Taking my Macbook Pro to be fixed.

[Captain_Picard]

Hello, so I am having an issue with MacBook Pro randomly shutting down and plan to take it to a repair shop to get looked at. My question is what is the best way to set it up, so they can look it but still make sure it is secured? For example do I just give them the password to the account which I use, or is better to create a separate account with admin privileges and have them use that one. The only issue with that, is I don't know if they will be able to check everything they from that account but if I give them the password to my main account they might have to write it down to remember it which I don't necessarily like the idea of.

Any advice?

Thanks

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Honestly... I’d probably clone the drive to an external and wipe it before handing it over to them. But maybe I’m overly paranoid.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Do backup and then wipe the drive. That way you don’t have to worry about your personal data. Make the new admin admin and the pass 1234 and you are good to go.

 

[Captain_Picard]

Honestly... I’d probably clone the drive to an external and wipe it before handing it over to them. But maybe I’m overly paranoid.

Thanks for the help. Your right in that it's probably a good idea to clone the drive before taking it just to be safe but since it can shut down at anytime I'm not sure if it would work or If anything will be messed up if the computer shuts off during the cloning process. Also, I have done a couple of diagnostic tests using the built-in utility and it showed no problems, so I think it might be a software issue but can't really be sure. I could try installing the OS on another partition of the drive and see if that fixes anything but I'm just afraid to something like that and have the computer shutoff and corrupt the drive and lose my data. I have my notes backed up to iCloud which is the most important stuff I have however I still have some other files that while not critical I would hate to lose.

 

[Captain_Picard]

Do backup and then wipe the drive. That way you don’t have to worry about your personal data. Make the new admin admin and the pass 1234 and you are good to go.

If the computer decides to shutoff when doing the backup will it possibly cause any problems with data on the drive? It's okay if the backup doesn't work, I just don't want to lose my data.

Thanks

 

[Apple_Robert]

If the computer decides to shutoff when doing the backup will it possibly cause any problems with data on the drive? It's okay if the backup doesn't work, I just don't want to lose my data.

It shouldn’t but, one never can say 100%.

 

[Blowback]

Hello, so I am having an issue with MacBook Pro randomly shutting down and plan to take it to a repair shop to get looked at. My question is what is the best way to set it up, so they can look it but still make sure it is secured? For example do I just give them the password to the account which I use, or is better to create a separate account with admin privileges and have them use that one. The only issue with that, is I don't know if they will be able to check everything they from that account but if I give them the password to my main account they might have to write it down to remember it which I don't necessarily like the idea of.

Any advice?

Thanks

Maybe a dumb Q but: can the drive be removed and replaced? You don't say what model number. Also, do you have another bootable drive to use to test the machine? Lastly, for trust issues, where is the closest Apple store? They can perform a diagnostic at the counter with you in attendance.

 

[Captain_Picard]

So I was able to at least backup everything to an external drive using Time Machine without any issues.

Anyways to answer your first question I'm not sure if the drive is replaceable as I thought it was an SSD, but under the storage tab in about this mac it shows up as flash storage. It is a mid 2014 MacBook Pro with 500 GB of space which I think was refurbished that I bought a few years ago however the problem didn't start happening until sometime earlier this year. Luckily there is an Apple Store near me but not sure if they would charge anything to look at it and run the diagnostic or if it would still be under any type of warranty plus I have run two diagnostic programs including the one that comes with the MacBook and it didn't show any problems with the hardware.

I found an authorized repair place that is also close by that had a lot of good reviews so was just planning to take it there since I figured it might be cheaper to get fixed. I'm not so much paranoid of anything happening with my data since it looks like a reputable place but I just wanted to know what the best practice is when taking it to get fixed as far as security goes. Also, I don't have another bootable drive but was thinking of creating a new partition on the drive and trying to install the OS again on the new partition and see if the problem still happens.

Thanks

 

[Captain_Picard]

Also, I don't know if this help you but I read online about using this code "log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h" in the terminal


Filtering the log data using "eventMessage CONTAINS "Previous shutdown cause""


Skipping info and debug messages, pass --info and/or --debug to include.


Timestamp Thread Type Activity PID TTL


2020-11-24 11:58:52.793456-0800 0xb1 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128


2020-11-24 15:18:20.792002-0800 0xb1 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128


2020-11-24 21:53:07.823758-0800 0xb2 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -104

Acorrding to the codes two of them possibly have to do with the memory and one of them says it might be related to the battery. I'm pretty sure I have tried resetting the SMC before which didn't seem to do anything.

 

[Blowback]

Also, I don't know if this help you but I read online about using this code "log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h" in the terminal


Filtering the log data using "eventMessage CONTAINS "Previous shutdown cause""


Skipping info and debug messages, pass --info and/or --debug to include.


