data recovery on a mac + newbie questions

tadcan

I've been given a 15" imac to work on. I do have decent PC knowledge but no mac experience. Mainly I want to know if how much translates to a mac and what doesn't.

So the owner installed a safari update for the wrong version and it broke. So he brought it to a mac techie, who installed leopard. During that process many photos or corrupted (red/blue smudges) and documents were lost, unfortunately he had no backup.

After looking around I installed mackeeper and need to get the password. Yes, I have an external drive to backup to. Before that thought I'd confirm a few things.

Is mackeeper a good option.
Is is like ccleaner on the PC
There are 1.6 GB of files that can be cleaned up, many marked as critical. Does that really matter on a mac

tadcan

ok, have a little issue. Was given the password the owner uses to login, but isn't being accepted as the admin password.

Considering adding myself as an admin. Don't want to reset the main password. Any other options.

conor.hogan.2

Most likely gave you the wrong password.

I never heard of mackeeper - I would backup now, try those new files on a working mac and see if they work and if not then try mackeeper.

tadcan

I've already backup the folders to a drive, was the first thing on the list.

Now will try to recover the lost/corrupted files. Any recommended software, free preferred.

Will probably have to reset the main password. If I add myself then it will create new files that could overwrite other files.

Liameter

Yes, definitely reset the main password for the reason you give.
I use Prosoft Data Rescue http://www.prosofteng.com
Yes it's not free but at least that price is in dollars, not Euros!

tadcan

The data has been backed up. The owner recently got a new mac with snow leopard, I tried to update the old one since I'd been told its a more efficient version of leopard. Got a message saying this was not possible, but not why.

Did some research as to why, not sure yet. Its has an intel cpu (core duo, 2.16), 1GB of ram and a Guid formatting on the HD and more then 5GB HD space. The graphics card is an X1600 which seems to be an internal, not a product name, so not sure if that match's the recommended card. What am I missing?

Previously the machine had been noisy and had trouble booting. It sounded like their could be a HD problem. Used ubuntu to look at the HD and saw a bad sector problem. The mac reports that the HD is fine, do mac's have internal tools to fix such issues. The imac is being passed onto another family member, so need to investigate any potential issues so it works for another few years.

barryj

tadcan wrote: »

The data has been backed up. The owner recently got a new mac with snow leopard, I tried to update the old one since I'd been told its a more efficient version of leopard. Got a message saying this was not possible, but not why.

Are you attempting to upgrade the old machine with the OS DVD that came with the new machine? That probably won't work, as typically the DVD that comes with a Mac is specific to that type of Mac, and wouldn't be legal if you haven't paid for it.

If this is the case and you want to upgrade to Snow Leopard, then you need to pay for a copy. It costs Eur29. For that you get a generic DVD that will install on any Mac that meets the requirements.

- barry

tadcan

Ah, ok, I was under the impression that all mac install disc's were the same, since the Eula states it must be used on apple hardware.

barryj

tadcan wrote: »

Ah, ok, I was under the impression that all mac install disc's were the same, since the Eula states it must be used on apple hardware.

I don't know for certain that it won't work, but they do typically have machine specific ones that come with each machine.

Apple have always charged for OS X upgrades, but Snow Leopard was much cheaper than previous ones which were usually in the region of $130.

Now, you might want to consider whether you really want to upgrade to Snow Leopard - if your machine has only 1GB RAM, it's not going to be fun. Assuming you still have the original Leopard install disks (I'm assuming that was the OS that came with it), I'd be more inclined to reformat and install that. Most of the differences in the Snow Leopard upgrade were under the hood.

- barry

tadcan

Since I have the disc's for the new imac, it doesn't seem wise to wipe the HD and use that disc. Snow Leopard is more efficient then Leopard, right? So that would run faster. This imac came with tiger, it was changed to leopard by a mac tech after the owner tried the reinstall with a scratched disc. See my OP.

barryj

tadcan wrote: »

Since I have the disc's for the new imac, it doesn't seem wise to wipe the HD and use that disc. Snow Leopard is more efficient then Leopard, right? So that would run faster. This imac came with tiger, it was changed to leopard by a mac tech after the owner tried the reinstall with a scratched disc. See my OP.

Snow Leopard is supposedly a little faster overall - probably single-digit percentage improvement on average. My point is that 1GB is the minimum RAM to run SL - so mightn't be optimum. Google for what others think. Personally, I'm seeing 2GB as a realistic minimum for general use - so I'm not sure that 1GB would be much fun. If you can get your hands on an extra GB or two, it would probably be worthwhile.

- barry

tadcan

Great thanks. The owner has very low requirements, movies and internet. For me its a bit slow. I'll ask about the person its going to, who has an macair and what their usage is like.