Hi Bill; Comments interspersed below. On Dec 10, 2008, at 12:49 PM, Digital Bill wrote:
> > A friend has come into possession of a "huge collection of machines > all hooked together, mainly Macs" after the death of the owner, the > father of a co-worker. Hopefully, the former owner wasn't paranoid. There MAY not be any problem looking at things. > He knows nothing about them and wants to see > if they run and if so, if we can recover any data from them for his > friend. Decide immediately WHAT sort of data you are after. E-Mails --- locate the 'mail' handling system and get the E-Mail program up & running. Genealogical research --- can be lots of data files. Locate the 'base' program, and run it. Research in his field of knowledge. (Check with friends/ co-workers, as to potential usefulness of data.) > The machines are being removed piecemeal and he's trying to clean them > up and get them running. Physical cleaning, no problem. Even to the point of 'Keyboard in the Dishwasher' DON'T delete anything, DON't "Delete Trash". With the former setup being several systems "Networked" --- it is possible for 'Data Files' for any subject to be located on ANY of the available HDs. > Currently he has either an Indigo Blue or > Blueberry iMac, a Power Mac G3 desktop with a "Powered by Sonnet" > sticker on it and a G4 GigE with dual 500Mhz processors. (I haven't > seen any of these machines myself, nor the others, so I'm working off > his descriptions, so please bear with me.) > > Needless to say, most if not all of this stuff is in disarray; I don't > think he even has enough power cords, mice or keyboards for these > things. If he uses current day power cords, will it be safe? > Secondly, what keyboards do exist need some serious cleaning up. If he > plugs his aluminum Mac keyboard and mighty mouse in, will they work, > or will they only work on the most recent flavor of OSX? The PM G3 > has a video card in it, with DVI and VGA ports - so he can safely hook > up a regular monitor to it, right? > > Finally, I'm concerned he may not have the original system discs for > these puppies. Recent reference <http://theappleblog.com/2008/06/22/reset-os-x- password-without-an-os-x-cd/> > What kind of problems might this present to him when it > comes time to diagnose the hardware & software and set up Admin > privileges to manage the machines? And the part that scares me is, his > friend did not know Macs, tried to shut them down while they were > running and networked together (with apparently a ton of stuff still > up and running on them), and she lost her patience and power switched > them off. Bruce has already commented -- he's right. INDIVIDUALLY, bring each system up, look at "About this Mac'/'More Info" {Blue apple icon, upper left corner of initial 'desktop'} The _look_ at the 'file system'. After you have looked at all of the available systems, there MAY be some 'Ah Ha' moments where you recognize that there are 'data files' for this program, on That machine. If all else fails, consider letting the machines boot in to 'Target' mode, and look at the file system from another machine (yours). There is always 'Nuke & Pave', but that's for AFTER you are satisfied that there isn't anything else to recover. HTH Chuck D. > So... > > Between some pressing deadlines and the holidays and all, I probably > won't get the chance to go and help him first-hand for at least > another week or so. In the meantime, I promised him I'd throw this all > out to the collective brain trust here to see what sticks. > > Needless to say, the operative word here is "Help!" ;-) > > Thanks, > Bill --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
