Hi all...
Like patscanlon, I had the blinking pixel problem. I finally, with the help of a top-tier tech in Canada, worked for TWO days to get the d/loading, installation and completion achieved. But, at the end of the day, it seems to have worked. Worked last night, and this am it is STILL WORKING (YAAY!)! I have CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) but the support (Greg) ran me over the hurdles via migration assistant. It went like this: We started by shutting down, restarting while holding Command-r. When the screen came up we erased the disk. (NOTE: We first did a check at time machine and found that a backup had occurred about 1 hour previously). When the erase was complete, we tried to reinstall Snow Leopard (the latest disks I had) but the drive spit them out 4 times, so we figured oh ohhh! If you recall, the way this got started, I tried to burn a cd, and it would act like it was writing, but wouldn't actually burn anything to disk. So, I had just bought a low-cost Samsung optical burner. We tried the disk in that, and bingo-we installed SL. Then came update, update, update. When Snow Leopard was fully updated, we then went to the apple store, and downloaded 10.10. Again, it took hours to get it downloaded and installed, REFUSING to let anything migrate from the old time-machine, or any other source, but just accepting the basic 10.10 installation. After completing that, we opened the "migration assistant", and moved everything except computer and settings to the "new" Mac. (Leaving, hopefully, and corrupt Yosemite remnants behind). After about 4-5 hours of moving files, the computer restarted, and crappola-it was still the beginner Snow Leopard, without any of my apps. So, in the apps folder I found all of my previously used apps that I wanted reintalled. So I started with 'Open Office' and decided that I'll have to 'one at a time' re-install every old program I had been using!!! WRONG! After the install, it showed a screen saying 'you have to restart to finish install. Do you want to restart now?' I hit yes, and after the restart, everything was back to the original state-exactly the way it looked before the pixel problem started to occur. Screen desktop config, list of all my apps, EVERYTHING! AAHHHYUP!
So, at this point, Greg still thinks that I have something questionable with the graphics card, as well as the internal optical drive (superdrive?-remember, it wouldn't open the Snow Leopard disks, but the cheap external Samsung free-standing DVD player did)! So he is calling my closest Mac repair place, telling them what steps he (we) took, and that the dvd drive AND the graphics need to be thoroughly tested, and replaced as indicated. AND, my thirty day support is still clicking down....I should have a little over three weeks left. It looks like, (and I hope) that I fell into the Happy Vat, and will come out with a darn-near refurbed unit. I'll let you know as soon as another applle glitch turns my smile askew.
Until the next time,
F
PS....most of you know, or should, that IF and when you get to an engineer level tech, things get fixed, they don't pass the buck, the really are an invaluable assist in getting back on track. "My" tech gave me his phone number, his email addy, his hours at work, and permission to keep in touch, at LEAST until the 30 ➕ day support has ended.
