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Tomek

macrumors newbie
Original poster
G'day guys,

My mums friend is a total noob and managed to come back from holiday, and load all his movies and pictures on his computer and totally use up every drop of memeory he had. 🙄

He has:
iBook 12" inch screen G4 running 10.3.9
Installation CD's
No common sense to read pop up warnings about low memory

I have:
G4 Tower running 10.3.9
Installation CD's
Ethernet
11years Mac experiance (only 21yrs old)

Problem: He shut his computer down, starts it up, the screen goes blue and never loads the "enter password" screen.

Now all I want to be able to do is get in (some how) to get the pictures and movies off his computer and burnt to CD's. But first I need it to start up.

I have come up with a few idea of my own but no doubt they wont work. 😀

Can I jump start his computer with mine like a car? Using my memory to run his.

Can I start his computer up on the installation CD's some how? To then shift stuff from his computer to mine.

I know I can re-install "everything" and he loses all his files. Which is bad and I wont do it.

I can also re-install only the OS. Which doesn't free up memory. 🙄

I can also wave a magic wand and drop his iBook from a great hight and call him a noob for hours. Which I also wont do.

So if anyone has any clues for me to look into (search function is amazing on forums) then I can do that. Just give me some key words.


Thanks guys/girls/12yr olds with to much time.
<3 :apple:
 
I believe all you should need to do is enter Safe Mode and go from there.

In general, to clean up space on a HDD I recommend the following:

- use OmniDiskSweeper (not free) or my personal favorite WhatSize (free) to determine what all is taking up room on your HDD and where it is
- I also recommend Disk Inventory X to view HDD usage - it graphically shows you what is taking up space with a decent presentation and UI
- remove GarageBand and iDVD if you do not need them - that should free up around 6 GB right there
- check out /Library/Printers/ - 2 GB of printer drivers that you may or may not need
- use Monolingual to remove the unnecessary language resources from your Mac*. Another option is to use Delocalizer
- lastly, you could always use AppZapper (not free) or uApp (free) to ensure that when you uninstall any programs that all those pesky sub-folders, etc. are deleted

That should just about do it. 😎

* a note about Monolingual. If you are not careful this can seriously screw up your Mac if it is Intel-based. Basically, leave the Architectures settings alone. If you delete G3, G4, G5 then anything which is PPC-based which will try to run under Rosetta, won't. Otherwise, Monolingual is great. 😉
 
Tomek said:
Can I jump start his computer with mine like a car? Using my memory to run his.
Click to expand...

You're not actually talking about memory, here, right, but storage space on the hard drive? Assuming that's the case, you can certainly (besides booting up in safe mode, which is a great idea) also boot it in Firewire target disk mode and copy off / delete some files. The reason I mention that is that, if the hard drive has really been pummeled with new image / movie / whatever files from the holiday, you might not get all that much free space from the Onyx stuff, whereas if you copy off and delete a few movies, you might be completely fine. 🙂
 
Two great replies in under 10 minutes. Couldn't be happier.

When I get my hands around his throat.. errr I mean on his computer. I'll test it out and report back. Thanks guys, really mean it.

mkrishnan said:
You're not actually talking about memory, here, right, but storage space on the hard drive?
Click to expand...

What you said. Yes.
 
Tomek said:
Now all I want to be able to do is get in (some how) to get the pictures and movies off his computer and burnt to CD's. But first I need it to start up.

<snip>

Can I jump start his computer with mine like a car? Using my memory to run his.
Click to expand...
Maybe I am missing something, but how about this:

Start his computer in Target Disk mode.

Connect the two computers via FW cable.

Copy files from his computer to your computer, then burn backup data CDs/DVDs.

After backing up the files, then delete them from his HD which will free up space.
 
Tomek said:
Don't have Firewire. I can get one... but I'm also a cheap bastard. 😉
Click to expand...

If you want to be the "tech guy" (and I'm not saying you do, by any stretch, but you go such a long way to make out how you are so experienced, so it seems important to you), it's a really good investment. You can do all kinds of magical stuff with one on Macs, because it lets you access the disk drive with very minimal requirements from the computer it lives on.
 
Tomek said:
Don't have Firewire. I can get one... but I'm also a cheap bastard. 😉
Click to expand...
Me too! 🙂

I would think that you can find a short, and cheap, FW cable at a local electronics store.

A great thing to have in your toolkit if you want to be a Mac troubleshooter.

On a side note, a more expensive option, that works with any HD that you can access, is a USB to P-ATA/S-ATA kit that includes a power supply.

