Finding and backing up data from Mavericks Macbook Pro?

Hey guys, I can use some help for this person's Mac job please? I am not seeing the model number anywhere, only this serial no. W8941K457XJ imprinted on the bottom lid.

Here's the main issue, the owner backed up or thought she did everything on her external drive but I think it was done via time machine backup and not drag and drop as I am accustomed to. She can't find her pictures in the iphoto library on the external. When I open iphoto on the mac, I am seeing her pics under the "Last 12 months" tab, it's showing 334 items. I am not understanding how to copy and paste all 334 pics unto her HDD, I can't see the file location on the HDD, help please?

http://i493.photobucket.com/albums/rr298/mikehende/iphoto_zpspobjtj4q.jpg

mikehende said:

Here's the main issue, the owner backed up or thought she did everything on her external drive but I think it was done via time machine backup and not drag and drop as I am accustomed to. She can't find her pictures in the iphoto library on the external. When I open iphoto on the mac, I am seeing her pics under the "Last 12 months" tab, it's showing 334 items. I am not understanding how to copy and paste all 334 pics unto her HDD, I can't see the file location on the HDD, help please?

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If this data was backed up via Time Machine...then you can't "copy & paste" them like you normally would. Time Machine backups don't work like this. If they did...then Time Machine backups would be more of a clone of the original drive. What needs to be done is a "restore". Please check out the article below on how to do this:

http://www.imore.com/how-back-up-mac-time-machine

HTH,

- Nick

When you say was backed up via time machine. Don't the pics physically reside on the mac's HDD somewhere and if yes, not seeing why I can't copy them?

mikehende said:

When you say was backed up via time machine. Don't the pics physically reside on the mac's HDD somewhere and if yes, not seeing why I can't copy them?

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If you're expecting to find the photos on the Mac's internal HD...then the verbiage about the external drive is unecessary for this conversation & only adding confusion.

Please give the article below a read...and it should help you access the photos in iPhoto:

http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/30/where-iphoto-pictures-are-located/

- Nick

Thanks for the link, I have gone through it, unfortunately it doesn't help this situation now. In iphoto, when I click on "Last 12 months" under the RECENT tab I am seeing 332 items 3.0GB but when I click on "Photos" under the Library I am seeing 4,700 photos, 116 videos totalling 14.5GB. Does that mean the total amount of photos she has is 4,700 but just that they may be scattered all over the place?

Man, I am still not understanding why like on a windows machine I can't simply navigate to HDD, locate the folder of photos and copy them, I am guessing now that mac does not always work that way?

Mike, what is different is that iPhoto and Photos has a database in which the photos are stored. What you can see on the drive directly is the database, but not the individual images in that database. When photos are imported to iPhoto, there are two options, as I recall. One is to leave the file on the drive and just have a pointer in the DB to the image, the other is to import the image into the DB directly. If, when the user imported the images, she chose to store them in the DB, then that is why you cannot see them directly on the drive. As for the difference between the 332 and the 4700, is it possible she has been using the app longer than 12 months? Recent items are just that, recent.

To get to the images directly, they will need to be exported from the DB back to image files on the drive. But to do that, she'll need to run iPhoto and export them using iPhoto to get them out of the DB.

I'm sure someone more familiar than me with the exact workings of iPhoto will come along with some ideas, but that's what I recall from iPhoto.

Thanks for the explanation, by DB I am guessing you mean stored on Apple's server somewhere?

I was able to export the 334 files to the external drive. but can't locate the 4,700, my guess is those files are scattered all over the place. So what's the best thing I can advise her to do to make sure we get all photos off the mac before reloading OSX please?

Nope, the DB is on the Mac. To find it, I think you can open iPhoto, look in Preferences. On one of the tabs, there will be an indicator of where iPhoto is storing the images. That's where the DB will be. But again, you won't see the images as files, just one large DB.

Thx. I see, that is what the instructions from Nick's link is referring to, that is the db file:

Open /Pictures/ and locate the “iPhoto Library” file
Right-Click and select “Show Package Contents”
Navigate to “Masters” or “Originals” to find your original iPhoto pictures

Next step for me is to get her to look through the 4,700 photos and copy whatever she wants, I see no other way.

Ok she will need to deal with that. This mac's specs shows 2.5ghz core 2 duo and 4gb memory. I am guessing this machine did not come with 10.9.5 [Mavericks]? If not which OSX should I load before upgrading to sierra please?

I ran the serial number you gave earlier through Mactracker and it said it's a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro. As a result, it's too old for Sierra. The maximum is 10.11.6, El Capitan.

Thanks for that, when I ran the serial I did not get anything. Does it say which osx came with this unit? Or should I install el capitan directly please?

If you have the installer, I'd go for installing El Cap directly. You haven't said exactly why you have the machine, but assuming it's working and you have the TM drive, I'd do a clean install, then when it boots, use Migration Assistant when it's offered for the first time to restore from the TM backup. (That's assuming her backup is actually done properly.) If you want to be really sure of that, you can always attach an external drive, format it for the Mac and do a TM backup now, then install and restore from your TM backup. I'm not certain from all the posts what the state of the machine is right now, so you'll have to make that call.

Or you can do the install of El Cap over the existing system as an upgrade, which should leave her files and accounts as they are now, if that's what she wants. I'd make a backup before doing that, just in case. You know how computers are...

Her HDD has only 3gb left and as usual she can't clean out the "Other" files plus she said it may have viruses so she wants a complete wipe and uninstall. She had used TM to backup to her external drive and it was done except for her photos which showed some error and would not export. So that's the project, to erase and reinstall OSX ot the latest and put back the data from the external's TM backup.

OK, but No viruses (there aren't any for the Mac OS at this time), so that's not a worry. She may have malware (adware, popups, etc), but malwarebytes should remove it (malwarebytes.com). "Other" is a term that is very broad and may include some really important stuff, so you don't want to be mucking about just deleting stuff because it doesn't "look" important. If her backup errored out on the photos file, they may not be backed up at all. If you want to do this safely, make your own backup for her. She is mixing terms if she thinks export is needed for backup, it's not. Photos in the database are preserved when the database itself is backed up. Also, if she's running any antivirus software, or any "utilities" that clean, improve, speed up, maintain, etc, the system that aren't from Apple, unless it's Onyx, which is the one utility that we recommend here.

I'd run Onyx first, get the right version for the version of OS X she has from www.titanium.free.fr, leave the defaults and let it run the scripts under the Automation tab. That will clean out a lot of the junk that may make more room on the drive.

lol Jake being a Windows technician and repairer, I don't think Mike will believe that about no viruses!

You called that right harry! Just yesterday I used Malwarebytes to clean out 21 infections from my bud's macbook pro.

You are learning Mike, you are learning. Tell him not to go to sites such as CNET, Softonic etc. which specialise in these little bundles of joy.

mikehende said:

You called that right harry! Just yesterday I used Malwarebytes to clean out 21 infections from my bud's macbook pro.

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But they aren't *viruses*, just annoying malware (popups, ads, hijackers, etc) the the user installed (maybe didn't know it, but he/she did). I know it's difficult to conceive it, but right now there are NO true viruses for Macs in the world. And the malware that is there is pretty benign, in the end. No data destruction, encryption, ransomware.

And Harry's advice is dead on target. CNET, Softonic, Download.com, etc are all "bundling" those little packets of crapware with their "free" downloads.

Mike as a PC technician can't seem to accept that Jake.

MacInWin said:

No data destruction, encryption, ransomware.

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That I am not sure of, I have cleaned malware which had slowed down the mac's performance.