I've been having an awful lot of problems with my iMac in the last few months. In reading post after post to try and solve each one on my own (the three year warranty expired, and I just can't afford $49 every five days per problem occuring), it seems like a lot of people who give answers here concur that the average life for this computer is only about three years. Am I crazy to think that spending this much money on a computer should get me further? Is it really acceptable for a SuperDrive to die in three years? We're trying to decide whether or not to replace this system with a PC. We bought the mac because I wanted to burn our home movies to DVD and edit them nicely, clipping out long shots and adding music, captions, etc. Also, we use(d) it for the iPod and our family photos. All three of these things can eat up a lot of space quickly. I delete my movies once I've burned them and made one backup DVD so that I save space. What's the best option? I'm not sure I want to spend this much money again if I can't depend on the system for more than three years, especially when PCs just don't want to read our Mac files (photos, movies, tunes, etc.).
iMac flat panel G4 Superdrive,
Mac OS X (10.2.x),
machine speed 800 MHz, Bus speed 100 MHz, CD/RW & DVD-R
Well, my fp-imac, which will be four years old in a couple of months, is still going strong, as is my 1995 vintage Performa. I don't understand what you mean about PCs not being able to read photos, tunes, etc. I spend all day long shuttling photos between my macs and my windows computers. What problems are you having? A JPEG is a JPEG and a TIFF is a TIFF, no matter what OS you're using. Similarly, an MP3 is an MP3 and most other music formats are readable on both platforms.
You may be stretching it a bit. I have no problem with PC's reading the disc I make, DVD, Music.... So what problems are you having? You mention the Super Drive. It is man made, but I think you should expect to have your Mac for more than three years.
I do not think you will find anyone on this site recommending a PC over a Mac.
So how about letting us know just what problems you have had over the three years and the ones you are having now so we can try to help you out?
Sure, a JPEG file is read by PC or Mac. But, when your iTunes are formatted through the iMac it isn't an MP3 file, it's a different format. What we've experienced is our iMac began freezing and crashing. It became more and more frequent, until it was happening within a few minutes of each session. I decided to back up all of our important files ASAP. We bought a Maxtor external hard drive, and it took EONS to back up the important files (due to all of the crashing). Leaving the computer on all night, I'd say that with all of the starting over it took four or five days. I backed up our personal files (like music, photos, movies, and any letters, etc.) but no program or application files. I reformatted the whole computer (much like a "clean sweep" on a PC, where you delete everything, even the system, then reinstall it). To my horror, my computer wouldn't read the System Restore disks or installation disks. I went online to support, discussions, and called my Apple Care line. Our warranty had expired, and nobody wanted to help me there if I didn't pay the $49 for five days of support for each question/problem I was experiencing. The Apple Care disc which came with my warranty had never been opened, and when I tried to use it, it was incompatible with my system. Even with that unavoidable hurdle, it took two customer service reps plus a supervisor and HOURS of hold time to get a replacement disc which ultimately didn't work. Through online discussion help, the best answer I could get was that my hard drive was dead. That's amazing to me, that a hard drive can die through home use after only three years. Anyway, we know that we'll have to either pay someone to replace the hard drive and upgrade the memory, or just replace the whole computer. Meanwhile, we have some of the system restored enough to open the computer. During this time, our one-year-old router died and my husband replaced it with a router with which Mac isn't compatible (great!). Now, we can't even get online thru Mac to download anything. We have two other PCs (one is a Gateway from 1999 which has never been a problem). My husband, in an attempt to backup all of his playlists from his iPod onto his work PC, reformatted and LOST all of his songs. No problem, right? I should just be able to pop in the external hard drive, easy enough! NOOOO, PC won't read an external drive which has touched a Mac first. No problem, we just pop in a DVD in the wonderful iMac SuperDRive and burn a disc whenever we need a playlist, since that external hard drive is so easily read by iMac! Those playlists were lost, but the songs are still there. Once a playlist is recreated, you pop in your Apple DVD-R bought for top dollar at the Apple store, and your iMac says, "This is a blank disc, what would you like to do?". We guide it to iTunes, click on "burn", and after checking media, it says "please insert a blank disc." After going through three blank discs, we decided we were crazy and bought a 30-pack of brand new ones, none of which are recognized on the desktop OR by iTunes. Maybe we're just computer-illiterate, but man, what next? Our needs are simple: we want to handle photos, songs, and our home movies. Simple family stuff, no corporate campaigns or commercials. Why is this so hard? I also had an experience where I paid to get an upgrade for iLife last Christmas, and had to pay to upgrade to the newest Macintosh system because the new iLife was incompatible. I feel like we're bound with the golden handcuffs and they are going to rip $350 out of us every year just to stay current on software (you can't have one upgrade without the other), then they won't support their own systems without more money thrown in, and the system dies in three years. We paid double for this than we'd have paid for a similar PC, but I was so convinced that PC couldn't do the videos that I just wouldn't listen to my husband on this issue. I know I'm ranting here, but you just can't imagine the number of long days I've put into trying to salvage the system I begged for over the last several months. I want to love this mac, but geez...
