The OSX/Apple support thread
Discussion
Blackpuddin said:
qube_TA said:
Blackpuddin said:
Yep did the recovery disk aid thing two or three times. My expert now also thinks the hard drive is on the way out after I told him that the 280Gb backup I was attempting to do to an external drive was running at about 1MB every 30 seconds. He advised me to switch it off immediately before it went ping for good. I've got a new SSD and 16MB RAM coming, if that doesn't sort it I guess it's time to add it to my rather depressing pile of dead Macs. This MBP is less than three years old. Very, very poor IMO. Should add for clarity and in answer to a post above that my man did look at logs etc. I believe he knows his onions.
A small question, if you boot from recovery to re-install do you format the drive first, if you just click re-install then it'll write over what's there onto the existing filesystem.If, from the recovery console you open disk Utils and format the drive you can then do a completely fresh installation.
If you think the hard drive is on its way out then it's likely to be highlighted when you format it.
If you think the machine has a fault then you can run the diagnostics program, if it's a 2013 onwards model then boot holding down 'D' otherwise you can run it from the installation media supplied with the unit.
My man is on the case, quite literally, as we speak. Here's a pic of what he found when he opened it:
For non-experts (like me) that black thing is the hard drive cable. He reckons all those pockmarks have been caused by grit getting into the case and acting like a grinding paste between the bottom case and the cable. He can’t be 100% sure that is the issue, but reckons it could well be given that the new Samsung SSD that I supplied him with didn't respond when he connected it to this cable but was working fine in separate testing.
Interestingly this MBP was absolutely jammed with crap, a reflection of the hard life it has led in our house being left on the floor, taken into the bathroom and being a breakfast tray (!). A fact not helped by the missing rubber feet - also now on order.
So, it may not have needed a new drive after all, but having bought it I'm quite happy to make the upgrade.
For non-experts (like me) that black thing is the hard drive cable. He reckons all those pockmarks have been caused by grit getting into the case and acting like a grinding paste between the bottom case and the cable. He can’t be 100% sure that is the issue, but reckons it could well be given that the new Samsung SSD that I supplied him with didn't respond when he connected it to this cable but was working fine in separate testing.
Interestingly this MBP was absolutely jammed with crap, a reflection of the hard life it has led in our house being left on the floor, taken into the bathroom and being a breakfast tray (!). A fact not helped by the missing rubber feet - also now on order.
So, it may not have needed a new drive after all, but having bought it I'm quite happy to make the upgrade.
if the SATA cable was poorly you'd more likely find that the drive wasn't seen at all by the computer rather than getting errors. It's not like the data has to navigate around the dirt.
Dirt is bad though as it clogs up moving parts and vents, makes your machine run hotter and all those bad things, you can buy air-dusters from the likes of Maplin, great for blowing out dust from electrical devices.
Dirt is bad though as it clogs up moving parts and vents, makes your machine run hotter and all those bad things, you can buy air-dusters from the likes of Maplin, great for blowing out dust from electrical devices.
Blackpuddin said:
He reckons all those pockmarks have been caused by grit getting into the case and acting like a grinding paste between the bottom case and the cable. He can’t be 100% sure that is the issue, but reckons it could well be given that the new Samsung SSD that I supplied him with didn't respond when he connected it to this cable but was working fine in separate testing.
He can be 100% sure - all he needs to do is put the drive in another machine and run some decent diagnostics there. The onboard controller should report any bad blocks or blocks which are showing high error rates prior to total failure.As for the cable, it's just about possible that grit causing indents may have damaged the cable internally leading to breaks or high resistance - but this is more likely to manifest as an apparent total failure rather than an intermittent failure, unless the drive & cable are loose and the machine is subject to movement whilst in use.
Update: OH's MBP is now working well with new SSD and extra RAM, thanks to all here for help.
At the risk of pushing it, I have a separate query.
I'm trying to transcribe a few MP3 spoken interview files and thought I could use the Dictation & Speech tool on my iMac for that. Having set up a Pages document and switched on the internal mic and 'enhanced dictation' I find the words come up fine on the Pages doc whenever I say them. But when I play the files through the iMac's speaker, the Pages doc does not respond at all. Even though I can hear them and the mic icon is visually responding.
Am I doing something stupid?
At the risk of pushing it, I have a separate query.
I'm trying to transcribe a few MP3 spoken interview files and thought I could use the Dictation & Speech tool on my iMac for that. Having set up a Pages document and switched on the internal mic and 'enhanced dictation' I find the words come up fine on the Pages doc whenever I say them. But when I play the files through the iMac's speaker, the Pages doc does not respond at all. Even though I can hear them and the mic icon is visually responding.
Am I doing something stupid?
Yep, it won't listen to anything the Mac is playing while Dictation is running.
You'll need to play the audio on an external device like an iphone or cd player and play that audio into the microphone. It works much better if you have a good quality external mic plugged in.
Enhanced dictation also stops working if you switch windows on your mac or touch the Fn key while its dictating so you need to watch you don't do any other tasks while it's going.
I'm trying to get it to turn my Great Uncle's radio interview to text (he landed on the beaches at Normandy during WW2) but it struggles to understand his strong Yorkshire accent
You'll need to play the audio on an external device like an iphone or cd player and play that audio into the microphone. It works much better if you have a good quality external mic plugged in.
Enhanced dictation also stops working if you switch windows on your mac or touch the Fn key while its dictating so you need to watch you don't do any other tasks while it's going.
