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Taking in Macbook; what do I need to do to prepare (back-up, restore, etc)?

R

reubs

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jun 22, 2006
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I'm going to take my MacBook to the Apple Store in a few days to try to get the casing replaced (cracked palmrest), and I don't know if it will be done in-store or shipped off.

Should I go ahead and restore the original HDD and factory RAM with a fresh install while (obviously) keeping the current HDD as far away from the Apple Store as possible?

Or since it's strictly physical maintenance would it be safe to leave it with the 3rd party HDD and RAM installed?

Thanks for any info!
 
You can leave it with the existing parts in place, but I suggest cloning the internal drive onto an external (using Carbon Copy Cloner) and running a fresh install on the internal. It protects you in case they somehow screw up your data (not likely with this operation) and keeps your stuff away from prying eyes.
 
Hey, thanks for the info.

Just out of curiosity, would making a final backup on Time Machine be something to do and just restore from Time Machine when I get it back?
 
Got it; I'm headed to pick up another external HDD today since my current one is coming up on three years, so I'll just square it up that way. Hopefully there won't be any problems doing it that way. Thanks again for the info!
 
No problem. Let us know if you have any problems with the clone.

The one benefit with cloning the drive is that you can boot another Intel Mac to that external while your MacBook is away. Be sure that you can boot to the drive, from your MacBook or elsewhere, before you format and send it away. You can just hold the option key on startup and select the external drive as a boot disk to test it out.

I've never had a CCC clone fail, but it's pretty important that your backup is intact in this case.
 
And take good photos of it because I brought in a MacPro for a fan issue, the case was flawless. There are large gouges in three places and one large scuff on the bottom.
 
Well it looks like my combo drive has decided to take the rest of its life off. I've been having spotty performance with it lately in terms of wanting to read CDs, but tonight it won't even recognize my Leopard install disk.

This after spending all night making a bootable backup on an ext. drive. The upside is that I now have a full back-up in case something happens; however, I wanted to do a clean install anyway.

Any other ideas?
 
Nope; this is it. What about creating another account of some kind within the current Leopard install?

There's not too much on here to get fussed up about, but I'd still much prefer no one poking around on here...

Thanks again!
 
reubs said:
Well it looks like my combo drive has decided to take the rest of its life off. I've been having spotty performance with it lately in terms of wanting to read CDs, but tonight it won't even recognize my Leopard install disk.

This after spending all night making a bootable backup on an ext. drive. The upside is that I now have a full back-up in case something happens; however, I wanted to do a clean install anyway.
Click to expand...

I have an 8 GB partition on my backup drive with a copy of the installer DVD, in case I can't find the DVD (or I have a problem like yours). You can still do this if you have access to another Macintosh and an external drive. Has anyone checked if this works with an 8 GB USB stick?
 
reubs said:
Nope; this is it. What about creating another account of some kind within the current Leopard install?

There's not too much on here to get fussed up about, but I'd still much prefer no one poking around on here...

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

No, just because you could use another Mac's optical drive to install through a rather circuitous route.

priller said:
why? last time I did a restore from time machine no updates needed installing.
Click to expand...

Time Machine does not back up system files, so when you restore from the DVD your documents and settings are being copied onto a fresh, unpatched install from the disk. I really can't speak for your situation, but as far as I know that's not possible unless no updates are yet available.
 
BlueRevolution said:
Time Machine does not back up system files, so when you restore from the DVD your documents and settings are being copied onto a fresh, unpatched install from the disk. I really can't speak for your situation, but as far as I know that's not possible unless no updates are yet available.
Click to expand...


Time Machine does backup your system files

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html

Back up everything.

Time Machine backs up your system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents. But what makes Time Machine different from other backup applications is that it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on a given day — so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past.
Click to expand...
 
Interesting. Regardless, every time I have used the install disks to restore from a Time Machine backup, I have been required to patch up again afterwards.
 
Thanks for the info; turns out I couldn't make it up there anyway since my daughter got sick on the ride up. We live about 6 hrs away from the closest Apple store, but we were visiting friends and family only about an hour away from a store, so this was my chance.

Anyway, kiddo's feeling fine, so all's well that ends well. Thanks again for the info, and hopefully I'll be able to get it back up there soon.
 
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