Well, I finally upgraded my MBP 17", with more Ram (6gb) and a new 500gb Seagate 7200 rpm HD.
Before I did anything, I cloned the old drive to an external hard drive, then carefully removed the original drive, put in the new hard drive, and did a clean system install.
None of my software which requires a product key will work. Aperture, Nikon NX2, etc. I have tried loading both from my original hard drive in an external drive stand (Voyager Q) and my backup copy.
I haven't been able to find the product key for any of these items yet. Both of the were originally bought as earler generation models, but the codes from them, which worked when I did the upgrade, no longer work.
Ouch! I have googled it several different ways, with no help. Apparently there are a number of programs for windows that let you recover some product keys for some software, but didn't find anything for mac.
I would appreciate any brilliant ideas!
Thanks
In a tried downloading a new trial of NX2 to tide me over until I get this sorted, but it says my trial period is over!
I will try it! I wonder where the product keys are stored on a Mac? Perhaps in the library? When I was looking for a recovery software, the windows programs mentioned the registry, which of course the mac doens't use
I agree, Time Machine should do the trick. How do you like the new HD? I opted for a 5400rpm drive because I like computers to be as quiet as possible. Is your new 7200 rpm HD noticeably louder?
It is slightly louder, but noticeably faster. A worthwhile tradeoff for me. Of course, 6 GB of Ram helps also, and I changed from 2 to 6 at the same time.
I am still working on the getting the product keys back. Hoped to be able to do it without replacing the original drive back in the MacBook. I have it in an external drive dock, haven't figured out how to get Time Machine to recognize it as the drive I want to clone.
Randy, I'm curious why you cloned the drive but then did a new install on the new drive. If you use Carbon Copy Cloner (free software), you will have a bit-level clone of the original and it will be restored exactly as it was copied. I have done this on several Macs with no problems. It is not necessary to reinstall the system if you do a true clone copy of the original.
Product keys are typically stored in ~/library/preferences and usually start with "com." and end with ".plist".
I wanted to clean out a lot of the junk on the old drive, and thought the easiest way to do that was to start with a clean install on the new drive. In retrospect, that apparently was not a good idea.
Since I still have the original drive unaltered, I suppose I can just wipe the new drive clean, and then restore it from the carbon copy clone I did.
I certainly am intrigued by SSD drives, but right now, i need the space.
My long term plan is to get a Mac Pro for home, and for sure would use a SSD there for its faster read speed for the OS, etc.
Still struggling with the product keys. I did a time machine backup of the original hard drive, no luck, was not able to get NX2 or Aperture to run. Have an email in to the companies for any suggestions.