Mac help needed

[meagain]

I think it's free till August or so. Unless something changed? I have to buy that. I prefer it to Parallels. So far it's the only piece of software I've wanted/needed to buy for the Mac. Just because of stupid UPS Worldship (tho' that'll change). But I can't imagine the hassle of running more than 1 machine and switching, etc. like that.

[jimmy4300]

The OS is hosed. I don't know what iMac you have so giving advice is a hit and miss thing. But, since erasing the hard drive is not an option, Get an external drive as someone above suggested, either FireWire if your machine supports it or USB. Start up from the Apple StartUp DVD. Format the new HD and load the latest OS on to your new drive. The latest OS BTW is 10.4.10. Restart your machine, it will startup from the disk that has a good OS on it. The other HD with the hosed OS will now be visible as another HD and your music should still be there. I think you can take it from there.

BTW, I retired on 3/01/07, and as I sit here writing this on my PowerMac I thank my stars that I am not forced to use a PC any more in the office. I've loved the Mac since 1985.

 

Lou

I know this now- one computer, one operating system. Why does it seem that there is no way to successfully update an OS? The instructions did not give any inkling of the dangerous journey I was about to embark on.

Wish I'd never seen the iPod, it's still in it's box. I'm taking the damned thing back. 

 

IMO, this is not the fault of the Macintosh, but operator error.  I don't like to find fault, but it seems like you were trying to load all sorts of OSs at the same time on a machine of unknown vintage. In any computer system, updates are performed one at a time, and then the machine restarted to test for workability.  Diagnostics are run to check for disk errors.   I've been a Macintosh consultant for over 20 years and have never lost one bit information.  I still have files on my machine dating back to the 80s.  The Macintosh Operating System has always been the most elegant and user friendly system to work with, but as with anything do the wrong thing and you can get yourself into trouble.

 

Lou  

[colterphoto1]

older version OSX peacefully coexisting with OS9 and iTunes V4 on 4 year old iMac. Everything running smoothly for years.

get iPod, now computer needs later iTunes, in order to do so, have to install more recent OS10.3+

I have purchsed copy of 10.3, followed directions (I thought).

yes I have PC's, music is on iMac- about 47 GB worth.

Jimmy- can you help me recover?

My first computer was a Mac SE while in College. I'm on Mac number 4 right now and have always loved them. It was photo software that forced me to PC, which have been buggy, killed by viruses, you name it.

I want my Mac back, I want digital tunes on iPod, just frustrated right now.

...and I bent a prop on my boat Saturday and my CDwalkman broke down.....

[Jay Registrar]

MAS,

It is not so much the "fundamental design" which lends the Mac less vunerable to virus attacks, it is that they don't have enough machines out there to make it worthwhile. And lets not forget, the real target is Windows and Bill Gates. I am not bias either way. I use both PCs and Macs at work. Both are a pain in the *** when they have problems, and both do!

[mas]

MAS,

It is not so much the "fundamental design" which lends the Mac less vunerable to virus attacks, it is that they don't have enough machines out there to make it worthwhile. And lets not forget, the real target is Windows and Bill Gates. I am not bias either way. I use both PCs and Macs at work. Both are a pain in the *** when they have problems, and both do!

With all due respect, this is absolute nonsense. The fundamental design is vastly different and very real!

This has been discussed in the past and information regarding this is readily available elsewhere. But a basic understanding of secure OS design principles does come in handy. If you care to discuss this in greater depth, PM me.

You might want to investigate the concept called sandboxing that is fully implemented in OSX, achieved by reducing the number of external dependencies to an

applications runtime environment, creating the most natural level of

isolation possible. Vectors to the environment outside the sandbox are restricted resulting in a protected environment. Thus, if you do manage to infect an application, the extent of the damage is to cause the application to crash, and the problem is resolved with a simple delete. This is the reason that anti-virus utilities have failed to estalish a successful market niche in the Mac environment. And OSX is the largest installed implementation of UNIX.

Contrast that design with such 'features'(sic) as ActiveX, the fatally flawed legacy baggage designed prior to a networked environment providing for the interprocess communication based upon the simple flagged identification of a resource as being a 'friend', with NO means to authenticate said process! Add this to the non-sandboxed environment and you have a system whereby if you breach Windows, you have access to all system resources and the ability to take total control of the OS.

There is a fundamental architectural difference. OS security design is not simply some emotional issue of marketshare.

And as far as the tqget being Windows and Bill gates???? Really? Windows as been hacked a myriad number of times and ways.

If you want to become famous and to write an exclusive resume, effectively breach OSX. You will be featured on Jay Leno, Letterman, and every tech and news magazine in the world. Call me, I would love to be your agent. Few 'Apples' have ever been such an attractive target!

[troyphoto]

Need my back-up MacBook Pro 15" for a while?

