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iMac back from Apple Store after repair... tapped?

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OLDCODGER

macrumors 6502a
Jul 27, 2011
959
399
Lucky Country
shoulin333 said:
You should check every shiny object in your house i heard there may be cameras in there too. lol

... really you can't worry about stuff like that. If you are really that worried format your machine and re-install OSX
Click to expand...

The OP's post was about taking a Mac in for repair. A re-format and install is a lot more bother than running off an ext drive. Plus, on the later Macs, a re-install would require that ***** AppStore, would it not?

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Arman said:
lol. yeah, I'm not following either. If you paranoid about people accessing your data like your roomate then just put a password on your screensaver or something. Unless every night you unhook your externals and lock them away in a safe don't see a reason to do this.
Click to expand...

Roommate?? Not everyone who uses a Mac is some snotty-nosed kid, you know.
 
simsaladimbamba

simsaladimbamba

Guest
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
30
located
OLDCODGER said:
The OP's post was about taking a Mac in for repair. A re-format and install is a lot more bother than running off an ext drive.
Click to expand...
A simple clone would suffice, clone the internal HDD to an external HDD, then when the machine is back, boot from the external HDD and format the internal HDD (or the Macintosh HD partition if one also runs Windows or any other OS on another partition), and then clone the external HDD to the internal HDD.
Boom. Not as fast as only using an external HDD, but faster than a reinstall.
Plus, on the later Macs, a re-install would require that ***** AppStore, would it not?
Click to expand...
Not if one created a bootable installer out of the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion installer.
I for example have all my Mac OS X DVDs (Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard) and downloadable installers (Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion) cloned to an extra HDD and also made DMG/CDRs out of it, thus I have an external HDD with all installers I need for my Macs or other Macs, if the need arises.


No Mac coming with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has physical restore media included.

OS X: About OS X Recovery

If you want to make a bootable installation medium, you can follow these steps:
​
 
O

OLDCODGER

macrumors 6502a
Jul 27, 2011
959
399
Lucky Country
simsaladimbamba said:
A simple clone would suffice, clone the internal HDD to an external HDD, then when the machine is back, boot from the external HDD and format the internal HDD (or the Macintosh HD partition if one also runs Windows or any other OS on another partition), and then clone the external HDD to the internal HDD.
Boom. Not as fast as only using an external HDD, but faster than a reinstall.

Not if one created a bootable installer out of the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion installer.
I for example have all my Mac OS X DVDs (Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard) and downloadable installers (Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion) cloned to an extra HDD and also made DMG/CDRs out of it, thus I have an external HDD with all installers I need for my Macs or other Macs, if the need arises.


No Mac coming with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has physical restore media included.

There's my problem, right there. I'm on SL, with no intention of ever upgrading to the non-physical OSs, and that ***** AppStore.
I have all the same backups as yourself - including all combo-updaters, from Panther to SL, and clones of Panther, Tiger and SL.
Wiping the drive and installing a clone is an option that I have used before (for a corrupted System), but that won't help if the Mac suddenly stops working - whatever is on the internal drive stays there. Better to not put it on in the first place if security is of concern.
As for encryption, I have a need to quickly access words in large context from thousands of docs, and cannot afford the hassles involved with making said files easily readable to my search app.
Click to expand...
 
L

LCD

macrumors member
Dec 28, 2012
81
1
USA
4 more reasons to buy Mini

The thread starter's display. My 2006 Core Duo iMac 17" screen's vertical lines. My TWO late 2012 21.5" iMac screens. Asus and NEC.
 
robeddie

robeddie

Suspended
Jul 21, 2003
1,777
1,731
Atlanta
Old codger... in the rare case I 'ever' have to take my imac in for repair, I would take out my 2tb drive I put in - and just drop the original 500gb drive in that came with the imac - which has the original install on it with none of my stuff.

Considering we are talking about somthing that may happen once in 5 years, if ever ... I don't think my solution is all that burdensome.

