Corruption Happens
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Corruption happens over time and usage — a driver may overwrite another, due to a conflict or hardware issue, or it can just plain lose its way after a crash.

When the computer starts acting flaky, it's a corruption issue 98 percent of the time (unless we've recently done something to it and there is 98 percent of our clue).

Left unchecked, the problem will likely corrupt the entire install until the hard drive literally disappears or the computer won't boot.

Trashing Preferences is generally done as a corruption fix (or when we need to restore factory default settings). As we know, most trashed Preferences automatically rebuild to Default after a System reboot or Application relaunch.

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Some people spend days (and months) chasing corruption — and never nail it....

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System 9's "Clean Install" feature and System 10's "Archive Install" are designed to clean out corruption (and restore default settings).

However:

• These methods only clean out parts of the OS (Operating System), no third–party applications like PhotoShop.
  
  
• These methods leave half our install SUSPECT.

Only an Initialize StartFromScratch can 100 percent rule out an install.
Only a ZeroWrite can rule out a hard drive.

Faced with a flaky install, I may dink around trashing a few obvious preferences, but seldom spend more than 15 minutes chasing corruption.

At the end of the day, my time is better spent Initializing or Erasing the hard drive and Restoring my BACKUP — to get back to work on a TrustWorthy install....