Category: Guide

Tutorials, How-Tos, or Guides. This collection of posts will show you how to do something useful.

iPhone Restore After Data Recovery
iPhone Data Recovery

When we recover iPhones, although we can usually provide the data in a computer-readable format, it is often easier to just load the data back onto another iPhone. Fortunately, as long as you restore the data in the correct order, you should get your iPhone up and running with your restored data.

Preparation

Before you attach the iPhone you need to make sure iTunes is ready for it. You need to put the recovered iPhone backup into the correct place for iTunes to find. Quit iTunes first.
The iPhone backups go into:

On a Mac:
```
Users/username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
```
Note: Since 10.7(Lion) this folder is hidden. Click here for more info.

On Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8:
```
 C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\
```
On Windows XP:
```
 C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Apple Computer\Mobile Sync\Backup
```
Now copy your iPhone backup folder from the recovered data to the backup folder on the computer. If you’ve ever made any iPhone backups they will be in this folder with long unreadable names of random numbers and letters. It doesn’t matter that you can’t read it, iTunes can. Don’t rename it!

So now your /MobileSync/Backup folder should look something like:

iPhone Backup Folder

Remember that the string of numbers will not be the same.

Next you can launch iTunes and see if the iPhone backup is seen in the list. Within iTunes select Preferences and then the Devices tab (Image Below). If your backup file has been recognised then you should see the iPhone name in the list and the date of the backup. If not, go back and check that everything is in the right place.

iPhone Backup Preferences

Sign In

Next, it’s a good idea to sign in to the iTunes Store. If you’ve not used this computer with this iPhone before you may also need to authorise the computer to access your purchased apps and media. Once signed-in to the store you should choose the Store menu and select “Authorise This Computer…” Be aware that you can only authorise a set number of computers. (The limit can be reset if needed.)

Media

Now you can import the Music and apps into iTunes. Don’t worry if some of the apps don’t have icons yet.

Lets Go

Once all that is finished you are ready to connect the new iPhone. You will need to follow some on-screen prompts and settings, and then it will ask if you want to set it up as a new device, or restore it from a backup. This is where all that hard work pays off. Choose the backup, and let iTunes work its magic. It can take a while if you have lots to restore but when it’s finished your phone should boot into a familiar screen. Your Contacts, Messages, Calendars, Notes and lots of other data will be back in their respective apps.

If none of the other apps got transferred you can choose the Apps tab within iTunes and tick “Sync Apps.” You can then tick whichever apps you want to send to the iPhone.
27th June, 2013
Format Your Drive For A Mac

Plenty of shops will sell you a “Mac Hard Drive” but there is no reason why you cannot use a windows format drive on a Mac. You just need to format it first. There was once a time when a drive was specially formatted by Apple to use on their Macs, but these days Apple use the same hard drives as everyone else. To use with the latest versions of OS X I would recommend following the steps below.

NOTE: Formatting your drive will destroy all the data. Make sure there’s nothing on there you need.

1. First attach the drive to your Mac. The Mac will notify you with a small finder window to initialise the drive. See below.

Initialize Your Drive For A Mac

2. Once you have clicked initialize you will see the Disk Utility Application window. See below.

Mac Disk Utility

3. You need to select the drive you want to format in the left hand window of the utility as highlighted in blue. Internal drives show as grey and external drives show as yellow. At this point make sure you choose the correct drive, the utility will not allow you to format the internal boot drive. See below.

Drive selected

4. Now choose the Partition Tab. See below.

Partition Tab

5. Now click on the Partition Layout drop down bar and choose the first option “1 Partition”. Also to the right under Partition Information give your drive a name and below that choose the partition type you want which will be Mac OS Extended ( journaled ). We are nearly there. You now need to click on the options tab in the bottom left of the utility window and choose GUID Partition Table and click okay. As you will read in the text information, this allows the drive to be used with all current OS X Macs. See Below.

