If you think you have Mac problems.......

[jonny777]

I have been struggling on with a failing MacBook for about a year, but suddenly about a week ago it refused to start up at all. Not even when I removed the battery connection, then plugged it back in again - a last ditch effort I gather. 

 

Anyhow, because I knew it was on its last legs I saved as much information to my 3TB external HD as possible, and last week ordered a new MacBook Pro from Apple, which duly arrived yesterday.

 

Like a kid in a sweet shop I was so keen to get everything started that when it came to linking time machine with my external drive I just clicked the 'proceed' button, forgetting that my external drive was encrypted and I should have also checked the 'encrypt data' box. 

 

So, Time Machine began unencrypting the HD data, but something must have gone wrong - or it encountered a file that conflicted with what it was doing and the program stopped, the HD icon vanished from the desktop, re-appeared for about 10 seconds greyed out and renamed "hello", and now said to be locked with 0% free space by Disk Utility.

 

I have a copy of Disk Warrior, but that will not find it either. 

 

Because I had little on the internal drive which was important (I had only been using it for an hour), I tried a restart with cmd-r and amazingly the laptop started from the external disk which was supposedly locked and full, so I erased the internal drive and installed a brand new copy of 10.9.5 hoping that would solve the problem. 

 

With the internal drive completely erased and a start from the Time Machine recovery files on the external drive - a quick look at Disk Utility and the 3TB drive was verified as completely normal, 1.5TB free space and not locked, as soon as I installed a brand new version of Mavericks it was back to drive full, drive locked and greyed out again, so I have spent 4 hours achieving nothing.

 

I know it is some kind of partition problem, and I could solve it by re-formatting, there is so much backed up data on there that I don't want to lose it. Disk Drill finds it, and recovers it - but I don't have enough room to save it all on the internal disk.

 

I have looked at the tecchy forums, but they never seem to have the precise problem I am faced with.

 

If anyone knows how to restore a faulty disk partition map, then I would be most grateful for advice. 

[Guest]

Dunno.

 

But plan B might be to get an external disk housing (they're about a fiver on eBay) yank the drive from your old machine, and assuming the drive wasn't faulty you have all your old files back.

[jonny777]

Hey that might be an inspired idea, but is it really that simple? 

 

I just take the hard drive from my dead machine and plug it into this housing jobby? 

[Adrian]

Hey that might be an inspired idea, but is it really that simple? 

 

I just take the hard drive from my dead machine and plug it into this housing jobby? 

 

Yes it is as simple as that. You don't even need to have a housing I have one of these usb adapters so I can read a variety of discs. Plug it into my computer usb post and the drive appears as an external drive.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-5-3-5-SATA-IDE-to-USB-Converter-Adapter-Connector-Cable-for-Hard-Disk-HDD-PC-/200890054488?pt=UK_Computing_Drive_Cables_Adapters&hash=item2ec5faf758

[jonny777]

Brilliant. I will try it.

 

Thanks folks.

[Tony_S]

Brilliant. I will try it.

 

Thanks folks.

I don't know whether the Mac disc is 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch but my 3.5 inch to usb converter came with a power supply for the 3.5" SATA hard drive I rescued from a Sony laptop.

[PGC]

We don't have any MAC problems where I work, now. We've put boot camp on and they run as Windows machines.     Ducks behind parapet

 

Phil

[Guest]

I don't know whether the Mac disc is 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch but my 3.5 inch to usb converter came with a power supply for the 3.5" SATA hard drive I rescued from a Sony laptop.

They're 2.5" in a MacBook, which when used externally are pleasingly USB powered.

[Guest]

We don't have any MAC problems where I work, now. We've put boot camp on and they run as Windows machines.     Ducks behind parapet

Is your parapet made from gold bricks?

Running Macs as Windows machines doesn't seem to be the best use of large wads of cash

[PGC]

Is your parapet made from gold bricks?

Running Macs as Windows machines doesn't seem to be the best use of large wads of cash

 

Sadly, I have been the victim of internal politics and an Acting Head who has no knowledge of IT and no working bull sh!t filter. The former head of ICT (a teacher who knows nothing about networks and very little about computers) led her to believe that MACs were better for the class room than PC's, even though we're running Windows servers, Active Directory etc. Now we have a new Head who told me to sort this mess out so I swapped them from MAC to Windows and they work perfectly with Active Directory, Group Policy etc. Strange that!!!!!  

 

What is also upsetting the awful manager is that one class room of MACs were bought on lease, the lease has now expired and we're sending them back to be replace with PCs' All that hard work for nothing. What a shame! 

 

Phil

[jonny777]

We don't have any MAC problems where I work, now. We've put boot camp on and they run as Windows machines.     Ducks behind parapet

 

Phil

 

 

You are ok. I'm not anti Windows PCs or laptops, but I have been using Macs for about 20 years and so they have become second nature. I'm sure that had I used Windows products for a similar length of time I would swear by those as well, but I just can't get used to all that b: drive, c: drive..... h: drive stuff, and I am too old to change now - however less expensive they may be.

[D9020 Nimbus]

Depends what state the old MacBook is in but Macs can be booted up in target disk mode where the Mac essentially acts just as a hard drive. I think you need something called a "null modem cable" to make the connection between the two Macs in this case.

 

Another option to consider, if you have a reasonably near Apple Store, is to make an appointment for the "Genius Bar", where you might get some useful advice.

