Super old iMac advice needed

[daisy1975]

Hi all

Looking for some advice on how to deal with a very old Mac that is slow and unused. Painfully slow!

Firstly I want to get all of my photos and documents off there. It has a 1TB back up module with it too that I purchased from apple.
The Mac is about 15 years old.
my thoughts were to Look how much memory my documents and photos were taking and get a usb flash drive to move them onto.

I then thought about wiping/resetting the iMac back to factory settings? Could this make it reusable - even if only for basic tasks, such as the internet? Is it a simple task?

I was also wondering about clearing the back up Module to use again?

Any advice? Main priority is getting my photos from the iMac it so that they are not lost forever.
Thanks.

 

[James_C]

Hi Daisy, what is the processor in your iMac if it is 15 years old then I presume it is a 2005 G5 iMac ? If it is a G5 this is the last generation of Power PC (PPC) processors that Apple used before switching to Intel chips. If is is then I suggest you post in the Power PC forums where you can get some specific help. If you click on the  logo and about this Mac it will tell you what it is -

 

[Fishrrman]

Did you keep everything in your "home folder"?
Or... did you keep things in other places?

Could you be more specific about the "1TB back up module with it too that I purchased from apple."
Is this a hard drive?
Is it a "time capsule"?

The old iMac still will run, is this correct?

What Photo app do you use on it?
iPhoto or something else?

I can think of a couple of ways to preserve the data (if it was mine):

FIRST WAY:
Use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to create a "cloned backup" of the internal drive. What this is, is an "exact copy" of what's on the internal drive, on an external drive that you can mount in the finder and copy things from.

SuperDuper is easy to use and is FREE to do the job.
You will need a drive large enough to hold the contents of the internal drive.
IMPORTANT: doing a SuperDuper (or CCC) backup means that the drive will be WIPED CLEAN, and anything else on it will be lost. But if the drive was only being used for backup anyway (you didn't tell us what backup software you use), you'll just be giving up an old backup for a fresh one.

SECOND WAY:
You could use either a USB flash drive or a USB hard drive.
IF you keep everything in your home folder, connect the drive and then use the finder to copy the home folder from the users folder on your internal drive to the external USB flashdrive or hard drive.

You can then mount this in the finder and copy over stuff as needed to the new Mac.

BE AWARE that when you do this, there can be "permissions problems" (between your account on the old iMac and the new Mac).
These can be worked around by doing a "get info" on the drive (icon), and then putting a check into "ignore ownership on this volume" in the sharing and permissions area.

 

[James_C]

Daisy - Are you planning to buy a new Mac to move the documents and photo's to, or have have you already got a newer Mac that you are going to use.

If you are planning to buy a new Mac, As fisherman asks - what is the 1TB backup module used for. Hopefully it has been set up as a time machine backup external disk. In which case you should be able to use that to Migrate to your new Mac.

 

[daisy1975]

Hi James
Thanks for the reply. Seems it’s not as old as I though. Mid 2011. I also checked the memory - running it on 2 x 2GB. Worth restoring from scratch and adding more?

Daisy - Are you planning to buy a new Mac to move the documents and photo's to, or have have you already got a newer Mac that you are going to use.

If you are planning to buy a new Mac, As fisherman asks - what is the 1TB backup module used for. Hopefully it has been set up as a time machine backup external disk. In which case you should be able to use that to Migrate to your new Mac.

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Hi Both

thanks again. The 1TB is a my book time capsule. I haven’t bought a new iMac yet. I didn’t want to make a straight copy to move to a new Mac as I was concerned there was something on the iMac causing the issue and that i’d just Transfer the issue. I just wanted to get photos and documents off there. I stopped using the Mac a while ago due to its slowness. The photos are taking up about 250GB. I realised that would be an expensive flash drive! Anyway after some deleting of files today (I had almost used all of the memory) it is working much better!I deleted clean my mac3 (unsure if that was causing problems) but also spotted a el captain download in my files even though I’m using high Sierra. Could that have been clashing and causing errors?
if I do get a new iMac do I just move things across from ‘my book’? The thing is I would want to start afresh - just keeping photos and important documents. Thanks again - people like you two are invaluable!

