iMac help/suggestions

[MissB]

iMac hard drive died. Took it to a local computer guy he said it needs new hard drive, os, and can back up data for $290. My thought was why not back up to an external hard drive/storage. Does this open the storage/memory on the computer? Thanks

 

[VoodooMedMan]

Sounds like your hard drive took a dump. It's not just an issue of creating space. So basically you have to get a new hard drive either way. He is just including in the fee the process of recovering and backing up your data. You are probably confused thinking how it's possible to get the data if the drive took a dump.

Well at the very high level forensic type of FBI stuff there are guys who can get stuff of a completely physically dead drive. But usually the drive isn't completely dead. It's dead enough where it can't read important files to run the computer. You at home if you know what you are doing can get your data (with the possibility of some files being corrupt) off. You don't want to just reinstall onto that drive using the good sectors because it's a ticking time bomb. $290 doesn't sound insane at all for all that work on an Apple. If your data is important then do it. The only thing I'd consider is getting a new computer but still having the data retrieved.

If your data is that important then have some sort of backup for it in the future.

 

[was thatguy]

How old is the Mac?
What OS?

If it is like a mid 2011,before lion, I'd pay that 290, get a new drive "mirrored", and have him dump lion on it. Then stick 2 x 4 gig ram chips in the empty slots for 12 total. (Another 100 bucks)

If it's older than that, I'd consider a new Mac and still have the drive mirrored if you want the data.
I back up everything I care about to a Western Digital 3T external drive now just in case. You can set the Mac to do it automatically, but I do it manually to select the data I want to back up.

But I'm no guru.

 

[MissB]

It is a 09. . He talked about loading Maverick on it. Right now it has snow leopard.
I thought about getting an external HD, but I never did. The data is transfer-able, but I was just considering transferring what is currently on it to an external and leave the new HD clear?
Curren wants a MacBook, so I'm thinking fix this and throw some $ at him if I can use the MacBook also.

 

[rivrrts429]

Huh?

 

[MissB]

Lol iPhone typing at a red light! LMAO! Sorry!

 

[pronstar]

$290 is dirt cheap to recover data from a dead drive.

 

[Havasu Secret]

Should have bought a cheap $100 external 1 Terabyte USB hard drive at Costco and run OSX automatic backup program Time Machine.

Taking an iMac apart is a total bitch. Search on youtube and you will see. I would never do it.

$290 is a bargain...

 

[OCMerrill]

Huh?

Quality.

 

[was thatguy]

$290 is a good deal, I would not hesitate...BUT, I would be a little leery of Maverick.

I run Lion 10.8.5, have read some issues with Maverick that has caused me to not load it yet.

I am not familiar with the hardware of a 2009, but I know there was some significant changes before mid 2011 (Our model)

I would google "updating 2009 Imac to lion" before getting into it, make sure its compatible with the hardware?

Maybe C2 Or another real guru can be of help on that.

 

[Tom Slick]

Check with Apple, as there was a warranty recall on the hard drive on iMacs around your year. If your iMac falls into the specified time period you're covered. The only thing not covered is salvaging any data off of the fried drive. Worth giving them a call.

 

[Chipster27]

$290 is a screaming deal. I've had a few drives go bad on PCs. I was able to recover the data on most with a second drive and a software program. The one I wasn't able to save had to go to a shop where they took the drive apart in a clean room and went through the physical disks layer by layer.

Ever since then I run a network attached storage device with hot swappable dual redundant 2T drives. That set up was less than it cost me to recover the single drive and I now have three drives with mirrored data.

With our lives revolving around digital documents, photos, movies and more, I can't stress enough the importance of some kind of back up.

BTW, you should also consider a SSD drive. No moving parts to fail and much faster read/write times.