I’m glad to see a post like this on here. Though I consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it come to technology in general, I’m a bit new to the Mac scene and buying used is a great way for someone like me to break into the scene. I got a used eMac a few months ago, and it didn’t come with any OS discs at all, though it had Tiger (10.4) installed by the reseller. I had considered buying Leopard for it, since I already planned on upgrading the RAM and hard disk, but in the end I went with reinstalling Tiger using a disc set I got from fastmac.com. It came as a bundle with the DVD burner I ordered for it. I know my system could run Leopard but Tiger was what I had back in 2005 when I first tried a Mac and I’ve always liked it.

Just a note of caution to anyone buying a Mac more than two years old: Be prepared to replace any moving parts such as optical drives, hard drives and fans. That’s not just a Mac thing; it’s commonplace for any computer hardware with moving parts to be of questionable reliability when bought second-hand. My own eMac, for example, had a dying hard drive and Combo drive, which was fine with me since I bought the system with full intentions to upgrade everything I could. Always keep in mind that you often have no idea what kind of environment the machine was operated in before you got it. You generally do best when buying from a friend or co-worker who can give you an honest history report. I bought mine refurbished from a reseller and as I said, had a couple of failing parts.

Don’t let this scare you away from buying a used Mac though; it almost always ends up paying for itself in the long run. When I get a new iMac this summer I’ll be keeping the eMac; it’s too good a machine to give up, even if it just ends up being a file server or something like that.

Luckily, when I first started using a Mac back in 2000 I had a Mac guru, just like Scott *G*, who helped me with everything. I had never really understood much about fixing pcs or reinstalling but he INSISTED that I could learn a mac. Well, after a few years of bugging him everytime something went wrong, I could FINALLY figure out how to install my system. Mind you, I wasn’t fiddling with it all the time as it was my work computer, so it was only when I had a problem that I’d try. I will say that I loved the feeling of confidence when I knew I could control my own computer. (It was the G3 blue/white with the matching monitor). Since 2004 I have bought a mac mini for my husband, and the last 2 styles of iMac for me new and I LOVE my macs! I feel confident that I could install anything. I still forget the odd basic thing now and then and still hound my guru, but not anywhere near as much. It’s a great feeling.

Always interesting, as usual, Scott.

Judie

@Judie, thats the idea, just keep at it, never be afraid to ask a question, someone here will eventually get back to you

These are fantastic post for everybody, not only users new to Macs. I have been a Mac user for years and still find useful information. Nice job. I am curious about the memory however. I bumped up a Power PC with Crucial memory, only to end up with the blue screen of death. Apparently, firm ware updates weren’t compatible. Any suggestions?
Thanks again for your web site.

Clinton

@Clinton, if it really is in fact firmware that is making your machine not boot, then simply remove the new memory, update the firmware, and put back in the new memory.

I have never in all my time had a firmware update cause me issues with memory. I have seen a system updates not run, and if you force them, before updating firmware, you can render the machine near non repairable. This was limited to the older bubbly imacs though.

If you really get a hard lock and the black screen on OS X, Crucial has sent you a bad ram chip, just call them up, they will replace it with no trouble at all.

It has been my experience, there is a 10% failure rate with ALL hardware. For example, I ordered 10 macs for a client, one was bad out of the box, if I order 20 hard drives, I know 2 will be bad. It is sort of just how it goes, and I would imagine, the same is true of ram as well.

Good post.

thanks for the info, i just purchased a macbook pro today, I want to replace the gray toolbar n small bookmarks (gray also ) what were they thinking? I dont think people buy apple product for one size fits all. very dissapointing. Any solution for this?

@natalie, I am not sure I understand what it is that you want to do. You can edit the bookmark bar to your liking, or turn it off entirely. We have a post on the bookmarks bar in Safari.

I don,t like the gray and am used to have bookmarks, button of different color now it,s so fade all gray with small black letters , I feel I can,t make it my own. I also would like to enlarge it toward the bottom. It seems that do this either. thanks for the help

@natalie, I believe you will have to look at Firefox, and look for some themes or skins, Safari is not going to be customizable in that regard.

will i need a protection from viruses with firefox?

@Natalie, both Firefox and Safari have anti-phishing protection built in.. Neither are going to do a lot to stop you from downloading a virus. You do have to look very hard to find a virus on the Mac. I have, in all my years of doing this, only encountered one machine that had a virus. Keeping in mind, this virus had to be installed, and a user password had to be entered in as well.

I do not want to go too far out on a limb and tell you to not worry about it, though I myself, as well as everyone I know, runs no anti-virus, and does not worry about it in any way.

ClamX AV is a good AV for the Mac, if you do decide you want to use it. It does not cost anything as far as I am aware.

Like many other I bought an older iMac on ebay and have not been a mac user so i have very little knowledge. Mine is stuck on the gry screen and will not boot from cd. They sent the original mac 10.1 disks and then the 10.2 and 3 upgrades but I am unable to use it. What can I do?

@Christal,
Apples upgrade discs are full installers. It is a very good idea to not go from version .1 to an update on top of it to .2 to an update on top of it to .3. You are asking too much to move three operating systems ahead, and have it work out. Starting at the one you want to use, generally called a clean install, is the way to go.

Take the 10.3 disk, put it into the computer, restart, hold the “C” key down, which tells the computer to boot off of the CD/DVD drive. You should be presented an installer where you can walk through installing System 10.3.

If not, then that particular installer CD/DVD you have will not work with that computer. Apple essentially has two ways of distributing their installation media. One is with the computer, and that disk will in general, only work to install the OS on that computer, or one of identical model number. Often times even an identical model number is not enough. For example, my original Mac Mini install DVD’s do not work on another Mac Mini I have, which is only a few months difference in age.

You should only use the exact installer that came with the computer. You can not hurt anything, it either works or it does not. Apple generally makes it impossible to install older OS versions on currently shipping machines.

The second way, is an official Apple Retail OS Installer CD/DVD, which you can order from Apple. These will install on any computer, as long as the computer meets the specifications.

In your case, I would try the above, the 10.3 should go fine, you can completely erase the old system, start clean, and go from there. Or, if it supports it, just go right to 10.6, there is a link at the top of the site, it is only $25.00. Please do make sure your system supports it; if it is not an intel Imac, it will not. In which case, I would locate a copy of 10.5 to be as current as that machine can be. You can find them on eBay for a good deal. Or contact your original seller and tell them what they sold you does not work.

Final option, find a friend with another Mac, that has FireWire, assuming yours does as well, and use something called “FireWire Target Mode” to connect the two machines together. You can then use their machine to install onto yours, which may work around your CD/DVD drive being broken in some way. Though I do not think that is it the case.

Let me know how the first try goes with a clean install of OS 10.3.