[colterphoto1]

Need my back-up MacBook Pro 15" for a while?

That would be cool, Could I use it an external HD (which I have) to grab all my files off the iMac, then reload OS and programs (ugh).

All this just to play digital music on an iPod- geesh....

[mas]

While not a complete solution, here is a link that defines the process and workarounds for booting from CD.

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050311073316780

Mini-Tutorial: Inability to boot from Mac OS X CD/DVDs; solving

It's a troubleshooting nightmare: you have problems starting your
standard Mac OS X installation, or another serious issue that requires
re-installation of Mac OS X itself. You grab your Mac OS X CD or DVD,
insert it, press the reset button, hold down the "C" key and expect to
be back up and running -- but the system still refuses to properly
boot.

This obviously makes re-installation of Mac OS X impossible, and
severely limits your troubleshooting avenues. Fortunately, there are
some relatively straightforward methods for dealing with this issue.

Try holding down the "option" key instead of the "C" key For
some reason, holding down the "C" key at startup does not always work
to force booting from media that is in your Mac's optical drive.

In these cases, holding down the "option" key at startup (which,
when functioning normally, displays all available startup devices) may
allow you to select the appropriate boot volume (your Mac OS X
installation CD or DVD) and proceed with the normal booting process.

Failing this, try holding down the "Command", "Option", "Shift", and
"Delete" keys simultaneously while your Mac is starting up. This should
force the system to bypass the normal startup volume and look for
another valid boot drive -- namely your Mac OS X startup CD or DVD.

Your Mac OS X CD or DVD might not be compatible with your Mac If
you are using a Mac OS X CD or DVD that came with a Mac other than your
own, it may not be able to properly startup your machine. This can
occur, for instance, if you purchased a retail copy of Mac OS X older
than the version that is required to boot your Mac.

As an example, the first-generation PowerBook 1.5 GHz 17" requires, as a minimum, OS X 10.3.3 to boot. It will not
startup from a Mac OS X 10.3.0 installation CD. Other examples: The
original 2003 Power Mac G5s require Mac OS 10.2.7 or higher and the
2004 Power Mac G5s require 10.3.4 or higher.

In these cases, simply use the "Restore" CD/DVD that was included
with with your Mac, or make sure the retail copy you Mac OS X
installation disc meets the minimum requirement for your Mac (the Mac
OS X version number should be listed on the CD/DVD label).

Note that this issue also affects third-party startup products. For
instance, the CD included with Norton Utilities includes a version of
Mac OS X that is too old for most new Macs, and the version of Mac OS X
included with some older releases of Alsoft's DiskWarrior is also
out-of-date for some systems.

Make sure your firmware is current In some cases, out-of-date firmware can result in an inability to properly startup from optical media.

Apple maintains a chart of available firmware updates for various Mac models in Knowledge Base article #86117.

Go to the aforementioned Knowledge Base article, and download the
firmware updater that appears next your Mac's name (if one is listed)
and launch the downloaded installer. If your Mac requires the firmware
update, the installation process will proceed. If your Mac is already
up-to-date, the firmware installer will alert you and no installation
will take place.

Re-select the CD/DVD in System Preferences In some cases, simply
re-selecting the appropriate startup CD/DVD in the "Startup Disk" pane
of System Preferences will allow the system to boot from that media
when the Mac is restarted.

Clean your media It may seem like common sense, but dirty
optical media has been the cause of failed startups for a number of
users. Use a soft cloth (if there is liquid or otherwise sticky
residue, slightly dampen the cloth with plain water) to gently wipe the
optical side of the startup media.

Need my back-up MacBook Pro 15" for a while?

That
would be cool, Could I use it an external HD (which I have) to grab all
my files off the iMac, then reload OS and programs (ugh).

All this just to play digital music on an iPod- geesh....

You should be able to...download the files to the hard drive and to a DVD and then reload the OS and the data files in separate partitions!

I know you don't want to hear this, but a good automated backup program with a master and subsequent incremental backups would make this issue a fifteen minute affair.

Not to mention an even better strategy of getting VMWare and its snapshot capability as well as installing a second OSX VM (virtual machine) which can be used if the main OSX VM becomes hosed. A poor man's HA (high availability) environment.

You still want to make system and data backups, but in VMWare the backup of the VM is just a file!

Read up on the abilities of VMWare and enjoy for just $39.95!!! And you can then install your Windows OS (and even a backup of Windows for disaster recovery) and apps as well and enjoy the best of all worlds.

But remember, you still want a system backup in the event you lose the entire harddrive or machine!

You might want to check out SuperDuper, a lousy name for a very good backup program.