Options Tab

7. Now all you need to do is click the apply button as shown in red below.

Apply

8. Another window will appear asking for confirmation to partition the drive. Click partition. See below.

Partition Drive

9. A formatting window with a progress bar will now appear and then disappear when done. You will now see your named drive in the left window, which means that your drive is now formatted. Close the disk utility and the hard drive is ready to use. See below.

Hard Drive Formatted

4th April, 2013
Where Does My Computer Store My Files ?

When you boot up your computer, you expect to see all your familiar files on the desktop, or maybe in the documents folder. What you may not realise is that those folders are actually a bit harder to find if you look at the disk externally. It depends what operating system you use so below is a general guide of locations for Mac & PC users.

Windows Operating System

All user data should be stored within the user profile folder, which is created when the PCs is first used. This is usually located in the following locations depending on the version of Windows:

Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 & XP

Local Disk C:\Documents and Settings\User ( for example C:\Documents and Settings\John )

Windows 7+

C:\Users\User ( For example C:\Users\John )

In systems earlier than Windows 7, some software may be stored in the “Program Files” folder in the root of the drive. This was considered bad practice so in Windows 7 any Program Data should be found in the “Program Data” folder on the root of the drive and not in “Program Files.” Sage Accounts can often be found within the C:\Program Files\Sage\ folder.

Macintosh Operating System

All user data should be stored within the user folder, which is created when the Mac is first used. This is located in the following location:

Macintosh HD/Users/user ( for example Macintosh HD/Users/john )

24th October, 2012
Burning Linux ISO to USB Using a Mac
My main computer is an old MacBook Pro. I often download Linux ISOs to install on other computers. In recent Debian-esque releases this is actually really simple.

1. I find it quicker and easier to install from USB so first insert a USB pen / stick of some sort.

Note: This USB stick will be erased, so don’t use one with data that you need to keep!

2. Next we need to find out which number has been assigned to the USB stick. If you only have one disk in your Mac then the USB will usually be disk1, but always check first. (Note: Disks are numbered from zero, so your internal drive should be disk0) On your Mac open Disk Utility, which is located within Applications / Utilities. (See Image)

Disk Utility

Select the USB stick from the lefthand window and then click the Info button which is on the toolbar. (See Image)

USB Info

You will get a pop up window with loads of information about the device. We only need the Disk Identifier. Make a note of this for later.

Disk Identifier

3. To allow us to write data to the USB stick we need to unmount any volumes currently on there. (see image)

Unmount USB

4. Now comes the actual writing. First locate the Terminal application, again within Applications / Utilities. (see image)

Mac Terminal

5. Remember to change the code to match your Disk Identifier from earlier. There are a few things to note about the following command.
- sudo – allows you to run dangerous commands, so will require an administrator password
- Instead of typing the location of the ISO file you can just drag the ISO onto the terminal when required.
- “if” means input file (in this case the ISO file), “of” means output file (the USB stick)
- When we found out the Disk Identifier, it was disk1. That will work in the command, but we use rdisk1 instead, which gives us raw access to the disk. This may not be necessary, but it works for me.
There is a lot of discussion about block sizes, but I find 4MB is reasonable for writing ISOs to USB. In Linux we often type bs=4M, however the Mac prefers it like bs=4096 instead. It’s the same thing, just expressed differently.

The command:
```
sudo dd if=[drag iso here] of=/dev/r[disk number] bs=4096; sync
```
Example:
```
sudo dd if=/Users/dan/Desktop/linux.iso of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=4096; sync
```
If you’ve got it right, you shouldn’t get any feedback until it finishes. Your USB stick may have a blinking LED whilst the data is being written. For reference the 200MB debian-netinst ISO took just over a minute to write.

Once complete you should get something like:
```
48896+0 records in
48896+0 records out
200278016 bytes transferred in 95.151719 secs (2104828 bytes/sec)
```
This means you’re finished. Now eject the USB and try to boot your PC with it. The Mac may complain that the disk is not readable but just ignore that and try it on a PC.

