Grinding Noise from CD Drive

Hi Sam -

I doubt the mouse would have anything to do with the CD drive. Good job fixing that problem though.

Optical drives are known to wear over time, even when not in use. The grinding noise was probably a misaligned gear, another common problem. Sometimes the drive tray slips off its track or doesn’t feed in or out properly, and the gears don’t mesh. Usually forcing the tray in and out a few times will fix the issue.

Sometimes the drive won’t work because of gear damage or excessive dust build-up. We would normally recommend replacing the drive with a new one instead of attempting a repair. The drive itself only costs $20-$25, at least for a Double Format DVD-RW Burner, and only takes about 20 minutes to install.

I’m glad it’s working for now – let us know if it poses any more problems for you.

hunter greene Brainspiral Technologies, Inc. ————————————————————————————- hunter@brainspiral.com http://www.brainspiral.com

On Dec 29, 2009, at 5:35 AM, Sam wrote:

> Hi again Hunter: I worked nearly all last night trying to figure out what was happening to my CD drive – it was making terrible noises, and simply refused to burn or read read whatever disk I put in the tray. But then in the morning it began suddenly to work again and the grinding noise stopped. Was the problem miraculously solved, or was I just getting an early sign that the system is about to crash? Meanwhile, I discovered that my cursor mouse was failing to work well, so I bought a new one this morning which now works wonderfully. Could the old mouse, which I was using to tease my CD drive into co-operation, have been the cause of the problem in the first place? > Sam

Convert A PDF

Hi Jenna -

Yes – sort of. If you open the PDF with Acrobat Professional, you can perform a ‘Save As’ and choose “Microsoft Word” as a destination format.

Acrobat Pro is part of the Adobe Creative Suite, so it should be installed on any computer on which we’ve installed the Creative Suite.

That’s the easiest way to do it.

If you can’t figure it out – or don’t have Acrobat Pro, just email me the document & I can convert it for you.

Best,

hunter greene Brainspiral Technologies, Inc.

Reset Mac OS X Keychain

Sorry I missed the call, Matt. I just tried calling – but no one is around.

I assume this is Andy’s laptop. I can’t reset the keychain password (it would be that mysterious password no one seems to remember), but we can reset the keychain (all stored passwords will be lost). To do so:

Open Macintosh HD Open Users Open Andy (or username of account that needs to be reset) Open Library Open Keychains Move all files contained therein to the trash (probably just login.keychain). That’s it.

hunter greene Brainspiral Technologies, Inc.

iPod Trouble

Hi Haley -

You should definitely be connecting your iPod via USB, which I’m sure you are. iPods don’t even support Firewire any more, and neither does your laptop.

I would start here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1410?viewlocale=en_US

Essentially these steps will reset your iPod completely. All your music will be deleted, but you can re-sync it afterwards once it shows up in iTunes.

There may also be software updates available for your iPod. Once iTunes recognizes it, you’ll be asked to install them (do so).

Let me know how it turns out.

Best,

hunter

On Dec 2, 2009, at 7:46 PM, Haley Mahar wrote:

> Hi Hunter, > Of course now that I know the battery’s okay, the iTunes is throwing me off. When I plug in my iPod to update it, it showed up on the desktop but not in the library and when I go to icon on the desktop it shows no music. Should I just delete all the files off the iPod? The Apple website mentioned something about FireWire but I have no idea what that is. > > Thanks, > Haley > > > Nov 30, 2009 12:55:15 PM, hunter@brainspiral.com wrote: > > =========================================== > > > Hi Haley – > > Glad it’s working out so far. > > The battery life will fluctuate depending on what you’re doing. You > should be able to get about 4 hours on that model. > > If you dim the screen (F1 key) and turn off WiFi (if possible), you > will conserve additional battery life. > > It’s also a good idea to fully ‘cycle’ the battery – which means that > if you use the machine on battery power, continue to use it until it’s > completely dead. Then charge it up completely. > > > hunter greene > Brainspiral Technologies, Inc. > ————————————————————————————- > hunter@brainspiral.com > http://www.brainspiral.com > > > > On Nov 29, 2009, at 5:05 PM, Haley wrote: > >> >> Hi Hunter, >> >> Thank you so much for the laptop. All my files are there and working >> fine. I just had one question about the battery. It seems to be a >> little fickle, telling me that it has 5 hours and then the next >> minute saying it has 3. When its fully charged, it has 5.5, but I >> wasn’t sure if its supposed to have 7? Let me know if this is >> something I should be worried about. The only thing I haven’t done >> yet is re-sync my iPod, but I think that will go fine. >> >> Again, thank you so much. >> >> Haley >> >> >> Nov 23, 2009 09:13:28 PM, hunter@brainspiral.com wrote: >> >> =========================================== >> >> >> Haley – >> >> Your laptop is all set & I’ll drop it off for you tomorrow. >> >> A few things: >> >> I copied over all the data I could find on the old laptop. This >> moved music to iTunes and pictures to iPhoto. All your documents >> are in your Documents folder. I installed Office (Word, Excel, >> Powerpoint) & made sure all the Apple software is up-to-date. >> >> If you’re missing anything or need anything, feel free to get in >> touch. >> >> Enjoy! >> >> hunter >> >