I'm trying to get it to turn my Great Uncle's radio interview to text (he landed on the beaches at Normandy during WW2) but it struggles to understand his strong Yorkshire accent
Blaster72 said:
Yep, it won't listen to anything the Mac is playing while Dictation is running.
Yes I noticed that but couldn't quite believe it was happening. Clearly the program is there and seems to work fine on 'external' speech. Having to transfer the files to another device in order to play them to the iMac seems fabulously perverse.Blackpuddin said:
Yes I noticed that but couldn't quite believe it was happening. Clearly the program is there and seems to work fine on 'external' speech. Having to transfer the files to another device in order to play them to the iMac seems fabulously perverse.
Meanwhile, in another universe, millions of Mac users are complaining that their Macs transcribe the lyrics of every single song they play through iTunes or any other program.Hi, I have a partition re-sizing question. At least, I think I have.
I have a MacBook Pro 5.2, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.66 GHz, about 7-8 years old I think.
Love the computer, run my business on it.
It's hard disk is partitioned into 297GB Mac OS 10.6.8 Z drive, 31 GB Windows XP drive.
I have 140Gb free space on the Mac Z drive, but only about 2 Gb free space on the Windows C drive.
And that 2 Gb has only been won by removing four programmes I rarely use.
Logic says give the Windows drive more space, but is that possible? Logic also says go spend £400 at PC Worm and get a new computer.....but I like this one.
Before you go all "Mac is best, why do you have Windows?" on me, I agree, but I am an accountant and most of my clients are running their accounts in Windows programmes. Also, the tax and accounts prep software I use is only available in Windows versions.
Edited to rephrase:
I don't have a partitioned disk - I have a single Mac disk according to Disk Utility, 320GB in size, with 140 GB unused.
However, if I click on "My Computer" within Windows, I have a C drive of 31.9GB and a Z drive of 297 Gb, the Z drive having about 140Gb of unused space.
So my question should be, how do I take some of the Z drive and give it to the C drive, please?
Also, how come I have more disk space on those two disks than I have on the computer in total? Is the C drive inside the Z drive?
I have a MacBook Pro 5.2, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.66 GHz, about 7-8 years old I think.
Love the computer, run my business on it.
It's hard disk is partitioned into 297GB Mac OS 10.6.8 Z drive, 31 GB Windows XP drive.
I have 140Gb free space on the Mac Z drive, but only about 2 Gb free space on the Windows C drive.
And that 2 Gb has only been won by removing four programmes I rarely use.
Logic says give the Windows drive more space, but is that possible? Logic also says go spend £400 at PC Worm and get a new computer.....but I like this one.
Before you go all "Mac is best, why do you have Windows?" on me, I agree, but I am an accountant and most of my clients are running their accounts in Windows programmes. Also, the tax and accounts prep software I use is only available in Windows versions.
Edited to rephrase:
I don't have a partitioned disk - I have a single Mac disk according to Disk Utility, 320GB in size, with 140 GB unused.
However, if I click on "My Computer" within Windows, I have a C drive of 31.9GB and a Z drive of 297 Gb, the Z drive having about 140Gb of unused space.
So my question should be, how do I take some of the Z drive and give it to the C drive, please?
Also, how come I have more disk space on those two disks than I have on the computer in total? Is the C drive inside the Z drive?
Edited by QBee on Sunday 22 November 08:29
Not qualified in any way but I have bootable Mac OSX (Mavericks) on an external hard drive as a just in case. A 1TB. Downloaded form Mac app store and followed the instal instructions, be very careful that the correct disk is picked or your main HD gets wiped.
Mucking around with El Cap beta on the main iMac so thought some fall back might be worth while. Any option using an external HD for Win or OSX or indeed both? Someone with more knowledge would know.
But I am also paranoid with backing up so have another three (2x2TB and 1 .5TB) but no OS on them.
Mucking around with El Cap beta on the main iMac so thought some fall back might be worth while. Any option using an external HD for Win or OSX or indeed both? Someone with more knowledge would know.
But I am also paranoid with backing up so have another three (2x2TB and 1 .5TB) but no OS on them.
Actually running Parallels, not bootcamp.
Their help topic, now I have thought to Google it, makes the process look fairly easy:
http://kb.parallels.com/en/113972
Their help topic, now I have thought to Google it, makes the process look fairly easy:
http://kb.parallels.com/en/113972
Good Afternoon All
This is quite a mundane question compared to most, but i really need help accessing my MacBooks dictionary.
I run a Macbook Air with El Capitan, using Microsoft office suite from Office 365.
I have added some words to the dictionary which i want to remove. I would actually love to reset the whole dictionary.
The issue is its not where i would normally find it in Word; i believe its located somewhere deep in the Mac, somewhere i have not ventured before.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
This is quite a mundane question compared to most, but i really need help accessing my MacBooks dictionary.
I run a Macbook Air with El Capitan, using Microsoft office suite from Office 365.
I have added some words to the dictionary which i want to remove. I would actually love to reset the whole dictionary.
The issue is its not where i would normally find it in Word; i believe its located somewhere deep in the Mac, somewhere i have not ventured before.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
AstonZagato said:
My hard disk is going (I think) on my MBP. I'm not a techie. Realistically could a ham-fisted ignoramus like me replace the HDD with a SSD? Any advice? I've seen a couple of videos on the web - it doesn't look scary but I'm still a bit worried I'll fry something.
Yes. It really is very easy. Maybe bump up the memory while you're at it.....
craigjm said:
How easy is it to change the battery on a 2011 13 inch MBA? Apple want £100 for the job. Where can you buy a proper apple battery from? the ones ive seen appear to be pattern copies and I dont fancy that.
This easy:https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+M...
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