Oh, Freddie, PLEASE help me in Texas if you can. I just posted an extremely long rant over what's happened since my three-year warranty expired. I have an iMac that can't stay operable for more than a few minutes without hanging and freezing, have been through the ringer in these online discussions trying to fix it since Apple Care doesn't care about me since my three years is up (unless I am willing to pay $49 for each question for up to five days of support per question). Look over my eternal rant and if you have advice or a solution, I'm all ears. My husband is fuming at me for this purchase at this point. I'm the one who sold the family on Mac over PC, and we just can't afford all of this crashing, support issues, and possible replacement.
The first thing, as I have posted in both your other threads, is that itunes burns audio CDs. There is no such thing as an audio DVD. CDs and DVDs are both round and silver, but they are quite different media. I explained how to make a data dvd for backup in your other thread.
Let me say that any PC manufacturer would only support you product for the length of time the warranty is valid. After that you will pay. I have heard you mention one problem basically. So it has been fine for three years. And yes the Mac and PC are not compatible 100% with each other, you cannot blame the computer for that, they are two different operating systems. The iPod lets you know that if you reformat you will lose you content, that is with just about anything. Most of your problems maybe because of the hard drive failure, you are mad at the computer for not doing things at a time when it needs to be repaired. 3years of good service would prompt me to get it repaired not try to use it while it is yet broken. When you get it running correctly I think you should post and let us help you with making you Mac and iPod work with your PC and that router. I have never seen one that a Mac could not use to get on the internet.
Well, I would ignore the Tech Tool disc you got with your applecare, since it's almost certainly out of date. I'm not really clear on exactly what your problems are outside of having reformatted and lost data. If you can burn a DVD, your drive must be working to some extent, at least.
Can you give me a more concise explanation (without the PC ipod problems) of what else is wrong?
You will have to replace the hard drive there is no way around it. Tell Hubby that it is a 3 year old machine and anything can happen when something gets aged. What was your experience with this iMac before this?
If the hard drive is not working you may not get it to reconize disc. The part of the OS that handles that, that is stored on the hard drive may be damaged or not working properly.
I feel bad for you, but a Mac is a great machine and i do not want you to run from its benefits because of this problem.
It still hasn't been determined positively that I have a hard drive problem. It's going to cost alot of money to figure that out, money that may just be better off buying a new Mac or a new PC. I just don't know. What if I pay all of that money to fix the hard drive and find that it wasn't a problem with the hard drive, and then I've poured more money into the three-year-old computer (a lot more) when I should have just replaced it? To replace, or not replace, and with which system, that is the question. Meanwhile, I can't hurt it any more than it's already dysfunctioning since I have the files in an external drive (which we were told at the store, and by Maxtor, that it was compatible with both systems once a partition was made - that wasn't true. I think if we'd partitioned on the PC FIRST and then hooked it up to Mac it would've been fine, because Mac systems are more likely to read PC than vice/versa, but at this point Maxtor is saying to reformat and do the PC first and that would delete all of our Mac backup). My husband just wants some songs back in his iPod and we haven't been able to make it work until tonight: I think blogger Barbara may have fixed our problem! I've got my fingers crossed. The problem of hanging and freezing is a huge issue, one which I think is premature at three years old, and I've owned PCs for much longer than three years and never had a problem not fixed immediately with a quick patch or download from microsoft. I don't understand why Apple makes us pay so much for the computer & system, then charges us so much for every upgrade to boot. And if lots of people are having the same problem, there should be readily-available fixes downloadable through the Apple website (there are some, but not as many as there seem to be problems posted). Don't get me wrong, I WANT the mac to work. I tried for a full year to do our DVD editing on PC, blowing through one software program after another with no success. Mac has been phenomenally better. I'm just disappointed with the upgrade system, support system, and life of the system. Since it costs so much more, shouldn't they be giving us equal to or better than PC support? Hey, with regard to the router, it's a Linksys Wireless-G 2.4GHz, 54 Mbps, model WRT54G - do you know if it should work with my Mac? If it does, I'll be so happy!
There are some fairly simple things you can do to help your mac to run better, aside from reformatting, which is almost never necessary on a mac. If you go to Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility, click on the name of your hard drive and then click Repair Permissions, this helps with many problems. Also, it's a good idea to download
Mac Janitor and run that once every couple of months. Just click the lock to allow you to run it, then All Tasks.
Macs are generally very reliable computers. It is possible for any hard drive from any maker to go bad, but I'm not convinced that that's your problem. Apple doesn't charge for "every upgrade." The upgrades apple charges for are like going from Windows 2000 to Win XP, or from Word 97 to Word 2005. It's totally voluntary as to whether or not you do this. Your old stuff will still work just fine.
Here is a solution. Install you mac OS on the backup drive and see how it works. You can put in you disc and select to install on your backup drive and see how it works for a while. that may help you determine if it is the hard drive or not. I have my OS on my backup drive and sometimes I use it instead of my Mac hard drive.
OK, I've begun trying to do this, but when I try it says that in order to install the system I have to reformat the external hard drive (ie, delete all of our iTunes, family photos, etc.). Is there a way to do this without deleting our backup files? (I am so glad you guys are online and my kids are asleep!)
