Stolen powerbook

David Stewart

My 12" Powerbook was stolen from my car yesterday. In case anyone is offered a cheap laptop, the Serial No. is UV3290FQNP4.

David Stewart

bonzai bob

why the FúCK!!!!?????? did you leave a powerbook in your car??? I presume it was on the front seat with the window open as well??:rolleyes:

uberwolf

whats the story here actually, I've wondered in the past, how easy is it for someone to use the lappie if they've to wipe your details, etc from it first?

Not to spark a furore but are the Macs safer from this than PCs?

Urban Weigl

Not gonna get involved in any argument about whether Mac's are safer than PC's in this respect, however on the Mac you can lock the firmware with a password, so that it is no longer possible to start from a different system, which would be required to reinstall the operating system.

Obviously if you ever forget that password, you're in deep ****e .;)

Edit: See http://www.macobserver.com/article/2001/10/08.8.shtml for some info

The General

I have a power book for sale real cheap, let me know, i found it

Urban Weigl

Just a word of caution, in order to enable the firmware password all you need to is plop in your OS X installation CD, and you will find it under Applications -> Utilities. HOWEVER: There is no way to reset it if you forget the password: you will end up with a useless (yet beautiful) piece of aluminium. The only way to get rid of it would be to buy a new PowerBook mainboard from Apple.

Also, it's not a substitute for FileVault or encrypted disk images, since if somebody is after your data, they would probably be able to remove the hard drive, and install it in a different computer. This is purely an anti-theft device to render your PowerBook mainboard useless in the event of it being stolen, and isn't there to protect your data.

Gillo

Urban Weigl wrote:

This is purely an anti-theft device to render your PowerBook mainboard useless in the event of it being stolen, and isn't there to protect your data.

As anti-theft goes it's not going to stop people actually robbing your laptop.
Common-sense is whats required.

Peteer

Sorry to hear about your loss! Of course I''ll keeps ears open, but chances are silm.

I will use this as a reminder to do a slightly overdue back-up too. You never know the faith of your machine and usually the data loss is as significant as the hardware loss!

Best of luck,
Peter

grumpypaddy

David,

i have a 1 gig 12 inch powerbook, with the superdrive not working and fans on a good bit lying at home, if you are interested in a replacement machine. it works perfect except for the drive- its out of warranty so thats why i havent got it repaired. if youre interested i would let it go for around the 300 euro mark