Need some help please!

[Your PCMD]

99.8% of my business is PC based, however I want to go further into Apple than to just upgrade HDD's, screen repairs, memory upgrades, etc. I want to go into the software side of things such as data recovery, disk cloning, etc.

I do have an iMac that was given to me months ago by a client and it only needed a new HDD. So its been sitting dormant collecting dust, but it does work. I don't want to spend a ton of money on software being as I don't do much Apple related stuff ya know?

So what do you guys use for things like:

Disk cloning
Data recovery
Tools like SDI for PC
Backup utilities like Fabs, etc.
Malware scanning and cleaning
Diagnostic software

You get the picture. I do have an extra duel docking station that I can attach to the iMac. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[altrenda]

My list of a basic Mac toolkit.
An external drive with a bootable OS X installation. This allows you to determine if your problem is hardware or software related, plus its better to run most of the tools I use from a disk other than the internal boot disk.
On that drive I have an installation of TechTools, and Diskwarrior. There is some cross over of the 2, but each has it's strengths over the other.

Data Rescue from Prosoft. TT and Diskwarrior will do file recovery, but not like DR4.

I use Carbon Copy Cloner, especially to do SSD for Hard Drive replacements. It just works, every time.

Malwarebytes for Mac does a good job of taking care of the most common malware problem, browser hijacks.

Some people like the free Onyx, but I have never found it that useful. And others like to use Linux tools; I have found Parted Magic to be helpful at times, but I find that Mac based tools work better, faster and easier on Macs.

For me, just booting into a known working version of OS X (soon to be MacOS) from an external is enough to get a handle on whats going on, and then experience and some Google Fu to fix it.

Until you get familiar with the hardware a visit to IFixit to find where the hidden screws are, and how to release the different types of connectors Apple uses without breaking them is a good idea. And if you get real ambitious, go to Louis Rossmans' youtube channel to see what board failures look like, and how to fix them. (plus he's entertaining as hell)

just my 2 pence

..

 

[trevm999]

Disk cloning - carbon copy cloner or ddrescue
Data recovery - ddrescue then diskwarrior, then data rescue if needed
Tools like SDI for PC - not needed
Backup utilities like Fabs, etc. - migration assistant, which is built in to the OS
Malware scanning and cleaning - malwarebytes
Diagnostic software - parted magic or official apple toolkits

I have used onyx but was never able to determine if it worked any better than just doing a safe boot. A safe boot fixes more issues

 

[Markverhyden]

How old is the iMac? That will limit what OS you can put on it. Which then limits, to a certain extent, what OS's you properly can support. Basically it needs to be a 64 bit processor which means at least Core 2 Duo. Here is Apple's official list for OS X 10.11. Also be aware that certain features, for example Airdrop, require newer machines.

Since the OS for the regular computers are just a special roll of BSD it very similar to Linux under the hood. Ton's of CLI tools.

My list, echoing some of the above.

Disk cloning - time machine, carbon copy cloner and diskutil (CLI)
Data recover - disk warrior is an excellent tool for fixing file system problems. But it will not recover missing/deleted files. DR4 and R-Studio for that. The good thing about R-Studio is you can run that on a Windoze or Linux to recover from HFS+ volumes.
SDI, etc - not needed.
Backup - time machine or migration assistant
Anit-malware - MBAM is the old AdwareMedic. Which works really well. At this point in time all Apple OS malware is in the form a browser/search hijacks. A lot of the time just doing a browser reset as well as uninstalling the offending piece of software does the trick.
Diagnostic software - parted magic

Agreed with the Onyx observation. Never really noticed any improvements after running it. Also be aware that some of these "utilities" are themselves a problem. I think one was MacKeeper if I remember correctly. And, just like with other OS's, there's bazillion's of free apps. And some users just install anything they see and like. We all know what that leads to.

Many problems in that ecosystem end up being some type of software related thing. One program I found that has been useful on a few occasions is Audit Explorer.

Unlike M$ OS's you can partition a USB drive, install several live flavors of OS X with utilities, and choose which one to boot from on a target machine. A bit of work on the front end but worth it later on.

 

[trevm999]

For data recovery on failing hard drives, I actually stopped proceeding to data rescue. If ddrescue + disk warrior didn't do it (which I had about a 95% success rate with) then I recommended sending it out. Using data rescue can take a long time and people are more satisfied with the results from a data recovery professional. (I.e. when you try to manage expectations they still don't quite get it and are overwhelmed when you have recovers bunch or files that are no longer in a file structure, and are not named, and aren't all files they created but OS and program files too. They would have to pay me more than the cost of professional data recovery to sort through all of that, and they usually don't want to either)

 

[pcpete]

Since we bought the expensive rstudio licence we have been using that for data recovery for both windows and mac, do you think Data Rescue does a better job for hfs+?

 

[Markverhyden]

DR only runs on OS X and only does OS X. The setup is different and I've had a few occasions where it easily recovered what I was looking for rather than sorting through the mass of files you get with R-Studio. Just another tool in my book.

 

[trevm999]

When I was using data rescue, I was apple only, so r-studio was not on my radar

 

[Your PCMD]

How old is the iMac?

Its got Snow Leopard installed, but can install El Capitan.

 

[Markverhyden]

Its got Snow Leopard installed, but can install El Capitan.

That's not not how old it is. If it can take 10.11 then I'd toss in a new HD since there is no cost for the machine and I'm sure you have a spare HD and some time.

Make it a machine you use. Things like VM's, etc let you do all you need without resorting to a Windoze machine. Dedicate a few weeks and you'll see it's not so different from M$ or Linux.

 

[Your PCMD]

That's not not how old it is

Its a 2011 and I already put a new HDD in it. I just havent upgraded it to El yet.