Question for those who speak Mac

So...I have a previously-owned Intel Mac. I'd like to change the administrator's name to my own. I know how to go to system preferences, unlock accounts, and change it. But I have two questions:

1. Is this fraught with peril? Will I try to reboot at some point, and it will laugh at me and not let me access my data because it thinks I'm someone else?

2. I copied all the data from an older Mac to a data drive in the new Mac. I'd like to copy it to the Users section on the new computer's root drive. Is this something else that might be fraught with peril?

I've had no problems using the Intel Mac as an appliance, but I figure I should at least personalize it somewhat. Any other advice would be appreciated.

Personally, I would use the Mac OS X Install Disc to reformat the drive that came with your "new" Mac and put a fresh operating system on it. That way, you can start clean and not worry about the previous user's settings.

From there, you can transfer all of your other drive's data and settings to the newly formatted hard drive. I believe the installer will ask you if you want it to do that for you and all you have to do is point the browser to your source drive. I've done this several times before without any problems.

Good luck, Craig.

Best,

Geoff

Agreed Geoff. As long as you have the admin access to do so Craig, do a clean OS install and also do a Windows partition with Bootcamp. The Intel Macs are great for Windows.

Yeah, that's a nice option to have. I've got Windows 7 on my Mac, and I like it.

I can access the Windows partition via Bootcamp, but I usually boot it up concurrently with the Mac OS, under Parallels.

Best,

Geoff

To sleep easier before any big change, use SuperDuper to make a bootable clone onto a firewire drive. That way if everything goes to hell in a handbasket you can just boot off the clone and clone that back to your internal drive and you are right where you started.

I backup every day with SuperDuper!. Great application!

Best,

Geoff

For $80 or so, you can just buy a new drive and NOT reformat the one you're using right now. You'll probably end up with a significantly larger system drive which is always useful.

If you change the user account in system preferences, you'll probably have some permissions problems to deal with down the road and that's no fun. A PC partition is probably a great idea for you. It's safer to reinstall your programs rather than using the migration assistant to bring them in. Sometimes that works, sometimes not.

Steve

Agreed. Migration assistant is the last thing I would use. Looks like a good idea but unfortunately does not always work as expected. Reinstalling is the best option, although it requires a bit more effort initially.

Regarding cloning, Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware) is also a good alternative.

For question number 2 Craig, what do you mean by data? Some things you can copy (e.g., files, applications) while others present a challenge (e.g. invisible files, authorization files, etc.)

Another way to set up the "new" Mac would be to simply designate it as a FireWire drive and backup the old Mac to the new one. Instructions here.

Best,

Geoff

Thanks all. The "problem" is that I bought this from Apple, and they had set up the machine to be optimized for Logic, with all the super-tweaky things that make it wonderful. It has a Terabyte RAID setup too, I have no clue how that works or how I would re-format or whatever...

So I've just chickened out, kept everything the way it is, and put my data on the RAID drive. But...there's lots of useful advice in this thread anyway, thanks!

I remember having to optimize the computer for audio purposes before OS X. Under OS X I just make sure I'm not running anything I don't need (e.g., some background processes).

One thing you can still do is to create a brand new account, that way you can have you account for Logic and another for regular stuff, like browsing the internet, typing a document, email, etc. I also like to have a "clean" account. If anything starts going wrong, a "clean" account is a good place to start troubleshooting. Here are some tips:

http://www.gballard.net/macrant/osx_troubleshooting.html

If you plan on doing any defragmenting, Coriolis' iDefrag is the BEST option for the Mac. Much better than OS X or bundled defragmenters (e.g., Drive Genius, Tech Tool Pro).

Thanks again. BTW Eddie - been meaning to tell you how much I appreciate the overall quality of your posts and your contributions to the forum. And thanks for catching all that spam, you make it much easier for me to maintain the site.

My pleasure. I hate spammers

My pleasure. I hate spammers

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