I am not a mac guy and helping install a friends first mac

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I need some serious help. I am trying to help a buddy reinstall his Mac os x with snow leopard. I am not a Mac guy and this is his first. I determined his hard drive is bad and running from the Mac CD it cannot repair the disk. He has brought me everything he got with his Mac and trying to reinstall from his disk at the end it is asking for his Apple Id. He has no idea what this is and neither do I. What can I do or where could I get this ID. Again, he brought me everything he has so I am thinking I have it here but need help.
 

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Welcome to Mac-Forums..

The Apple ID is usually just an email address..for people who've had Macs for a long time, they use their @me.com address. I use my regular @gmail.com address as my Apple ID. So I'd suggest that your friend try the normal email addresses and passwords.

If you are using the Snow Leopard disk to do a fresh installation on the disk, where is it asking for the Apple ID?
 

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I need some serious help. I am trying to help a buddy reinstall his Mac os x with snow leopard. I am not a Mac guy and this is his first. I determined his hard drive is bad and running from the Mac CD it cannot repair the disk. He has brought me everything he got with his Mac and trying to reinstall from his disk at the end it is asking for his Apple Id.

You mentioned that you determined that this computers hard drive is "bad". If it's "bad" did you replace it? Because if it's "bad"...then there's no point trying to reinstall the OS on a bad HD.

If the HD is really not "bad"...then it may need to be reformatted...and the OS reinstalled.

Regarding the Snow Leopard install. This is totally a disk (DVD) based process...and has absolutely nothing to do with a person's Apple ID. You simply boot the computer from the Snow Leopard install DVD...and follow the on screen instructions.

Good luck, :)

- Nick
 
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After the disk installs. I think like just before the os begins. His family is desperate for the data on the old drive. They brought me their ............ well I guess it is their time machine box. But they said it was also their modem for getting online. I am running completely blind here. I always worked on their pc but I don't know what I am doing. I have not found anything on youtube that really shows me much.
 

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OK..if they have a box that contains their data and is how they get online..that's the Time Capsule..which was being used by Time Machine to create backups of their data..

Read through this page and it will tell you how to restore the contents of the Time Capsule back onto the machine.

You should be able to run a regular Ethernet cable over to the Time Capsule and access it..
 
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Im SCARED. lol.... really though I am pretty shook up over this. They went on vacation Monday and I told them I would do everything I can to get it done. I thank you for your help and please monitor this thread, I will post results.

O, yeah. Let me ask, do I restore from an image on the white thing after I get the OS installed. Which means I have to locate them to get the email. Is their any way to restore straight from the white thing and bypass the disk os install.
 

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Do the following
1) Power up Time Capsule (TC)
2) Connect Mac to TC with Ethernet cable
3) Start up Mac with the Snow Leopard disk inserted and hold down the C key
4) Once you've fully booted into the disk and are looking at the Mac desktop, go to Utilities->Restore System From Backup.
5) Assuming the TC was properly seen by the Mac, you should get a window saying Select Backup Source and the only option should be "some name" on "Time Capsule".
6) Choose the TC as the back up source and choose the latest backup made in the next window.
7) The destination should be "Macintosh HD" for Select Destination.

Assuming all of this worked OK, you should now have the Restore button that you can hit and have it restore the information and see how it does.

Once finished, remove the snow leopard disk and reboot the Mac and see what happens.
 
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White Thing would be the Time Capsule? It is an AirPort Extreme Router with a Hard Drive built into it.
 
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OK, this is not good. OK, I have not done the install yet but booting to disk and I was able to get into this white thing, again I have not installed the disk but it shows a single backup. They said it was backing up his and her laptop. But I only see one with his name. So does this mean they were really only backing up his and not hers. Hers is the one I need. But again..... the osx disk has not been installed.
 

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Hmm, if you only see one backup listed then it does look like only one computer was doing the backup and the other wasn't.
 
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If I need to do a new post for this question then tell me and I will do so. The drive that went bad. When they called me over to their house to look at it. The mac would boot. But every function would take forever. Like you turn on the power. Two hours later it gets to the desktop. You really couldn't do anything pass that. Using the mac utilities it did confirm the hard drive was bad and irreparable. It said to backup your files and replace the drive. With the new disk installed on the new hard drive and I am at the select your keyboard screen. The next screen asks if I want to my info from another volume. How best can I proceed to have the best chance to pull data off the other drive that I currently have connected by USB port.
 

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Hmm, if you only see one backup listed then it does look like only one computer was doing the backup and the other wasn't.

That's right. The backup is stored in a large file (sparsebundle) which has the name of the computer matched to the backup. There should be one of those files for each computer being backed up.

Is it possible they were backing up the second computer to an external hard drive? That hard driver could have been either directly connected to the computer or attached to the USB port on the Time Capsule.
 
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OK, I know for a fact this TC was the only backup device. OK, based on my post before this one. How best can I proceed to have the best chance to pull data off the other drive that I currently have connected by USB port.

I think I am almost out of everyone's hair here. I just want to do everything I can to get this data. She had her wedding, first child birth and the first year of it's life and video of her grandfather who died right after Christmas. I will cry just telling her it's all gone.
 
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With all due respect, your intentions may have been good, but it was not a wise thing to take on a job you don't understand and hope that there is E-mail based help .
My suggestion is to call in the pro's and let them handle it.
I don't mean to be blunt, but you will do yourself and your friendship a favour by calling in professional help.
 

Raz0rEdge

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With all due respect, your intentions may have been good, but it was not a wise thing to take on a job you don't understand and hope that there is E-mail based help .
My suggestion is to call in the pro's and let them handle it.
I don't mean to be blunt, but you will do yourself and your friendship a favour by calling in professional help.

McBie, how dare you bring reason to this discussion..:) Though, I agree with you..if there is important data that needs to be saved and has great sentimental value, getting people their way around a Mac should greatly help in getting things sorted..
 
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My only objective was to provide XDude with an approach that has the highest likelihood to success and get the data back. I meant no bad things to him/her.
 

Raz0rEdge

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My only objective was to provide XDude with an approach that has the highest likelihood to success and get the data back. I meant no bad things to him/her.

And I agree wholeheartedly..

Full disclosure, all of my responses so far have been as the result of Google searches yielding the same answer..
 
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And I am with McBie - if you don't understand things tell your friends and suggest off to a Mac dealer.
 

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