Timestamp Thread Type Activity PID TTL


2020-11-24 11:58:52.793456-0800 0xb1 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128


2020-11-24 15:18:20.792002-0800 0xb1 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -128


2020-11-24 21:53:07.823758-0800 0xb2 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: -104

Acorrding to the codes two of them possibly have to do with the memory and one of them says it might be related to the battery. I'm pretty sure I have tried resetting the SMC before which didn't seem to do anything.

Since it shouldn't be a real problem: pull out the memory and 'resit' it or , again I don't know the machine, if there are two or more sticks put them back in different slots. Can also replace with other memory if available. Seems as if the local repair shop is the place to go as they couldn't survive with negative reviews. Good luck!

 

[Captain_Picard]

Maybe I will give this a try but might just take it in any way. Thanks again for the help.

 

[Blowback]

Maybe I will give this a try but might just take it in any way. Thanks again for the help.

Last suggestion: Make sure to also avail yourself of the Apple Support forums. Go there and search/post this issue as there are a lot of very experienced Mac users there also....One thing about Macs/Computers: NO problem exists in a vacuum; there will always be others who have confronted the same or similar issues. Again , good luck.

 

[hallux]

The memory on that model is soldered to the board, there is no reseating it. The SSD should be removable to reseat as the soldered storage didn't start until the 2016 models.

@Captain_Picard an SSD is "flash" storage. Similar to a USB flash drive

 

[Captain_Picard]

The memory on that model is soldered to the board, there is no reseating it. The SSD should be removable to reseat as the soldered storage didn't start until the 2016 models.

@Captain_Picard an SSD is "flash" storage. Similar to a USB flash drive

Yikes! I hope that's not the case as it sounds like if it's the memory then there might not be a way to fix it.

 

[sgtaylor5]

I run a small one man computer repair shop, and my experience is what I sell. Can't get a client however, if they don't trust me. One of my competitive strengths is "I care about your data; that's why you have a computer.".

If you don't trust the tech with your data - go somewhere else. I make house calls, if a client's dog doesn't like me, find another tech .

 

[hallux]

@sgtaylor5 that's great and all, but reports from past people's repairs have been that Apple wiped the system during the repair. In fact - I have seen where some diagnostic tests required authenticating to the OS, which means that unless the password has been provided they need to wipe the system to complete the tests (which, coincidentally, MUST be completed upon completing the repair so they have no choice).

Incidentally - I do PC repair as well but for a large corporation. That company does not saddle us with a requirement to maintain data, they leave it up to their employees to keep critical data secure using tools available to them, but we still make every effort to copy their data for them.

Honestly, I would consider failure of storage medium on a 6 year old computer to be more a question of WHEN, and probably sooner rather than later. As a result, I would consider backup to be very important which would make the need to have the shop retain the data all that much less important.

I used to work with a guy that always had us laughing when he got a case for a possible failing HDD. "Oh, your data was critical? Surely you can restore it from your backup then. Oh, you don't have a backup? I guess it wasn't THAT critical then"...

 

[sgtaylor5]

@sgtaylor5 that's great and all, but reports from past people's repairs have been that Apple wiped the system during the repair. In fact - I have seen where some diagnostic tests required authenticating to the OS, which means that unless the password has been provided they need to wipe the system to complete the tests (which, coincidentally, MUST be completed upon completing the repair so they have no choice).

Incidentally - I do PC repair as well but for a large corporation. That company does not saddle us with a requirement to maintain data, they leave it up to their employees to keep critical data secure using tools available to them, but we still make every effort to copy their data for them.

Honestly, I would consider failure of storage medium on a 6 year old computer to be more a question of WHEN, and probably sooner rather than later. As a result, I would consider backup to be very important which would make the need to have the shop retain the data all that much less important.

I used to work with a guy that always had us laughing when he got a case for a possible failing HDD. "Oh, your data was critical? Surely you can restore it from your backup then. Oh, you don't have a backup? I guess it wasn't THAT critical then"...

I sure would agree that "failure of storage medium on a 6 year old computer" is really a factor here. Another factor is human-caused: the assumption that "my data is safe because I have a quality product" or "why wouldn't my data be safe; why would my data go bad anyway?".

This month, I've had two laptops with unrecoverable hard drives and no customer backups. Sigh.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

If you want to protect your data before you hand it over, use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to create a BOOTABLE cloned backup on an external drive.

Both of these are FREE to download and use for 30 days, so doing this will cost you nothing.

Later, you can access the backup by just plugging it in and letting icon mount on the desktop. Or... you could even boot from it.

Then... it's your choice.
You could:
- create a new, "temporary" account and give them the password
- clear off your data from the drive
- entirely wipe the drive and install a new copy of the OS.

... although I'm wondering if you "wipe" and re-install, if that might "wipe off the problems", too...?