mom's 2006 imac has the white screen o' death with the flashing folder question mark thing going on. we need to insert the os disc, but i can't freaking find it. i have the box, but no disc. i've looked all over my house 3 times, my office, she's looked at her house. it is nowhere to be found.

in addition to her computer issues, she tried to update her iphone to 5.1 last night w/o plugging it in, it bricked, & now will only work if she can get it plugged back into her itunes, which is of course on this nonworking imac.

we need to buy another os x leopard disc today. apple doesn't have it in the store (she called to ask). any suggestions on little computer shops in raleigh that might have it?? tiger direct does not.

3/15/2012 12:23:54 PM

That's obsolete. Apple no longer supports it. You'll have to buy a new machine.

Or torrent it.

3/15/2012 12:45:52 PM

it doesn't matter that it's obsolete. i can order it from best buy, amazon, a variety of places, but none of them will have it here today. we just need the disc. she doesn't need a whole new machine, yet (although this will be my suggestion once we get whatever info/pics/stuff she had on the old one). she'll be ordering a time capsule soon too.

3/15/2012 12:49:00 PM

I'm just joking with you. Apple really does discourage its customers from reviving old machines.

If I had a disc sitting around I'd loan it to you, but I don't. Plus I'm afraid of them sending their mafia goons to my apartment like they did to fregac last year. I think they hired Raleigh Police to intimidate him as well.

I'm fucking terrified of Apple.

3/15/2012 12:55:17 PM

not being able to find this disc is driving me crazy. i'm sitting here looking at the stupid box it came in, even the stickers are still inside. i've turned the house upside down trying to find it. i did find oregon trail on floppy disc and an original polly pocket though...

3/15/2012 1:17:52 PM

asked my brother if he maybe took the disc home when we were working on his old macbook. "nah, it's not at my house"

asked his finace if she's seen it anywhere. "oh it's in a little clear plastic case on top of that old macbook on his dresser at his house in raleigh"

she's bringing it to my parents house tonight (she was going there already)

fingers crossed this fixes the problem...

3/15/2012 6:13:37 PM

the answer to this question was "torrent"

i mean, you legitimately own it already

3/15/2012 7:15:12 PM

^yep

3/15/2012 7:16:15 PM

got the disc. didn't fix the computer. hard drive doesn't show up at all in anything.

3/15/2012 9:02:03 PM

Yeah the symptom you were seeing is the mac saying it can not mount the drive. Most likely the drive is toast, which if it initially took 10.5 it would make it about 5+ years old. Getting a new drive installed isn't extremely hard, not as simple as a typical desktop, but not impossible. Data recovery on the other hand might put it over the edge. If I am in your shoes I would find an authorized mac service depot, not best buy or the apple store, have them remove the drive and install a new 3.5 sata drive ($150 bucks max for parts and labor). Once the drive is removed have them mount it externally and see if anything is seen. If no decide to have it professionally recovered for bank or try the freezer trick. If you figured out how to boot to a OSX disk you can install OSX so save your money on that.

3/15/2012 10:47:56 PM

yeah after reading some forums i came to the same conclusion. told mom the drive is fried. she's taking her phone to the apple store tomorrow bc they said they could get it running again w/o the computer (guy said they'd do a DNU or something...?). the imac is one of the polycarbonate ones from 2006. she has no interest in putting a new hard drive in or trying to make what she has work, she just wants her pictures & itunes data off if possible.

she's getting a new ipad tomorrow, which she doesn't know yet, so hopefully that'll tide her over until we decide what to buy next. thankfully she doesn't take many pictures, but she has a grandkid coming in august so that might change. when dad gets back in town he's ordering a time capsule & we're setting up offsite/cloud backup with idrive.

any specific recommendations on where she can take the old imac to try for some data recovery?

3/15/2012 10:56:01 PM

It sounds like this Apple product failure will be very profitable for Apple.

3/15/2012 11:59:01 PM

Hmmm...Apple makes hard drives? News to me.

3/16/2012 12:26:59 AM

Data recovery is very expensive if you send it to clean room and have them recover that way. Again I would recommend finding a apple authorized service center (local mom and pop shop or if you have a micro center in you area they can do it). Have them remove the drive and see if it mounts externally. Unless you/mom wants to pay over a grand for clean room treatment, I would try the freezer trick and if that does not work start drawing pictures from memory.

On the other hand I am a mac user who used carbonite for off site backup and did not like how it used my system resources so I switched to Backblaze and I am very happy with it.

Drives die, nothing you can do to prevent it, just plan that after 3 years it will happen and you will never be disappointed.

3/18/2012 10:59:32 AM

yeah, i'm trying to find a shop to take it to (i asked for specific suggestions earlier, but got none). so with no responses we're just kinda choosing out of the phone book. we'll look into the freezer trick, although i need to look up how to get to the hdd lol

[Edited on March 18, 2012 at 2:34 PM. Reason : ]

3/18/2012 2:33:37 PM

Get her an external drive and use Time Machine when she gets a new internal drive.

3/18/2012 2:56:59 PM

^

Quote :

"when dad gets back in town he's ordering a time capsule & we're setting up offsite/cloud backup with idrive."

3/18/2012 6:11:41 PM

Locally, Ten Plus isn't a bad shop (http://www.tenplus.com/)

If it turns out you need actual data recovery, I've seen a few customers get their data back using DataSavers in GA (http://www.datasaversllc.com/services/). If it doesn't need the full cleanroom services of someplace like drive savers, they can usually get your data back and cheaper. Of course, it's all a matter of whether it's worth the money spent. I've had some customers decide that the pictures they had weren't worth $500, and I've had others decide their thesis paper was worth the $2k that drive savers wanted for their destroyed drive.

3/18/2012 7:51:06 PM

That's what I'm talking about. Thanks

3/18/2012 10:49:12 PM

Its quite possible the problem is the desktop itself and not the hard drive. iMacs from that era had numerous issues including bad capacitors and bad video chipsets. Have you actually removed the drive and tried mounting it on another Mac?

If you'd like to bring it by I'd be happy to see if there's anything I can do, I have pretty good experience with bringing old hardware back to life.

3/19/2012 3:16:55 AM

AWESOME! thanks! no we haven't tried that yet. i found some very long instructions on how to remove the drive. it looks...complex. i can probably get it out, but i'd rather not dismantle my almost equally old imac or any of the various macbooks in the family to test it out. is there an easy way to do that?

3/19/2012 11:19:04 AM

Just hook it up with an enclosure or a simple adapter. Locally, you can get the adapters cheap at Intrex (http://www.intrex.com/parts/parts.aspx part ADA-UIDESATAP)

[Edited on March 19, 2012 at 1:41 PM. Reason : sdfh]

3/19/2012 1:40:07 PM