[jonny777]

I have been struggling on with a failing MacBook for about a year, but suddenly about a week ago it refused to start up at all. Not even when I removed the battery connection, then plugged it back in again - a last ditch effort I gather. 

 

Anyhow, because I knew it was on its last legs I saved as much information to my 3TB external HD as possible, and last week ordered a new MacBook Pro from Apple, which duly arrived yesterday.

 

Like a kid in a sweet shop I was so keen to get everything started that when it came to linking time machine with my external drive I just clicked the 'proceed' button, forgetting that my external drive was encrypted and I should have also checked the 'encrypt data' box. 

 

So, Time Machine began unencrypting the HD data, but something must have gone wrong - or it encountered a file that conflicted with what it was doing and the program stopped, the HD icon vanished from the desktop, re-appeared for about 10 seconds greyed out and renamed "hello", and now said to be locked with 0% free space by Disk Utility.

 

I have a copy of Disk Warrior, but that will not find it either. 

 

Because I had little on the internal drive which was important (I had only been using it for an hour), I tried a restart with cmd-r and amazingly the laptop started from the external disk which was supposedly locked and full, so I erased the internal drive and installed a brand new copy of 10.9.5 hoping that would solve the problem. 

 

With the internal drive completely erased and a start from the Time Machine recovery files on the external drive - a quick look at Disk Utility and the 3TB drive was verified as completely normal, 1.5TB free space and not locked, as soon as I installed a brand new version of Mavericks it was back to drive full, drive locked and greyed out again, so I have spent 4 hours achieving nothing.

 

I know it is some kind of partition problem, and I could solve it by re-formatting, there is so much backed up data on there that I don't want to lose it. Disk Drill finds it, and recovers it - but I don't have enough room to save it all on the internal disk.

 

I have looked at the tecchy forums, but they never seem to have the precise problem I am faced with.

 

If anyone knows how to restore a faulty disk partition map, then I would be most grateful for advice. 

 

 

Well, I must be the luckiest person alive; because Apple have brought out an update to the OS called Yosemite. I thought that I might as well install the latest of everything and dowloaded the software. When I came to install it, the preliminary routine searched for the various destination disks that I could put it on.

 

Lo and behold, there was the name of my (allegedly) corrupt disk amongst the others. So in a moment of madness I decided that I would see what happened if I installed Yosemite on it. (Yes, I know it could have ended in fatal corruption of everything). All that happened was a box came up asking for the password to the encrypted disk, and I entered that and the icon re-appeared on the desktop.

 

Quickly, I changed the name of that disk on the desktop; thinking that if the computer was seeing '3TB' as corrupt it might not with 'threeTB', and the drive has worked perfectly ever since, and my blood pressure has returned to some semblance of normality.

[PGC]

Well, I must be the luckiest person alive; because Apple have brought out an update to the OS called Yosemite. I thought that I might as well install the latest of everything and dowloaded the software. When I came to install it, the preliminary routine searched for the various destination disks that I could put it on.

 

Lo and behold, there was the name of my (allegedly) corrupt disk amongst the others. So in a moment of madness I decided that I would see what happened if I installed Yosemite on it. (Yes, I know it could have ended in fatal corruption of everything). All that happened was a box came up asking for the password to the encrypted disk, and I entered that and the icon re-appeared on the desktop.

 

Quickly, I changed the name of that disk on the desktop; thinking that if the computer was seeing '3TB' as corrupt it might not with 'threeTB', and the drive has worked perfectly ever since, and my blood pressure has returned to some semblance of normality.

 

This is often the way things work with IT, blind luck!

 

We have been having a series of intermittent network outages recently, and we just couldn't find out why or what was causing them.

 

The computer of one of our members of staff suddenly stopped talking to the network - I tried all the usual tricks to get it working but they didn't work. While I was getting some more diagnostic tools from my desk, my technician walked in to the room where the problem computer was. He had already fixed a similar problem with another computer in the same office, put 2 and 2 together, went to the comms. cabinet and patched teh computer to a different switch.

 

The computer started working perfectly, so we move the only other connection on the first switch to another switch and take the now redundant switch out of the network. Since then, the network has been running perfectly, and it was pure, blind luck that we found what was causing the problem!

 

Phil

[jjb1970]

The thing about the Mac vs. Windows argument I find interesting is that it proves the value of PR and marketing. In my experience I wouldn't say Macs were any better or worse than Windows PC's but whereas every software glitch with a MS product or platform is held up as proof of how ghastly MS are Mac users seem to just accept that software will have glitches etc and just get on with things. And there is still the attitude that by buying a Mac you are buying into the alternative choice and poking the big corporates in the eye despite the fact that Apple are one of the worlds most valuable corporations. That is a huge testament to their marketing brilliance. Every time I've bought a new PC (not many admittedly) I've wanted to buy a Mac but in the end have always decided that the higher price was not justified by the added desirability of the product.

[alfsboy]

Doesnt Apple have a help line when you buy a new one .My daughter bought a new G4 way back when they first came out  .She put in a Virgin internet set up disc in and nothing worked afterwards .

She didnt know what to do so got me to sort it out .The problem with this was I didnt even know how to turn it on let alone use it .I had never used a computer in my life .So after a read up  of the little booklet that came with it I phoned up Apple and very nice irish lady spent about 3 days  on and off trying to get to the bottom of it .We succeeded and I learned a lot about Macs on the way .None of which I remembered .The Virgin set up disc corrupted the entire system as it wasnt configured for a G4 .My plan B  was to take into John Lewis ,where my daughter bought it ,and scream and scream and scream  and scream .