'supporting each other through really tough times'

maryb

I know there is a separate thread for little MSE victories but forgive me if I post it here. Hobbycraft are doing a three for two on all their yarn. I was in the shop a couple of days ago and they had some Rowan yarn which they confirmed was included in the deal. But I didn't have my pattern with me and I don't go there that often so I thought the deal would be over before I could go back. But I just happened to find myself in John Lewis's yarn department today (as you do) and I asked on the offchance if they would price match - and they did!! So now I have the wool I was hankering after to add to all my other unknitted projects. See how much money I saved!!

greenbee

Peanut - if you can work out what model your mac is (processor type, speed and memory spec) then you can work out the best OS to get. I've seen 10.4 media available online from resellers (not direct from apple, which appears only to have 10.6 or later).

You may find a new OS will improve performance, but you need to make sure it isn't too new for your hardware. £14 for the media and a new HD is certainly a LOT better than buying a new mac. Great that your friend managed to recover your work - and good that you are thinking about your backup strategy. nuatha has mentioned previously the importance of storing a copy of your backup somewhere else, so think about this. You may also have access through iCloud or your Internet provider to free cloud-based storage, but read the terms and conditions carefully before deciding whether to store customer information or other work related stuff there. PM me if you need help understanding them. The amount of free storage may be very small (around 3-5GB but more is usually available if you pay). I'm mac based, and use iCloud for stuff I want to make sure is up to date on all devices no matter where I am in the world - so work I do on my iPad travelling will be up to date on my mac when I get home for example. But I don't rely on it for anything critical.

Peanut2013

I have a MacBook 13 inch late 2006 core 2 duo A1181 2.0GHz Black with 2gb ram.

Any ideas how to work out which OS would be best?

I'm trying cloning onto a formatted external hard drive at the mo to see if I can run off that, but it keeps crashing so could take days!

I'm wondering wether I can run off an external drive for now so I don't have to buy a new drive.

Hoping ill get somewhere and it's not the motherboard that's gone pop!

Thank you again for advice, this really is helping me through the tough times.

nuttyp

Evening all!!! Finally in from work and its been another busy shift. they say there is no money about, but there has been where i work. Seams every one likes to gamble on the off chance of a big win.

Popps hope your ok. I had the anniversary of my dads death this week and it is definatley a time for reminissing. Sorry that the council has automatically renewed your mums bus pass, as nice as it is to see her picture.

Shegar nice to see you posting again, sorry about your friend sucha young age as well. Sometimes life seams to deal some very harsh cards.

hugs and warm wishes to those who need them, take care x

nuatha

Peanut2013 wrote: »

Apologies for taking over this thread with Mac chat but its the easiest way to talk to 2 of you at the same time

No worries from me, but I lurk a lot more than I post.

Today was semi successful, I've removed the hard drive and by connecting it to a friends mac have got all my work off it. Running Disc utility shows multiple errors and doing some research it looks like its failing.

Important thing is you've recovered your work, please back it up elsewhere. (I've recovered data, only to lose it because the only copy died.)

I've formatted another external drive I have with the idea being I can clone my old hard drive onto this one and then boot from the external one. BUT the cloned keeps crashing.

I have no idea what version of OS I was on so does it matter if I download the newest? My mac is from 2009. Can I download the DMG file from the link given before and put onto a USB stick and then ask the mac to boot from that USB stick with a new hard drive installed?

Your old laptop hard drive is probably missing its boot sector, it won't have a healthy OS to clone. You'll need some form of installation media.
The link I posted was to the Apple store to get the optical disk installation media. If you buy a download img you should be able to make a USB drive bootable and install from an image that way.
As I read the Apple site you need a working Snow Leopard or more recent version of Mac OS to install the latest version - I'd be happy to be shown wrong. As you have access to a working Mac, then it may be worth phone Apple and checking the process with them. Snow Leopard is more recent than your Mac, whether there is a real advantage to Mountain Lion, I'm afraid you'd need a Mac user to say.

greenbee

I read the OS info the same as you Nuatha. Mind you, I no longer do hands on technical stuff so I am easily confused :-)

That said, everything you've said in your post above makes sense to me so maybe there is some hope for me...

As for whether there are advantages to mountain lion it probably depends on what you are using the mac for. Peanut - you may also need to check version compatibility of any other software with your new OS.

nuatha

Peanut2013 wrote: »

I have a MacBook 13 inch late 2006 core 2 duo A1181 2.0GHz Black with 2gb ram.

Any ideas how to work out which OS would be best?

I'm trying cloning onto a formatted external hard drive at the mo to see if I can run off that, but it keeps crashing so could take days!

I'm wondering wether I can run off an external drive for now so I don't have to buy a new drive.

Hoping ill get somewhere and it's not the motherboard that's gone pop!

Thank you again for advice, this really is helping me through the tough times.

Your Macbook shipped with 10.4.8 and will run the later versions (though it can't boot 64 bit mode). If you rely on any old PowerPC software be aware that Lion does not support Rosetta Stone and therefore can't run this type of software.

If your external drive is a portable drive (powered only by usb cable) and a little over 2.5 inches wide it will contain a laptop hard drive. It may be possible to open the caddy and fit the drive internally into the Macbook.
HTH

nuatha

greenbee wrote: »

I read the OS info the same as you Nuatha. Mind you, I no longer do hands on technical stuff so I am easily confused :-)

Hardware and networks are my core skill set - I still get confused

greenbee

nuatha wrote: »

Hardware and networks are my core skill set - I still get confused

I do software contracts now... Not sure which is worse :cool:

Peanut2013

nuatha wrote: »

No worries from me, but I lurk a lot more than I post.

Important thing is you've recovered your work, please back it up elsewhere. (I've recovered data, only to lose it because the only copy died.)



Your old laptop hard drive is probably missing its boot sector, it won't have a healthy OS to clone. You'll need some form of installation media.
The link I posted was to the Apple store to get the optical disk installation media. If you buy a download img you should be able to make a USB drive bootable and install from an image that way.
As I read the Apple site you need a working Snow Leopard or more recent version of Mac OS to install the latest version - I'd be happy to be shown wrong. As you have access to a working Mac, then it may be worth phone Apple and checking the process with them. Snow Leopard is more recent than your Mac, whether there is a real advantage to Mountain Lion, I'm afraid you'd need a Mac user to say.

So would the software on the link be any good to me or do I need to source snow Leppard? The mac I have access to is very very old, a MacBook G4. We don't have an apple shop here but do have a storm front, I could always ask them if they have the older software?

I'm unsure how to make a bootable bit of software onto the USB stick as I imagine what I download from the apple website would be a DMG? What do I do with it then?

Regards using my existing external drive, does it need to go internal or can I just use it externally for now? I'm happy to have it plugged in every time I use the computer if I need to.