 

[James_C]

Daisy,

Your iMac is much more recent than I thought, which makes things a little easier. In particular when you buy a new Mac you can use Apple's Migration Assistant tool to automatically transfer your files and photos to your new Mac. You will be given the option to run Migration Assistant when you first set up your new Mac. It is the easiest way to move your stuff over. If you are concerned about transferring over some problematic settings then uncheck the Applications and Computer and Network settings, but I think you will be fine to leave them on. Worst case scenario is wiping the new Mac and starting installation again, if there is still a problem.

Once you have moved over your Files and Photos, and any apps you want, then yes wipe the old iMac and reformat and reinstall Mac OS. I think the machine would be fine for playing music, emails and web browsing. I probably would not bother increasing the RAM (Memory) from 4GB to 8GB, I think the difference will not be that significant for the above uses.

Yes, you will be able to use your My Book external drive on your new Mac as a Time Machine backup device. But Don't wipe it until you are sure that everything you need has moved over OK to your new machine.

It sounds like you may have been running low on internal hard disk space and your recent spring clean has freed some space. Once you getting below 10GB of free hard disk space then you may start to see performance problems. I doubt that having the old installation files for El Captain would have caused any issue, more likely the lack of sufficient Hard Disk space.

If I can give you some advice on your new Mac, get one with a SSD (Solid State Drive) internal hard disk, normally a configure to order option on iMacs. They are much quicker than the conventional spinning Hard Disk in your current iMac, and more reliable too.

 

[daisy1975]

Thanks so much. That all makes complete sense - the HD was v low on space but I felt I was in a catch 22 as took so long to load up that I was giving up. I’ve seen plenty things more I can remove too so will give that a go when I next get chance. Was hoping my 7 year old could use the Old one for minecraft. I looked at trading it in -£30!
thanks for the advice regarding my next purchase too - anything that’s more efficient is worth it - time is precious!

 

[Brian33]

Just to give you some info regarding re-use of your old machine (AFTER you get all your important files off of it) -- I've got an Early 2011 MacBook Pro running High Sierra and my kids happily use it to play minecraft. My family also still uses it for email and web browsing, too. So I think there's a good chance yours could be used that way.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Hi James
Thanks for the reply. Seems it’s not as old as I though. Mid 2011. I also checked the memory - running it on 2 x 2GB. Worth restoring from scratch and adding more?

[automerge]1595182101[/automerge]
Hi Both

thanks again. The 1TB is a my book time capsule. I haven’t bought a new iMac yet. I didn’t want to make a straight copy to move to a new Mac as I was concerned there was something on the iMac causing the issue and that i’d just Transfer the issue. I just wanted to get photos and documents off there. I stopped using the Mac a while ago due to its slowness. The photos are taking up about 250GB. I realised that would be an expensive flash drive! Anyway after some deleting of files today (I had almost used all of the memory) it is working much better!I deleted clean my mac3 (unsure if that was causing problems) but also spotted a el captain download in my files even though I’m using high Sierra. Could that have been clashing and causing errors?
if I do get a new iMac do I just move things across from ‘my book’? The thing is I would want to start afresh - just keeping photos and important documents. Thanks again - people like you two are invaluable!

There are several things you can do to make you iMac 2011 faster:
1. Buy an external USB box with SSD/HDD inside and offload all your photo/video/documents from your iMac. It will run faster with more space in the internal HDD.
2. Better yet, after 1., replace the old HDD inside with a new SSD (Need to open the iMac).
3. The more RAM, the better. Try 16GB (4x4GB) or 32GB (4x8GB)
4. Have it cleaned thoroughly inside out.