Debian Boot
28th May, 2012
Stop Password Expiration In Windows 7
My brother has just brought me his laptop to look at after forgetting the login password. It was frequently asking him to change the password, and one day he changed it and then forgot it. I found a simple command to stop the password from expiring:

First run Cmd (Command Line) as Administrator (click Start -> and type cmd. Right click on Cmd and choose “Run As Administrator”). If you followed correctly this should give you a black command line window with white text.

Then type:
```
net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited
```
And press return or enter.

It should congratulate you, or say successful (can’t remember the exact wording).

The password should then last forever, or until it is changed manually.

Note: It is good practice to change passwords regularly, however outside of corporate IT land can be a huge hassle. Just ask my brother 🙂
28th December, 2011
Mac Data Migration

If we recover a good amount of your data, the easiest way to get your Mac running again is using the Migration Assistant – a standard Apple utility included with all modern versions of Mac OS X.

The process for restoration varies a little bit depending upon how your Mac is currently set up.

Best Case Scenario:

If you have a new hard drive with a fresh system installed, and have not yet clicked through the Setup Assistant screens follow this guide. >>>

2^nd Best Case Scenario:

If you have a new hard drive and have set it up with a username you will need to follow this slightly more complicated guide. >>>

9th November, 2011
Mac migration to a previously setup system

So you have a Mac which boots up to a desktop as normal, but without your recovered data. This is not quite ideal, and gives us a few things to sort out before the migration. If you’ve not yet had your data recovered, check our Mac Data Recovery Services.

Arrange.

Migration Assistant

You will first have to backup any newly created data. If something goes wrong with migration then you don’t want to lose your new data. If this new system has been created with the same username as the old one, you will not be able to import the old user without renaming which is not advised. After you have backed up your files, you could open “System Preferences / Users & Groups,” (“Accounts” in pre Lion systems) and rename the current user to something else. This will allow you to transfer your original user account and Applications into the correct locations on the new system. If your system is set to automatically login to a user account (ie. doesn’t require a password when you boot) then you will need to turn off “Automatic Login” setting under Users & Groups to allow you to access the old user account.

Fingers crossed you should be ready to migrate.

Connect.

Connect the new hard drive to your Mac. If it’s a desktop 3.5” drive then plug in the power adapter and switch it on. If you are restoring to a laptop then it would be a good idea to have the AC adapter plugged in, as this can take a while.

Migrate.

Go to “Applications / Utilities” and launch “Migration Assistant”. Choose “From another Mac, PC, Time Machine Backup or other disk.” Then choose the second option; “From Time Machine Backup or other disk.” You should see the orange icon for the external drive, labelled with your job number. Click on it and then click continue.

Select.

You can choose to migrate everything, or be a bit selective. You cannot choose individual files to migrate, only whole user accounts, Applications, Settings, and other files. Make your choice and click next.

Wait.

The migration itself can take a while depending how much data you have. Once complete you can boot into the Mac and it will feel very familiar. As if nothing ever failed. If you backed up any files from the new system then now would be a good time to load them back on.

Migration Assistant generally does a good job of transferring your data and software. If any software installs files into the Mac system in unusual locations it may need to be reinstalled, but most Applications like Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop will be transferred correctly.

9th November, 2011
Mac migration to a freshly installed system

If you have a new drive in your Mac with a fresh system, this guide shows you how to get the recovered data back in the right places. We can transfer your whole user account and most Applications into the correct locations on the new system. When you reboot, the Mac will be back how you left it when the hard drive failed. Perfect!

Connect.

Connect the new hard drive to your Mac. If it’s a desktop 3.5” drive then plug in the power adapter and switch it on. The Mac should be off at this point. If you are restoring to a laptop then it would be a good idea to have the AC adapter plugged in, as this could take a while.

Power.

