) every week and DiskWarrior every couple of months on my Mac for quite some time and as a result my Mac runs like a champ.
I do indeed recommend Disk Warrior and TechTool Pro as well.

 

[fwegscheider]

Thanks for your advice--I will get a copy of DiskWarrior and give it a try. FJW

 

[Walrus666]

Hopefully, DW will do the trick. The only other options would be to try a good maintenance app (Cocktail, MainMenu,etc.) or reinstall the O.S. By the way, that was a good move backing up your data. If you do end up reinstalling the O.S. I would recommend the "Erase and Install".

 

[fwegscheider]

Last night I went to look for cocktail and found a site to download the Leopard version for a free trial. I am always a bit wary of some of these sites that there could possibly be a virus, although this appeared to be a legit site. Also, while looking at all the features I wouldn't know which ones to use. If you have suggestions for safe download sites & which features I should try first I would greatly appreciate it. When I first installed Leopard my hard drive froze during installation and it was several weeks before our tech guy at school could get me somewhat operational, but it's never had the same stability as when I was running Tiger so I'm very hesitant whenever I do any type of maintenance, etc. Again, thanks for your help.

 

[Ric]

Hi there,
this is the home of cocktail... you can download it from there with no worries.

http://www.maintain.se/cocktail/index.php

The links that Walrus has given ie version tracker are also good. If you are ever concerened by a site by all means run it by us and we'll check it out for you...

I think that you would be better off, checking your backup is okay...then stick in the OS X disk and do an erase and install !!

Sometimes it's just quicker to start again in situations like this...then just plug in the printer and see if it works...before adding any additional drivers.

regards

Ric

 

[fwegscheider]

Thanks for the advice Ric & Wlarus. But I am unable to reinstall the OS. I got Disk Warrior4 and was able to get both my external hard drive and my backup internal hard drive to show up on the desktop. Ihad weeks problems when I first installed Leopard (even had our computer tech guy here at school work on it & it took several days to get it working so-so because the OS10.5 installation disc kept crashing part way through the installation). So I'm very wary of reinstalling. So today I tried what you suggested, erase & install on by internal backup drive & the same thing is happening--it crashes when it still has about 50 minutes left to install so I don't want to try reinstalling on my main drive unless it works on my other drive. I've gone through the initial disc scan just prior to installation & it says the disc is OK. When I ran DiskWarrior on my external drive it took a long time & said it had to run slower because of memory (I have 1 GB DDR SDRAM seems to me that should be enough and the system profiler says it's OK ). Any more suggestions are very much appreciated. Frank W. Is it possible the OS installation disk could be defective even though the self-check says it's OK? This is a legitimate DVD from Apple licensed to me, not a burned copy.

 

[Walrus666]

Hello, Although it's not common, it's possible for an installation disc to be defective. Did you perform a visual inspection of the installation disc as well, making sure that there were no scratches, fingerprints, etc.? In addition, is your optical drive in good shape?