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A couple of months ago, my mother asked my family if they had any old computers to donate to some kids at the local high school and my cousin reminded us of the old iMAC and said he would donate it but it needed to be fixed. Since I had finally moved to the Philly area I thought I could get a better look at the computer. I am good with computers using Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/etc but the MAC was a totally different story. Anyway the story goes as follows: I turned on the iMAC and it acted like it was going to load up and a little folder icon with a blinking smiley face and a question mark showed up. I didn't know what that meant (but it was totally different than the problem my cousin described when I was in chicago). I search countless hours over the internet and the same general thing came up saying this meant that it couldn't find the mac folder. OK! That is understandable, but they all gave several different fixes including, zapping some things by holding down a combo of buttons, etc... And I tried the mac website and it said that I should try that and then use the OS disc. I call my cousin up and ask him if he has the OS disc, he says he never got an OS disc, just the computer. Now Im in a jam. I don't have an OS disc, he doesn't have one, and I don't have a pot to piss in let alone money to buy another one or any fix discs available. I call Mac help line and they tell me it is going to cost me $49 to get extended help on this old computer. I hung up screaming that the computer wasn't worth $49. Anyway, my question is: I don't have an OS/setup/fix disc or the money to buy one(especially since the computer is 7 years old) and this blinking icon is showing up, and I want to donate this computer to a student who needs it. How can I fix it without taking to a service shop. I've worked in shops and I've seen people do 2 seconds of work and charge people $700, and if I get charged over $10 - well, I'm not paying that...
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--Mjha-- |
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I had a similar problem a few months ago and ended up installing UBUNTU linux for power pc instead of osx and it works just fine, comes with lots of software like firefox, open office, gimp, bit torrent, etc. I used the install disc but you can download it for free.
http://www.ubuntu.com/
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athlon xp-m@2605mhz(12x217) tt silent tower 2x 90mm silentcat/ arctic silver ceramique asus a7v880/nb tt blueorb evga 6600gt samsung sataII 80gb x2 in raid0 samsung 16x dvdrw 2x512 ocz platinum pc3200/ windows xp pro sp2 logitech mx510/ logitech wingman rumble compaq s910 19"/ canon i960 sb audigy 2zs/ altec lansing 251-5.1 thermaltake tr2 430w 1200tualatin cel 256L2@1596mhz/12x133/33pci(basically a pIII 1.6ghz)
tt volcano9 90mm silentcat/ arctic silver ceramique gigabyte GA-6VTXE-A f9/nb tt blueorb 20gb quantum fireball ati 9700pro lg dvd-rom 896mb cas2 pc133/ windows xp pro sp2 logitech ifeel/ nec accusync 75f sb live/ logitech x230 2.1 thermaltake tr2 430w Last edited by maximus7001; 01-29-2006 at 02:55 AM. |
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Thanks. I will try it out. Oe more thing though, I am a PC user. Although I would love to have a Mac, I only have a PC. How would I go about installing the program on the iMac? I would be downloading everything using my computer? Would I just proceed as usual? Donwload, burn, etc or would I need to do all of this on another Mac?
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--Mjha-- |
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If you're talking about installing the OS, you just download it on your PC and burn it to CD. Then put that in the icrap and install it. Linux would be your best bet considering your mac is pretty old and inefficient. And probably wouldn't support the latest osx or run it very poorly. Of course running poorly and macs usually go hand in hand. I have to use G5's at school. At least they have deep freeze installed so they don't get mucked up.
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Although I'm not a Linux user, I have had to make some references in the past. Wiki has lots of good stuff on pretty much anything. Try this.
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Thank you, I will see what info they have. I love the response time on these forums. Most forums, people usually respond about 5 weeks after the fact, but here i usually get a response the same day, if not within an hour or two which allows me to relax a bit while I wait.
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--Mjha-- |
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I think it maybe the disc, because now that I think of it, I'm having a problem with all of the RW discs that came in the pack. I'd take it back, but I bought it in July. All of the RW discs are going bad. And also, my connection cut off while it was downloading but I quickly cut it back on and it supposedly continued. So, I'm going to download it again and burn it to a new CD-R that I just purchased.
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--Mjha-- |
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