Bringing system in for repair

[RelievedSimplet]

I was just wondering what you all do in advance before bringing your system in for a repair? I've got a lot of sensitive data on here that contains business and payroll information (SSN's, etc.) So obviously I do not want to give Apple my account password. I do however know that they require you to give it to them, so what have you all done in the past before bringing your system in? Create a second account and only give them that password?

Just for a little more info, I have FileVault activated on my account so all that information is encrypted, which I assume means that they can't access it if they have the password to another account, right? Or does Apple have a way to get into any account?

In case you're wondering the nature of my issue, my system has been overheating lately, and I have been investigating it. I found that Snow Leopard lets things get hotter, but then recently discovered one of my fans no longer works, so I'm assuming they need to run some stress test to fix it, hence needing account info.

Anyways, I'd appreciate some insight into what you all would do to give them access to the machine, but not to the data stored on this account?

-RS

 

[celticpride678]

When you bring it in or ship it out, they ask you to create a new standard user account with no password. They will not ask you for a password unless needed. I have sensitive data on my Mac when I sent it in, and they never even had access to my account because they had no password. I think you should be OK.

 

[Ride9650]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A400 Safari/528.16)

I would backup everything, then delete the important stuff.
That way, there's nothing to look at and you're safe in case they decide there's a need to wipe your hard drive

 

[maflynn]

Personally, I'd backup your computer, reformat it and then ship it off to apple.

When I had to take my g4 powerbook for service they told me they needed to be able to log into the machine and I wanted to be sure that my data wasn't compromised. While you may have filevault, You may get back a computer with a reformatted drive (I was warned I could).

Also take pictures of the laptop, so if you get it back with scratches, dents or other defects that didn't exists before sending it in, you have proof.