You're taking a fairly noticeable performance hit (IMO) by always running stuff off an external drive.
 
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Brian Y

macrumors 68040
Oct 21, 2012
3,776
1,064
2012Tony2012 said:
Your comments are full of assumptions!!!:mad:
Click to expand...

Well you're ignoring everyone who isn't saying "OMG APPLE STOLE YOUR INFOZ" so meh?

At the end of the day, they a) want to keep their jobs and b) have better things to do with their time than sift through your data.

If you're that worried, repair the damn thing yourself.
 
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laryenhilllvr

macrumors regular
Dec 29, 2012
127
2
NYC
yeah i was kinda worried about the same thing when i had all my data copied from my old laptop to the new one. i then figured out that they had, at least, looked in my photo library (which contained some senstive photographs) because when i went to open iphoto those folders were hidden. at the time i was new to apple so i called the store to ask them, as luck would have it the person that worked on computer was there and he then told me he just hid them so others couldn't easily find them. that got me to thinking if they had looked at my pay stubs, tax information, and other important documents...either way i highly doubt apple (or it's employees) would do anything like that because there aren't that many employees that could shrink into obscurity if it were to come out that they tapped your files.
 
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OLDCODGER

macrumors 6502a
Jul 27, 2011
959
399
Lucky Country
robeddie said:
Old codger... in the rare case I 'ever' have to take my imac in for repair, I would take out my 2tb drive I put in - and just drop the original 500gb drive in that came with the imac - which has the original install on it with none of my stuff.

Considering we are talking about somthing that may happen once in 5 years, if ever ... I don't think my solution is all that burdensome.

You're taking a fairly noticeable performance hit (IMO) by always running stuff off an external drive.
Click to expand...

I'll be 80 yo this year - no way am I going to be taking a Mac apart.

As for performance hits - yes, on startup, but I always have around 2gigs Ram free when working, and I use a ramdisk for current work-load, so no slow-downs until a very rare reboot.
 
Paulywauly

Paulywauly

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2009
766
0
Durham, UK
speaking as someone who works in technical support. 99.9% of us are just hard working people who do this kind of work because we like it, we dont do it to snoop on your data.

There will be the occasional odd-ball out there who snoops on your iTunes library or pictures for kicks but its not something i've ever seen happen in real life. Why snoop on someone you don't even know? Even if you were interested for most it wouldn't be worth risking their job over. To worry you're computer is "tapped" because you heard it happened on the news to someone else is absurd.

That said, the security of your equipment is YOUR responsibility, you cant rely on anyone else. If you were worried this might happen why on earth would you give them your Mac without backing it up and putting a fresh install of OSX on it? :rolleyes:
 
2012Tony2012

2012Tony2012

macrumors 6502a
Dec 2, 2012
741
3
bma said:
Well you're ignoring everyone who isn't saying "OMG APPLE STOLE YOUR INFOZ" so meh?

At the end of the day, they a) want to keep their jobs and b) have better things to do with their time than sift through your data.

If you're that worried, repair the damn thing yourself.
Click to expand...

There have been reports on the news of employees looking through hard drives and even copying personal photos etc. I used to work at a PC store and the tech guy was always looking through people's hard drives, he even once called everyone in ans showed us some real sick photos some customer had on their hard drive. So it does happen!

I recommend the OP change his passwords and go through all his information to see if something private and sensitive could have been looked at or copied and in the future use an encrypted drive. Or backup using CCC and restore to factory and then restore CCC image when he gets it back.
 
AlphaDogg

AlphaDogg

macrumors 68040
May 20, 2010
3,417
7
Ypsilanti, MI
Whenever I take a computer in to the Apple store for repairs, I always pop in an HDD with just the OS on it and keep my valuable data at home.
 
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pubjoe

macrumors 6502
Aug 14, 2007
270
12
I would be also be concerned that Apple staff tapped my computer, but that's because I'm James Bond.
 
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