Can't Drag & Drop or Copy & Paste

[Rafael V]

The problem is, even with an external HD, you probably won't be able to backup any file. Unless you share your entire hard drive and acess your Mac from another computer on your network. With no dragging nor copying/cutting you can't select anything!

If you have enough space in your hard drive, just partition and then import all settings from the "old" OS X after you reinstall on the new partition. I've read that OS X 10.5 and beyond can partition without losing data, so i decided to give it a try.

Go to Applications\Utilities\Disk Utilities - select your disk, click on the + add a name and drag the partition to define it's size. Then Apply. (i had no idea how to do it so i googled "partition mac")

During the operation, Disk Utility crashed 3 times, i created the partition (crashed in the end), It was there but wasn't working.

Then verifyied it (another crash) and finally Erased it even though it was already empty - and voilà, it worked!

Reinstalling on the new partition was pretty easy, importing all data and account information took a long time (81 Gb of data). All data and applications were duplicated, now my " old" partition is my backup and Mac is working again, happily dragging and dropping.

[minou]

didn't know you could partition without wiping everything. was going to connect it to my old powerbook and copy bits and pieces in target mode, then put it on the hd...

thanks for this. hope to drag and drop again soon (:

[Redspin]

Don't know if you fixed the drag and drop problem. I had the exact same problem until today. I tried everything the apple tech guy took me through. The last thing he wanted me to do was upgrade to snow leopard as I did not have the original install disks for 10.5. Well I went out and got the upgrade, installed it and now everything works fine. I can even print as well as drag and drop. My cs3 programs launch without quitting too. Hope this helps.

[minou]

Thanks, I managed to fix it. For some reason I couldn't partition the disk, it kept saying no space left on device even when I split the partitions in half (only a third of the disk was used). So went for the clean install and so far so good - I lost nothing and everything's back as it was.

[mara_snh]

I've had the same problem with Word for over a month and it was driving me nuts. I finally deleted two files from User/Library/Preferences

com.microsoft.Word.plist
Microsoft Word (located in the "Microsoft Word" subfolder)

I then rebooted and the problem was gone.

EDIT: Well, that lasted for one launch of Word. This is so maddening! I guess I'll just have to stick to Pages and SAve As Word for clients on the Dark Side. You lost me, Microsoft, though it's not like you ever really had me.

[dushuai]

Originally Posted by djackmac

There are at least 3 different ways to do those functions.
1. Edit menu
2. control + click
3. keyboard shortcuts
4. If using a two button mouse, right click

Which of these methods is not working or are all not working?

still studying

[jmcintyre]

I found another solution to this problem that worked for me, and it was much simpler than an archive & install: the file "/tmp" (a symbolic link to "/private/tmp") was missing from my startup disk. More information and detailed instructions:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...07#post7980907

[webpilot]

I have this problem all the time and it is extremely annoying. The way I solve it is to run snow leopard cache cleaner. I do a "deep clean" which requires a restart, although maybe some less severe setting would work fine. It works every time when I start my computer back up, but only for a little while.

It seems that there must be some file that keeps getting corrupted, and if I just knew which one to delete it would save me a lot of shut down/start up time.