How can I fix my mom's Mac?

Asked by andrew (5091

) | asked December 26th, 2007 | 8 responses | “Great Question” (0

My poor mother… Her hard drive melted down on her MacBook and the apple store replaced it, backing up her /Users /Applications and /Library on an external HD. I’ve restored those folders (backing up the new ones and using sudo cp -r since I’ve lost the I’d disk and couldn’t get the system copied over to boot off the external). Everything was going well until I replaced the /Library folder… Now she can’t run software update and trying to install iTunes 7 gives her an error.

Any thoughts? Permissions, maybe?

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Topics: OS X, hard drive failure, troubleshooting, system restore

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Answers

I would try an Archive and Install if you have a Mac OS disc laying around. That should replace and important files you may have mucked up in the Library folder.

GeauxTigers (319

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That’s what got me into this whole mess… I’ve lost the OS disc. :(

andrew (5091

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Its very unlikely that you’ll be able to resolve this without a reinstall. I’d get a new OS installer disk.

chaosrob (1946

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Ug. Where do I do that? Call AppleCare?

andrew (5091

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http://store.apple.com or any Apple retail store.

chaosrob (1946

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Maybe this will work. I don’t know one thing about it, though.

kevbo (7797

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Turns out it was the permissions on the /Library folder I copied. After I replaced it with the (original) backup, the computer started working again! Phew!

Nothing more scary than dictacting “Now type s-u-d-o-space-m-v…” over the phone…

andrew (5091

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