Taking your Mac to the Genius Bar

[shanti]

I have a 2009 MacBook. A couple of months ago, I reached across it with a rum and diet coke, spilling a little bit on the trackpad. I immediately shut it down, turned it over and let any liquid drain out. My mac hasn't been the same after that. Now when I open it up to use it, the cursor acts very erratic, jumping all over the place, clicking on things I don't want, to the point where I just have to close it back up again. Sometimes it will be ok, but only for 10 minutes or so at a time. I bought an external mouse for it, but it still happens with the mouse, albeit less so.

I'm thinking I have to make a visit to the Genius Bar for a fix, damn the cost. Right now, I make so with my iPad mini, which is less than desireable.

My question is: what should I do about my passwords, etc. before bringing it in for repair?

TIA

[onehandle]

1. Make sure your machine is 100% backed up before you take it in.

When you make the appointment at apple.com/retail/geniusbar , you will be advised to do so.

I suggest doing it with Time Machine, in case you have to re-image your drive. Your passwords will be in your Keychain.

And/or use a program to make a bootable backup.

On top of that, I use 1Password to retain my passwords, which are stored locally and in Dropbox.

If don't use a program, I would start recording your passwords some way or another.

If it's just your trackpad, your drive will likely stay intact, but better safe than sorry.

[shanti]

3. Thanks

I generally do a backup with time machine every other month or so on a portable hard drive, so I'm good there. Wow, 1password is $40, pretty pricey, but has lots of xlnt reviews. I may try that tho, as I've been looking for a good password keeper.Pretty sure that the problem is either the trackpad or the battery, no other problems noticed.

So, as it stands now, would I be ok taking it in with the keychain intact? I use Firefox as a secondary browser, and you can pull the passwords up anytime, whereas they're not visible in safari...

[Initech]

2. My brother has some Genius Bar horror stories.

Well his hard drive got corrupted and they tried to make him pay something like $150 to fix it, and my brother wasn't going to take that at all. At one point during the argument, the "Genius" was like "Hey man I'm like a doctor, you don't know what it's like." Of course my brother is an actual medical resident and works at a hospital - he was, to put it lightly, way less than amused by the comment coming from the "Genius". I think I would take the system to an independent tech before the Apple Store.

[shanti]

5. For now

I'm willing to pay a reasonable cost up to half the price of a new MacBook. I don't believe it's the hard drive tho. I'm just concerned about my password security while being fixed.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Are you concerned about them losing your passwords or stealing your passwords?

If you are worried about losing them, get an external drive as big or bigger than your internal drive. Get a copy of CarbonCopyCloner and clone your drive to the external drive. You will not be safe even in the event of a hard drive replacement (not at ll likely, based on your description of your problems).

If you are worried about stealing your passwords, don't. They handle lots of machines every day and see lots of hard drive contents. The chance of a) there being a larcenous "Genius" who b) decides to be larcenous on *your* machine, and who c) manages to pull it off with you there watching the screen as he does what he does, and d) none of the other "geniuses" seeing it and reporting him to the Head "Genius" seems pretty slim.

Here is the link cor CarbonCopyCloner: http://www.bombich.com

I use it for daily back-ups and think it is very good.

[shanti]

6. Thanks stinky

As I mentioned above, it's password security I'm concerned about, but not when I'm standing there watching, rather when it's dropped off for repair. One thing tho, I never save any financial passwords.

[sir pball]

7. Just use FileVault + Time Machine

Encrypt your entire drive with FileVault, (System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> FileVault), using a 12-character random password that you've written down (here's a good generator, enable all the options for maximum security); back up the drive with Time Machine and leave the TM drive at home. It's as close to absolute security as you can get and easy as pie to boot.

If the problem is happening with an external mouse too, you may have cooked the USB hardware...that's a (Very) Bad Thing.

[Bozita]

8. Remove the battery and run off the power cord.

When my battery was getting old, it swelled slightly and pressed on the bottom of the trackpad. Symptoms were identical to the ones listed in the OP.

Bought a new battery and the problems were gone.