Re: Best way to reinstall MAC OS X?
Not if you back them up first. Clone drive 1 to drive 2 with SuperDuper (I actually use PSyncX, but whichever you use, make sure you can boot from the clone which is on the 2nd hard drive. Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk, choose OS on drive 2, and reboot. If it boots up fine and the apps work fine, then you got a good clone and you can now go to System Preferences > Startup Disk, choose OS on drive 1, and reboot into drive 1 to do the clean install).
Then clean install drive 1 using the OS X Install CD's or DVD. Then either manually drag stuff from drive 2's desktop (to get to desktop on drive 2, double-cick on drive 2, click on Users, click on Username, click on Desktop, and drive 2's desktop files will be seen. Try it before you wipe drive 1 and install new OS on drive 1, just to make sure you know where it is), or use Migration Assistant.app in /Utilities to move stuff from the old OS on drive 2 to the new OS on drive 1
Note: The slash stands for the root of the drive. In other words, what you see when you double-click on a drive icon on your desktop and it gives you a new window showing what is on the drive, it's showing you the folders on the root of your drive, or /. So Applications folder would be shown to be at /Applications, or Applications at the root level. There is also Applications at the User level, or /User/Username/Applications. Applications installed at the user level are only available to be used by that user. Applications installed at the root level can be used by every user of the machine.
Don