James Snedeker

Q: About fed up with my new iMac

About six months ago my 8-year-old desktop iMac began giving me trouble--it would restart by itself right in the middle of me working on a project.   Then it would shut down all by itself.  Sometimes I couldn't start it up again without unplugging it.   I had it looked at by three different Apple specialists, and while they were unable to give me a precise reason for the problems, they all recommended I don't fix it, since it was so old.

 

I kept it until three weeks ago when it would not start again, no matter what I did.

 

So I drove down to my local Apple store and bought a new 21-incher.  When I unpacked it, I hooked up my Time Machine backup from the old machine and migrated all the data and apps to the new machine.   So far so good.

 

But when I began using the new 1 TB machine--now loaded with the 250 GB of stuff from the old machine--I found it to be incredibly slow.  Anything I tried to do, from opening my web browser to opening a document, took at least 30 seconds.   Quite often the spinning pinwheel would show up and I'd have to force quit whatever it was I was trying to do.

 

I called Apple Care a couple of times and while we tried some things (such as deleting caches and adjusting the P-ram), nothing worked.  The machine remained as slow as molasses.

 

So I took it back to the Apple Store.  Genius Bar Guy could only recommend that I wipe all the data clean and do another migration from the backup drive.  He speculated that possibly there was a corrupted file in my backup drive, or that there was a hiccup during the original migration.   I pointed out that perhaps doing a second migration wasn't a good idea, because it might be inviting the same problem again.   So we agreed I should just manually pick and choose what I wanted to work with from the backup drive, as opposed to re-importing the whole thing again.

 

So today I get on the computer to start picking and choosing files, and the first thing I notice is that the Time Machine icon is missing from the menu bar.  So I get back on the phone with Apple Care and the guy tells me how to get the icon in the bar.  So I do, and I enter Time Machine to grab some files.  Turns out Time Machine is completely blank!   No files whatsoever.  Five years of backed-up data seems to have disappeared.

 

So Apple Care Guy says it seems like you don't have any backed-up data.  I said, that's ridiculous, I've been using Time Machine for at least five years and it's worked great and I've always been able to retrieve old data from it when needed.

 

So he gets his senior tech on the line.  Ninety minutes later we discover that the data is indeed there, but for some reason my new machine is not recognizing it--it's as if Time Machine is hiding it from the machine.   All he can say is, "Weird."

 

Finally he figures out a work-around where I can get get access to my data.  We successfully download my old desktop and documents.   We then begin the process to download all my movies, photos, and music.   At that point, I decide to go to work and let the machine do its work in solitude.  At the end of the day when I come home, I discover that the movies, photos and music had failed to download.

 

So I don't know what to do at this point.  Genius Bar can't get it to work.  Apple Care can't get it to work.  What was supposed to be a simple migration of data from an old, dependable machine to a spanking-new, much more advanced machine has turned into an exercise in futility and a waste of time.  This is what I paid $1200 for?

 

Anybody have some words of solace for me?  Or better yet, some way to fix this?  Thanks.

Posted on Feb 24, 2016 8:25 PM

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Q: About fed up with my new iMac

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  • by Kappy,Helpful

    Kappy Kappy Feb 25, 2016 6:40 AM in response to James Snedeker
    Level 10 (270,309 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 25, 2016 6:40 AM in response to James Snedeker

    Ask for a new machine since it is in warranty. There's nothing more for us to say because we cannot examine the hardware nor determine what, if anything, you are doing incorrectly. I own five iMacs none of which have ever had such problems as you've described. No words of solace, really. The machine is in warranty, and you can request it be replaced within the first 14 days for date of purchase.

  • by James Snedeker,

    James Snedeker James Snedeker Feb 25, 2016 6:44 AM in response to Kappy
    Level 1 (99 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 25, 2016 6:44 AM in response to Kappy

    Kappy, Thanks for the advice.  It is indeed a mystery, and, like you, I've owned many Macs over the years and never had these problems. 

     

    It seems to me that there is a basic conflict between my old data and the new machine--for some reason the new machine doesn't like it.  Genius Bar guy ran tests that determined that the hardware was running fine. 

     

    But it also seems to me that migrating data from an old machine to a new one should be a simple and straightforward process; indeed, it was designed to be that way.

     

    I'll get in touch with Apple and see how to get a new machine.   That does seem like the best thing to do at this point. 

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Feb 25, 2016 7:59 AM in response to James Snedeker
    Level 7 (31,893 points)
    iPad
    Feb 25, 2016 7:59 AM in response to James Snedeker

    Which OS version was running on your old machine? I've read about incompatibilities with the transfer process if the old Mac had an old OS version on it. Have you tried any/all of these:

     

    OS X El Capitan: Transfer your info from a computer or storage device

     

    OS X: Manually migrating data from another Mac - Apple Support

  • by MichelPM,

    MichelPM MichelPM Feb 25, 2016 10:30 AM in response to James Snedeker
    Level 6 (13,660 points)
    iPad
    Feb 25, 2016 10:30 AM in response to James Snedeker

    The reasons your new iMac maybe slow is that you may have loaded old detritus from previous data migrations that maybe affecting your new iMac.

    Another reason your new iMac maybe slow is that new 21 inch screen iMac models use slower laptop grade 5400 rpm mechanical hard drives instead of the desktop grade 7200 rpm drives found in the 27 inch screen iMacs.

     

    As far as OS X Time Machine is concerned, I do not know if Apple has improved its backup software over time and through all of the new OS X versions, but after 3 failed Time Machine restores on OS X 10.5.8 Leopard and a failed Time Machine backup that I really, truly needed to restore om OS X 10.6.8 early in my use of 10.6 Snow Leopard, I have totally given up on OS X Time Machine.

    I use ONLY cloned backups, exclusively, now, using CarbonCopyCloner.

    I have never, to date had any issues of any of my cloned system backups in the last 8 years of relying on this method and process.

    I find Apple's OS X Time Machine just too unreliable to ever trust any longer.

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Feb 25, 2016 10:36 AM in response to James Snedeker
    Level 10 (140,918 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Feb 25, 2016 10:36 AM in response to James Snedeker

    Download and run Etrecheck.  Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here (and recommended by Apple Support personnel) in the ASC to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

    OTsig.png

  • by James Snedeker,

    James Snedeker James Snedeker Feb 25, 2016 10:41 AM in response to babowa
    Level 1 (99 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 25, 2016 10:41 AM in response to babowa

    Babowa, I was running 10.6.8 on my old machine.