Laptop repair issue...

[Newby]

So I'm getting my laptop screen fixed free courtesy of Apple, yet I have lots of things on my laptop I do not want them to even chance at looking at. Pirated software en masse, music, some porn, a game that's banned in the US, etc..

Suggestions? Not care? Back it up and reformat?

I was going to boot Ubuntu and dd if=/dev/hda of=hdbackup.bin and then install the base OS back on to it... but it seems excessive. The turnaround is "same day" for the fix. I'm also not sure if dd'ing it back would fix it, since I have a boot camp partition set up and I'm not sure it would get *everything* like the command seems to do.

I would PGP the disk, but then Windows would break.

(It's a MacBook Pro, for reference.)

Let me know!

[Towelie]

Maybe if you hand it to them with gay porn playing they wont want to look through your stuff.

[Quik]

If you're super paranoid, back it up and reformat. I think you'll be okay since it's only screen repair. Isn't there some invasion of privacy issue if they look and do anything about it? I know Geek Squad employees got into huge trouble because many were copying things they found on computers and keeping them..

Isn't there some sort of password or encryption you can do?

[iago]

I'd back up stuff either way.. no telling whether or not you'll ever get it back (you never know with repair technicians )

[Newby]

Isn't there some sort of password or encryption you can do?

If I decide not to reformat, I'm going to create a new account that has auto-login, and use Mac OS's built-in home directory encryption to hide my files. That won't hide my pirated applications, but it'll get everything else.

I also addressed whole-disk encryption, which probably isn't an option:

I would PGP the disk, but then Windows would break.

And yeah, it's only a screen repair, and the only reason they would probably need to boot into OS X would be to get serial # information and other diagnostics crap. And to make sure the screen works fine.

I'd back up stuff either way.. no telling whether or not you'll ever get it back (you never know with repair technicians )

To quote the guy, "there's a small chance, like 1 in 100,000, that we'll accidentally wipe the disk when we install the screen."

I have important stuff backed up, I just want to see if dd'ing the drive would work/be worth it, and if reformatting would be a good step to take.

(You've pointed out I should dd just in case, but should I reformat is the question...)

If they accidentally wipe my disk, I should bring a spare laptop disk and have them install it as punishment for being retarded. 160GB just isn't enough for me nowadays!

(And if I did that, would dd'ing the disk back work correctly? Probably not, but hey!)

[FrostWraith]

A better alternative IMO to dd is an app for linux called partimage.  It basically does what dd does and it compresses it among other things.  Although I guess you could pipe dd through some kind of compression app.  I've used this extensively when I install some OS on a partition and I know overtime it will just need a fresh install.  To blast the image partimage makes takes only 5-10 minutes, even for partitions 50-100 GB, depending on your processor.

[Ergot]

Remove your hard drive. They don't need to fix your screen :O

[iago]

Remove your hard drive. They don't need to fix your screen :O

That's actually a smart idea!

[Towelie]

Oh come on guys, you don't like my idea better?

[iago]

Oh come on guys, you don't like my idea better?

Yours...... leaves a lot to be desired.

[Newby]

Remove your hard drive. They don't need to fix your screen :O

MacBook Pro. Taking apart the laptop = voids the warranty = necessary to get the hard-drive out. No warranty, no free repair.

[Newby]

In case anyone wondered, I didn't bother doing anything and the laptop repair went fine.

[Ergot]

Such a brave soul.

[Newby]

I backed the drive up (raw) to a random spare 1TB drive sitting around (dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=256.... left the K off, the backup of 200GB took approximately 14 hours to do) so if anything happened, I reverse if and of and I was good. Figured out how to boot CDs on the MB too!

[Ergot]

In case anyone wondered, I didn't bother doing anything and the laptop repair went fine.

I was misled. ._.;;

[Newby]

I didn't technically do *anything* to the installation. Didn't encrypt anything, didn't format anything... just backed it up.

Although in quantum physics, uncertainty principle says backing it up (read-only) is modifying it.

[Ergot]

Not doing ANYTHING implies you didn't do ANYTHING. Not that you didn't do anything to the installation.

[Camel]

Bit of a bump, but since it's on topic: Use Time Machine! It's awsome. I did a format/clean install of SL a couple days ago, and used Time Machine to restore my user account, settings, applications, and everything else. Worked flawlessly!