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Here is a screen capture of the VMWare page, but check it out and be sure to examine the links for the screen shots and MUCH MORE INFO!!!!!!!!!

http://www.vmware.com/beta/fusion/

VMware Fusion

Run multiple operating systems, including
Windows, Linux, and Solaris, on your Macintosh at the same time as Mac
OS X without rebooting. Designed from the ground up for the Mac,
VMware Fusion allows you to run Mac and Windows applications
side-by-side quickly and effortlessly sharing information between the
two operating systems environments.

For a limited time, VMware Fusion is available for pre-order for only $39.99, a 50% savings over the suggested retail price of $79.99 when VMware Fusion is released for general availability. See the VMware Fusion pre-order FAQ for more details.

OverviewFeaturesScreensFAQsPurchase

Run Windows applications just like Mac applications

Say
goodbye to the Windows desktop and use the VMware Fusion Launch Palette
or Spotlight to easily launch your Windows applications. Switch between
all your Windows and Mac applications using Exposé©. Keep your favorite
applications in the Dock, bring forward only the application you care
about, and use your familiar Mac keyboard shortcuts the whole time.

Turn back time on your PC

Capture and save the exact
state of your virtual machine with VMware Fusions innovative Snapshot
feature. If your Windows virtual machine becomes unresponsive, use the
Snapshot feature to rollback to a known stable state with the click of
a button.

Get the most out of your Mac hardware

Take full
advantage of 64-bit and multi-core processors of your Mac for maximum
flexibility. You can run 64-bit operating systems such as Windows Vista
Ultimate 64-bit Edition or leverage Virtual SMP to create and run
multi-processor virtual machines.

Our cutting-edge 3D technology even lets you to play select DirectX
8.1 games on your Mac. Plus, get full read/write support for CDs and
DVDs and complete USB 2.0 support--even for proprietary video cameras,
Bluetooth devices and other Windows-only peripherals.

Run multiple operating systems on your Mac with ease

Easily
use UNIX-based operating systems such as Linux and Solaris right
alongside Windows and Mac OS X, with the ease and simplicity you've
come to expect from your Mac. Only VMware Fusion makes it possible to
copy and paste text between Mac and Linux or Solaris, or to drag and
drop files from the Mac desktop to Linux or Solaris.

Get started today by downloading a ready-to-use virtual appliance including many popular Linux distributions from the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace.
The Virtual Appliance Marketplace features over 450 preconfigured
virtual machines that you can download and use with the click of a
button.

---

Get VMware Fusion now

The VMware Fusion public beta is a free download and is available now. Additionally, for a limited time, VMware Fusion is available for pre-order for only $39.99,
which is a 50% savings over the suggested retail price of $79.99 when
VMware Fusion is released for general availability. Your Pre-Order will
include a final VMware Fusion license key that will be emailed to you
immediately and your credit card will be charged. You may use this
license key to immediately run the VMware Fusion 1.0 Release Candidate,
any future release candidate builds, and the final VMware Fusion 1.0
released product. Visit the VMware Fusion FAQ for more details.

[BLSamuel]

Not sure Michael or anyone will see this as it's a month and a half later, but watch the sales and get an external hard drive. 250GB USB hard drives can often be found on sale for $100. Replaced our Iomega with a Western Digital MyBook Essential I picked up at the local Best Buy for $99 a few months ago shortly after the Iomega spooled up and started kicking in the afterburners for take off and then KGHNG (I suspect the sound of a head crash). And we had restored a few things and our laptop was 3 years old and the hard drive occasionally got flaky. I'd rather have an ethernet RAID box but too short on dough.... and almost got 2 of the USB drives as natually the laptop hard drive started flaking out right after the external drive crashed but thankfully was fine with a little disk maintenance.

For Windows at least I wouldn't get the deluxe WD model with expensive backup software or separate software. Microsoft SyncToy is available for free download and does a good job of backing up files but is not recommended for restoring the OS and programs.

It was put together by one of the Microsoft employees to organize and backup digital photos on the laptop drive and I think 2 external drives for an upcoming once in a lifetime African photo safari. SyncToy has different options for backups, keep totaly in sync including deletes (not good for restoring oops or files that mysteriously disappear) or the option I use to keep things in sync including renaming files (and I hope directories) but to never delete the file from the backup (still got it if it accidentally is deleted or disappears. I've scheduled daily backups as well as weekly and monthly backups.

[nu2toobs]

First thing is, don't panic. All of your files are fine unless you formatted. You need to call Apple support. I had a similar thing happen and they had me up and running in 5 minutes. Apple has always been more trouble free for me than Windows.

[colterphoto1]

Yes thanks, I got a MyBook from WD for my PC for now, will get another for the iMac and will do that mirror-imaging thing or night backup. It's still in the shop, hopefully today.

In other GOODnews I opened my iPod 30 and got it up and running from my work PC for now, at least I had music for the truck trip last night.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!