My Mac Pro is Crashing- What can I do?

[Big Bone]

I recently got a new job where I'm using a mac pro that was purchase in mid 2005. It's still got it's original hard drive and 1 GB of ram. Every night if I forget to shut off the comp, the next morning it's crashed and the fan inside get way loud. I'm really afraid the hard drive is going to crap out on me.

I took it to my local Apple stores "Genius Bar" and they did a diagnostic with no results and told me that I should wipe my drive and use my timed back up to reinitialize it. However they said I would lose some of my larger programs which I have a tone of. Well since this computer has traded hands at work so many times before it's gotten to me I have no idea what programs we still have sitting around to reinstall.

Is there another way I can download ALL of my hard drive to a secondary and chuck my old one and somehow keep all my programs? Or is there some other better solution?

Thanks for your help guys.


BB

 

[UltraNEO*]

There isn't a MacPro that's known as "Mid 2005". Are you sure it's a intel based machine? It sounds more like a PowerMac G5.

 

[Big Bone]

There isn't a MacPro that's known as "Mid 2005". Are you sure it's a intel based machine? It sounds more like a PowerMac G5.

Ya, sorry my bad.

 

[uberamd]

Ya, sorry my bad.

Check the Console for messages just before the time of the crash (there will be a gap from the time it freezes, to the time you turn it back on so look for a space in time where nothing happens). Applications -> Utilities -> Console.

 

[Macinposh]

Is there another way I can download ALL of my hard drive to a secondary and chuck my old one and somehow keep all my programs? Or is there some other better solution?

Thanks for your help guys.


BB

Use carboncopycloner to make a backup of the disk and check it out then how it goes.

 

[Topperdog1973]

If it is a G5, I bet your are now in the large company of the rest of us whose G5's died and never came back.

Bet your logic board is done.

Mine was the same way. One morning I turned my computer on and it just crashed, and only started to boot up every 5-6 times I tried. Genius told me only the video card was bad, replaced that, and it crashes worse now. it i sback at the Genius bar awaiting it's "logic board" failure report to come through with the $1000 price tag to fix.

If it is a PPC G5, back everything up while the computer still boots up.