Power on the Mac, and wait for it to load the setup assistant. You will be asked a few questions so answer as necessary.

Migrate.

Choose “Migrate from another disk or Time Machine backup,” and then click next. You should see the orange icon for the external drive, labelled with your job number. Click on it and then click continue.

Select.

You can choose to migrate everything, or be a bit selective. You cannot choose individual files to migrate, only whole user accounts, Applications, Settings, and other files. Make your choice and click next.

Wait.

The migration itself can take a while depending how much data you have. Once complete you can boot into the Mac and it will feel very familiar. As if nothing ever failed.

Setup Assistant generally does a good job of transferring your data and software. Some software installs files into the Mac system in unusual locations & may need to be reinstalled or re-downloaded. Most Applications like Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop will be transferred correctly.

9th November, 2011
Dealing With RAW Data

What is RAW data?

Some Raw Word documents

Raw data is what we get when we recover files without their folder and file names. Instead of a My Documents folder, with photos and documents arranged into separate folders, what we get is a folder named JPEG for example, with thousands of consecutively numbered jpg files. The same with office documents, you would get a folder with thousands of doc, xls, docx or xlsx files.

These raw files will be fully usable and contain all the same info that they did originally. You will still be able to open them, edit them and save them, they are just unnamed.

Why is this data in RAW format?

When we recover data, we always prefer to get it back in the original structured form. When data has been deleted from a Mac, or when a hard drive has been reformatted and then partially overwritten, it can be impossible to rebuild all of the data in structured form, as the structure has been overwritten or damaged. This is when we opt for RAW files.

With a RAW recovery, what we are basically doing is searching the whole hard drive for files in known formats. This means we usually get a lot of office documents, jpg images, photoshop psd files and some others. If we need to find an unusual file type then we need a few sample files to be able to generate the correct scan info. RAW recovery is not always possible for every type of file. An example is Apple Garageband project files, which are actually just folders with the name .band on the end. On the mac, these folders are treated as packages, with folders and files inside that you don’t usually see, (If you right click one and choose ‘Show Package Contents’ you will see what I mean,) but for the purposes of RAW recovery we cannot get back those files. (We would however get back the RAW AIFF files and recordings from within the projects. It’s not ideal but may be better than nothing.)

What to do with the RAW files

If there is only a small number of files, then you can manually open them all up, see what’s inside and then rename them to something useful. Luckily, for certain file types, there are other ways to make sense of them. It’s called meta data, meta tags or EXIF data.

This meta information is stored inside the files, so even if the file and folder names are lost, we still have the tags.

A brilliant piece of software called Amok EXIF sorter will plough through thousands of jpg files, read their date tags and then place them in dated folders. It can also do other fancy things with tags, but default setting will create a decent structure.

For music, iTunes or any other music manager will usually rename the files in the library based on the artist and album tags. In iTunes, just make sure it is set to: ‘Keep iTunes media folder organised.’

Document files such as doc, docx, xls and xlsx also have some useful tags that we can use to make sense of the masses of numbered files.

Raw File Tags

In Windows, set the View to ‘Details’ and you should see a series of headings such as Name, Date Modified, Type, and Size. Date modified will show the date that the files were recovered so is useless for this task, however if you right click on this heading you will see other available columns, with ticks beside a few of them. The ‘More…‘ option at the bottom contains loads of tags that we can use to sort the data.

Good headings for office documents are Author and Date last saved. You can experiment and see if any of the other tags are more useful to your specific data.

Good headings for jpg files are Date taken (Date picture taken) and Camera model. Again, there are others which may be useful.

Raw Files Showing Author Tag

11th October, 2011
Apple iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program

We at Dataquest have been aware of the problem with 1TB Seagate drives for some time. It is pleasing to see that Apple are also recognising the problem and are offering their customers a free swap out. These drives are mainly seen in iMacs, but you may also get them in the Mac Pro so make sure your back ups are up to date.

23rd July, 2011