My iMac is broken

[Overdose]

I did the first important things like pull the ac power and remove the battery before cleaning externally and leaving in the sun to dry. Fingers crossed. ray:

'Splashing out', yeah, I saw what you did there. Thanks.

OD,

Before you turn it back on again, if you can find any silica gel bags (worth popping into your local Hi-Fi emporium and seeing if they've any lying around - they can be re-used), put the laptop into a plastic bag with no holes in it along with the silica gel sachets. Seal the bag and put it into a warm place (an airing cupboard for example) for a couple of days - if you can't find any silica gel, then some rice wrapped in cloth is a less efficient alternative. The silica/rice will absorb any moisture left.

Fingers crossed !

Rob

Thanks for the tip, Rob. The fault was traced and limited to the now very sticky keyboard, easily fixed with a replacement. I managed a faultless boot with the keyboard removed.

Any PCBs should be ok, as only a small amount of liquid should have dripped into the internals and the PCBs are laquered.

Of course, the fault only became apparent after I had bought a replacement laptop. :doh:

 

[John Duncan]

Update.

The man at the genius bar was able to mount the iMac drive on his MacBook over FireWire so am off to maplins to buy a cable. Will copy the hard drive and then try a fresh install if I can find the snow leopard disk (or will buy another).

 

[professorhat]

if I can find the snow leopard disk (or will buy another).

Upgrade to Lion? I missed out on Snow Leopard (older PowerPC Mac wouldn't run it) so not sure how big a difference it is, but I'm a big fan of the way it works and love the gestures support.

 

[John Duncan]

Can I rescue an SL hard drive with a Lion disk? That would be my preferred starting point I think.

 

[John Duncan]

And bizarrely, the Mac has just booted up normally. Am running a backup as we speak...

 

[professorhat]

Can I rescue an SL hard drive with a Lion disk? That would be my preferred starting point I think.

Good point - not sure on that one...

And bizarrely, the Mac has just booted up normally. Am running a backup as we speak...

Ah computers - don't you just love them!

 

[John Duncan]

Ah computers - don't you just love them!

No, they are a PITA.

 

[professorhat]

Yep.

 

[RodhasGibson]

And bizarrely, the Mac has just booted up normally. Am running a backup as we speak...

Yeah it was just bored with being stuck in the house all day long,just wanted to get out for a bit and take ride round the block John.I shall bear that in mind. At least you had hassle instead of expense eh.

 

[chebby]

And bizarrely, the Mac has just booted up normally. Am running a backup as we speak...

When that's finished, grab another external HD, buy SuperDuper! (£18.50) and do a bootable backup ASAP. (It'll take a while on the first time but subsequent backups are incremental and take only minutes.)

You can even run your Mac from the external backup. (Albeit a tad slower than normal.)

It really is that bootable*.

*Lots of backup software claims to be bootable, but isn't really. (Not without a lot of faffage and 'rescue' DVDs etc.)

 

[professorhat]

And bizarrely, the Mac has just booted up normally. Am running a backup as we speak...

When that's finished, grab another external HD, buy SuperDuper! (£18.50) and do a bootable backup ASAP. (It'll take a while on the first time but subsequent backups are incremental and take only minutes.)

You can even run your Mac from the external backup. (Albeit a tad slower than normal.)

It really is that bootable*.

*Lots of backup software claims to be bootable, but isn't really. (Not without a lot of faffage and 'rescue' DVDs etc.)

Agreed.

 

[John Duncan]

Thanks for that. I bought a fresh terabyte drive that I'm doing a full TM backup to (is taking forever). The bootable backup from SuperDuper sounds good so I will create one of them as well...

 

[John Duncan]

But in the meantime am just trying to do a factory restore on a neighbour's Vaio...

 

[John Duncan]

Well I'm glad I managed to take a Time Machine backup yesterday

Hard drive now appears completely dead again. However, have managed to do a bootable clone of my MBP (using Carbon Copy Cloner, because I'm cheap), and can boot up the iMac with it. So when I get the hard drive replaced, I can boot up, clone onto the new HD, and then restore the Time Machine backup.

Now, am just trying to decide whether I fancy replacing the hard drive myself...

 

[Overdose]

I have replaced a HDD and memory in an iBook and repaired the power supply board, but don't know if the MBP is much different for access. There are several tutorial sites on the net though, that are very good.

 

[John Duncan]

Wish me luck, boys and girls, I'm going in...

 

[chebby]

Wish me luck, boys and girls, I'm going in...

"...and may be some time."

 

[shooter]

Suction pads at the ready!

Good luck John, keep us posted.

 

[John Duncan]

It's a game of two halves. New drive is in, just need to put it all back together again. After I get some milk from Budgens...

 

[Anonymous]

Not a computer buff but really not sure that using milk is going to be good for your Mac...

Expect a vanman moment any time soon!

 

[John Duncan]

That was in case I needed coffee to keep me up all night. However, am just restoring a backup onto new hard drive now...

 

[Anonymous]

You made it sound quite straightforward, I'm impressed. Hope all is confirmed to be in order Mr D and a celebratory tipple can be had instead of copious amounts of coffee.

 

[John Duncan]

Am typing this from the iMac, having restored my MBP's clone onto it. But...hmmm. Trying to do a restore from the Time Machine backup I did before the original HDD finally went kaput, and it doesn't want to play...

You made it sound quite straightforward

Wait till you see the how-to post (with pictures)...

 

[Anonymous]

Ah, well there's nothing straightforward about that

 

[John Duncan]

Finally. Have found my Snow Leopard install DVD, which is apparently required to do a full restore from a Time Machine backup (more on that later)...