Upgrade fail, What should I do now?

[Deth]

Hi.
Alright, first, let me explain a little what happen the last months.
My mac mini 2011 suffer from (according to the pseudo tech at apple) a problem with the power flux ...whatever that may mean, anyway after replace the damaged part i was asked if i wanted to upgrade the MacOs (it was running on 10.7 lion) and i agree if they can put 10.9 Mavericks on it because i thought anything further may be too much for my machine.

Now, i talked to a lot of people techs and users and they told me the 2.5Ghz i5 / 8Gb ram should handle Mavericks without any issue but the results so far has been disastrous and here is my question... in the end the techs were a group of incompetents that erase my HDD without asking me after making a manual and really incomplete backup that was later delivered on a folder on the desktop like in the old MacOs9 days...
that way to backup end up making a mess on the permissions of the library folders inside the "Old mac backup" folder landed on my desktop (still don't know how to get the old application support folder out of there without make a bigger mess)

Anyway....
-Now my Mac mini is overheatting as hell... it even remain really hot when it sleeping

-The Finder can get 100% of CPU with just looking at pictures on quickview

-The console is plagued with tons of " Info.plist does not contain an XPCService dictionary" every second

-"com.apple.IconServiceAgent" is constanly using 500Mb+ of Ram (it uses 20Mb on my boss imac 27")

-The console is also plagued with "com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Icon filename entry missing from bundle info dictionary for bundle at URL..."

-The preview of the icon pictures does not show and open a folder with many pictures cause the fans to max speed

-Everytime i quicklook a picture the console get this "quicklookd: Warning: Cache image returned by the server has size range covering all valid image sizes. Binding: VariantBinding [0x403] flags: 0x8 binding: FileInfoBinding [0x303] - extension: webarchive, UTI: com.apple.webarchive, fileType: ???? request size:32 scale: 1


Im really afraid of what those idiots did and how could it make a permanent damage to my mac (last day i had to force shutdown it because it get froze... even the cursor stop moving and the fans get full speed with no stopping) ...i remember some guys that failed to apply right the thermal paste and end up burning up the graphic card in a week


Is this even close to normal? Is there a fix for all this? can i reinstall osx without having the 10.9 installer or the account which it was activated?
Im kinda desperated.

Thanks.

 

[BLUEDOG314]

Perhaps you should have been making regular backups in the first place?

Anyhow, take the information that you want to save that is on your desktop in the folder you spoke of, and get it on an external drive. If the tech at Apple erased the hard drive and restored an operating system to it, it will have a recovery partition that you can access by holding Command-R and powering machine on. From here you can use disk utility to erase your drive again, and reinstall OS X. After first boot give the OS some time to index. d

As far as permissions, that wont be an issue. Once the operating system is reinstalled, move the data from the folder back over to your desktop. If you are having any permission issues, you can recursively change ownership to the folder an anything in it using terminal.

At this point if your machine is running hot and all you did was reinstall the OS clean and move some files back over, you may be looking at a hardware issue. I would reset the SMC by unplugging the computer for a minute or so, and reset NVRAM by holding Command-Option-P-R and letting it boot chime twice.

Finally, what parts did they replace?

 

[Deth]

Ok, first i do have backups of the important things but they say they will back up everything but only backed up the main user folder and put it back on the desktop after erase the hard drive, all the applications and other stuff that was outside that user was erased, wasn't really a big loss but its really annoying, worst when they dont tell me that beforehand
The old user folder that is on that folder is the one that have permission problems since i cannot move anything from it without copying and a lot of things are invisible someone around here told me to run the finder as root or something but the rest of the issues are worring me more than saving some files from the old application support folder.

So basically i have to erase the disk again? that recover partition is always installed?
what do you mean with index?

As side note, they installed Yosemite by mistake and then downgrade to Mavericks (not really know how since they don't seem to know how to use time machine) may this be the root of the mess?

I have no idea what part they replace, they said "problems with the power flux" and said they will replace it.. no idea what did they do

 

[Fishrrman]

Suggestions:

- First, create a bootable cloned backup of your internal drive. CarbonCopyCloner would be the app to use for it.

- You may want to do a clean install of the OS on your own. DON'T rely on someone else to do this for you, you must learn to manage things like this for yourself.

- I would advise you to "move away" from Mavericks. I consider it to be THE WORST OS release in recent times. Go to Yosemite, or El Capitan.

- If you can download El Capitan, put the installer on the external bootable clone you created.

- Boot from the cloned backup. Before you take the next step, look around to see that "everything is there", because you're going to ERASE your internal drive next.

- Now open Disk Utility and re-initialize your internal drive. Also, run DU's "repair disk" function a few times in succession. Do you get a "good report" each time?

- If so, now install the OS (remember, Yosemite or El Capitan).

- At the close of the install, the installer will ask if you want to "bring over" your stuff from another drive. I would give this a try. Tell is to use the cloned backup drive as the source.

- The setup assistant should do its thing and migrate over your accounts, apps, settings and data. This will take some time.

- When it's done, reboot. How are things going now?

 

[Deth]

Suggestions:

- First, create a bootable cloned backup of your internal drive. CarbonCopyCloner would be the app to use for it.

- You may want to do a clean install of the OS on your own. DON'T rely on someone else to do this for you, you must learn to manage things like this for yourself.

- I would advise you to "move away" from Mavericks. I consider it to be THE WORST OS release in recent times. Go to Yosemite, or El Capitan.

- If you can download El Capitan, put the installer on the external bootable clone you created.

- Boot from the cloned backup. Before you take the next step, look around to see that "everything is there", because you're going to ERASE your internal drive next.

- Now open Disk Utility and re-initialize your internal drive. Also, run DU's "repair disk" function a few times in succession. Do you get a "good report" each time?

- If so, now install the OS (remember, Yosemite or El Capitan).

- At the close of the install, the installer will ask if you want to "bring over" your stuff from another drive. I would give this a try. Tell is to use the cloned backup drive as the source.

- The setup assistant should do its thing and migrate over your accounts, apps, settings and data. This will take some time.

- When it's done, reboot. How are things going now?

I wanted to do the upgrade myself but Apple doesnt allow me download any Os that is not el capitan, i let the tech do it because they said they can install the OS i ask them to.
About moving away from mavericks... on the little time it was running on Yosemite before they downgrade i feel everything going really slow and buggy, i was told that that machine should not be upgraded above Mavericks thats why i chose that one, but i don't know for sure...

whats the difference from making a Time Machine backup and the CCC?

 

[r6mile]

Why don't you just use El Capitan? It runs great on my parents' 2012 Mac Mini. I see no reason to stick to an older OS in your case.