MBP Died - What To Do Next?

[DrBubba]

My wife's 2007 MBP died (confirmed by Genius Bar staff), so I removed the hard drive and RAM, and (at the recommendation of Genius Bar staff) recycled the rest via Apple. Now, what to do re: her iTunes account, iTunes library, email, etc.? My 2007 MBP is still humming right along, so I could xfer her accounts to my Mac as a temporary "fix" until the forthcoming MBP "refresh" (when I'll likely upgrade to a Haswell MBP). Anyone out there in MacRumors-land have any suggestions - recommendations - tips as to how I might proceed? I'lll appreciate any help I can get. THX.

 

[sofianito]

How much did you get for the recycling?

 

[tonybyatt]

Wow, 6 years, pretty good...Ummm, share?

 

[1rottenapple]

When is the next MacBook Pro refresh?????

 

[jav6454]

Well, your iTunes library (assuming you bought everything on iTunes) will be ok. Why? It is in the iTunes Cloud which you can redownload again later.

As per document and stuff, don't worry about it. Keep the hard drive safe and that's it. If you do really need a file, get an external enclosure in order to access the data on the drive via USB.

 

[DrBubba]

MBP Died - What To Do Next

Everyone, Thanks Very Much for your replies. Yes, the MBP was good for 6 years (my daughter used it for 2 years in college and my wife used it for 4 years after my daughter upgraded to a 2009 MBP). Careful normal use, nothing out of the ordinary. The Apple Genius found the failed unit to have no monetary value, so I didn't get any cash return upon recycling. As re: my wife's iTunes being in the cloud ... well, not really. Majority of tunes were ripped from CDs, so not much in the cloud. I still have the hard drive so I can manually copy the files to my MBP no problemo. What I'm unable to do is de-authorize her iTunes account on the failed MBP. So I'm not sure how to "move" her account to my MBP. Her email is in the cloud so she can access it on her iPhone (except for attachments, etc.). Should I create her as a new user on my MBP and transfer her files over, then re-create her iTunes account? This is the first time I've had to deal with a failed MBP, so I'm in uncharted territory for me.

Again. Thanks to all for your replies. I 'preciate 'em.

 

[iPhonesandMacs]

Everyone, Thanks Very Much for your replies. Yes, the MBP was good for 6 years (my daughter used it for 2 years in college and my wife used it for 4 years after my daughter upgraded to a 2009 MBP). Careful normal use, nothing out of the ordinary. The Apple Genius found the failed unit to have no monetary value, so I didn't get any cash return upon recycling. As re: my wife's iTunes being in the cloud ... well, not really. Majority of tunes were ripped from CDs, so not much in the cloud. I still have the hard drive so I can manually copy the files to my MBP no problemo. What I'm unable to do is de-authorize her iTunes account on the failed MBP. So I'm not sure how to "move" her account to my MBP. Her email is in the cloud so she can access it on her iPhone (except for attachments, etc.). Should I create her as a new user on my MBP and transfer her files over, then re-create her iTunes account? This is the first time I've had to deal with a failed MBP, so I'm in uncharted territory for me.

Again. Thanks to all for your replies. I 'preciate 'em.

Sounds like the genius wasn't such a genius... That mac would of been worth a lot more than 0$...

Below is the listings of recent 2007 macbook pros that were broken and sold on ebay!

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...RRENCY=0&_sop=12&_dmd=1&_ipg=50&LH_Complete=1

 

[niteflyr]

Should I create her as a new user on my MBP and transfer her files over, then re-create her iTunes account? This is the first time I've had to deal with a failed MBP, so I'm in uncharted territory for me.

Again. Thanks to all for your replies. I 'preciate 'em.

Yep, just create a new user account for her and then she can sign in to her iTunes account and import the files into her account.

 

[megasad]

…Anyone out there in MacRumors-land have any suggestions - recommendations - tips as to how I might proceed? I'lll appreciate any help I can get. THX.

Since you plan to buy a new MBP for yourself soon anyway, this is what I would do in your situation:

1. Clone your MBP's hard drive to another, external hard drive using Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner or the like.
2. Remove your MBP's hard drive and replace it with the one from your wife's MBP.
3. Set up a temporary user account for yourself on the MBP that is now your wife's, to tide you over until you get your new machine. Alternatively, boot from the external clone when you want to use your account.

(If you have an external enclosure already you could skip step #1, but I'd recommend against that in case of static electricity zapping.)

This approach has the advantage of getting your wife's computer back up and running as if nothing happened. When you get the new machine, you can be entirely focused on playing with only that

Also, if you get a regular MacBook Pro rather than a retina one, you could simply swap in the old drive with the one on the new machine. If the new one has greater capacity, then cloning would work too. The only thing you'd need to make sure is that you have the same build of OS X installed on your old hard drive as comes with the new MBP… So maybe it's easier to just manually copy the files you need

Aaanyway, regarding deactivating your wife's iTunes account on her old machine, you don't need to do that as an iTunes account can be authorised on up to five computers (Mac or PC) and an infinite amount of iOS devices. Once you reach five computers, iTunes offers the option to deauthorise all the machines, but until then you can't deauthorise individual computers.

 

[sofianito]

Everyone, Thanks Very Much for your replies. Yes, the MBP was good for 6 years (my daughter used it for 2 years in college and my wife used it for 4 years after my daughter upgraded to a 2009 MBP). Careful normal use, nothing out of the ordinary. The Apple Genius found the failed unit to have no monetary value, so I didn't get any cash return upon recycling. As re: my wife's iTunes being in the cloud ... well, not really. Majority of tunes were ripped from CDs, so not much in the cloud. I still have the hard drive so I can manually copy the files to my MBP no problemo. What I'm unable to do is de-authorize her iTunes account on the failed MBP. So I'm not sure how to "move" her account to my MBP. Her email is in the cloud so she can access it on her iPhone (except for attachments, etc.). Should I create her as a new user on my MBP and transfer her files over, then re-create her iTunes account? This is the first time I've had to deal with a failed MBP, so I'm in uncharted territory for me.

Again. Thanks to all for your replies. I 'preciate 'em.

The genius is likely playing with your MBP at home...

You could get some $ on eBay for the display, ram, aluminum,... Next time, don't trust blindly Genius folks because most of them are ignorant and cheap meat for Apple...

 

[redkamel]

Put the drive in an external exclosure. Test to make sure it works. If it is small files or important stuff, transfer to your computer...otherwise I would just wait till she gets a new one.