Costs more but works with all HDs.

However, in this case, assuming that you can start his computer in Target Disk mode, a FW cable may be the cheapest and easiest solution.
 
mkrishnan said:
(but you go such a long way to make out how you are so experienced, so it seems important to you)
Click to expand...

Oh yeah I'm 1337 right here. 🙄
MSN messenger, photoshop, starcraft... ftw

When you say "do this do that" I understand you. But I also don't know about it at the same time. 🙂

It was just to let you know that I'm not going to ask "where in my C Drive do I look for..."
 
Tomek said:
Two great replies in under 10 minutes. Couldn't be happier.

When I get my hands around his throat.. errr I mean on his computer. I'll test it out and report back. Thanks guys, really mean it.
Click to expand...

No problem at all, that's what we're here for. Hopefully you can put some of my clean up suggesitons to good use as well. 😎

Tomek said:
Oh yeah I'm 1337 right here. 🙄
MSN messenger, photoshop, starcraft... ftw

When you say "do this do that" I understand you. But I also don't know about it at the same time. 🙂

It was just to let you know that I'm not going to ask "where in my C Drive do I look for..."
Click to expand...

Haha, no worries, I know where both you and mkrishnan are coming from. 😉 I think it was just your "11 years experience and only 21 years old" comment that's all. And yes, it is helpful to know a person's level of experience as not to talk over their heads or oversimplify things for them.

That being said, that's nothing man - I'm 29 years old and have been using Apple computers since I was 5. 😛 😎 😉
 
Oh hehe no, not "I'm 21 look at me FIGJAM" it was "my 11 years were spent being a kid".😱
 
mkrishnan said:
Hehehe, I just found out about FIGJAM a week ago. 🙂 I like. I only have four years of Mac experience.
Click to expand...

Look up Kevin Bloody Wilson and DILLIGAF. He's racist as anything but it's all in humour.

It's an Aussie thing.
 
sushi said:
Such a youngster! 😉

BTW, at that rate I was a Mac user about 20 years before you were a gleam in your father's eye! 😉 😛 😀
Click to expand...

You were a Mac user in the 1950's? 😱 Impressive since the first Mac was released in 1984! 😛 😀

😉
 
~Shard~ said:
You were a Mac user in the 1950's? 😱 Impressive since the first Mac was released in 1984! 😛 😀
Click to expand...
Anticipation buddy! 🙂

BTW, you got me thinking. I was developing back in 86 on the Mac.

Yikes, has it been that long ago. 😱
 
sushi said:
Anticipation buddy! 🙂

BTW, you got me thinking. I was developing back in 86 on the Mac.

Yikes, has it been that long ago. 😱
Click to expand...

Haha, cool... 😉

Yeah, times seems to fly. '86 was over 20 years ago yet I remember it well... my brother toured China and Japan with the orchestra (I didn't join until 5 years later...), the Challenger disaster happened... hmm, and we were playing Autoduel, however it was still 2 years before the greatest video game ever was to be released - Wasteland. 😀 😎
 
~Shard~ said:
Yes, Tomek, can you please update us on your situation and how you've made out?
Click to expand...

You'll have to wait a week mate, going to buy the Firewire cable and he is bring his laptop over next weekend (we live a few hours apart).

Next sunday, I promise. 😉
 
Tomek said:
You'll have to wait a week mate, going to buy the Firewire cable and he is bring his laptop over next weekend (we live a few hours apart).

Next sunday, I promise. 😉
Click to expand...

No worries, just wanted to check since myself and sushi got a little off-topic there... 😱 😉
 
~Shard~ said:
No worries, just wanted to check since myself and sushi got a little off-topic there... 😱 😉
Click to expand...

His HD wasn't mounted. We started off the Disk 1 and found he had no where to install... So we repaired and then hit the Mount button while in Disk Utility.

Restart, Start up disk "Mac OS X" and hey presto, bloody awesome. 🙂




Notes:
* He didn't use up all his Spare Disk Space.
* He had 13GB left over, more then I have!
* He has 10.4.9
* Holding down 'C' Button to start off Optical Drive (CD Drive) will NOT work with FireWire cable connected.
* We did hold down 'T' button on restart to load FireWire connection start up. And worked wonderfully, the Mac OSX start up instilation/repair disk turned up on my desk top, just no HD.

So yeah, no mounted HD was the problem.
 
Does anyone know how a HD can un-mount it self without starting up off a CD? 😕
 
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