'Lost' Macbook

Soldato
Joined
25 Oct 2004
Posts
5,242
Location
Cambridge
Hi Guys.

A mate of mine 'lost' his laptop, if you can call leaving it unattended on a train loosing. He came to me as a 'person that knows about computers'... he's worried about a couple of things, can people access his files (it's password protected and was turned off when it went missing) and would have course like to know if there’s anyway of tracking it/getting it back?

I know nothing about Mac’s as you can see…

Thanks!
 
has he rang the train company ? contrary to popular belief the people of the UK are pretty half decent

my mate left his bag with a grands worth of camera and a macbook pro in it on the train and got it al back. phoned the train company who had it in lost property 100+ miles away , even sent it back to him via train.
 
Doesnt Apple have a track me feature in the MobileMe app. Sorry dont have much of a clue with the OS software i just remember seeing it for my iphone.
 
Doesnt Apple have a track me feature in the MobileMe app. Sorry dont have much of a clue with the OS software i just remember seeing it for my iphone.

I know my iPhone has a 'find iPhone' app, I'll ask him if his MacBook had the same. As you say it was off though. Couldn't someone just format the hard drive and reinstall the operating system to get around that anyway?

Also no luck with the train company... From what he said he left it in the baggage bay and when he got off it was gone. He's not the sharpest tool.
 
If he has iCloud setup and find my mac turned on he should be able to track it when it is turned on. Although if it is password protected it can actually cause problems because they won't be able to turn it on without first wiping/changing the hard drive which will mean it won't be trackable.
 
If he has iCloud setup and find my mac turned on he should be able to track it when it is turned on. Although if it is password protected it can actually cause problems because they won't be able to turn it on without first wiping/changing the hard drive which will mean it won't be trackable.

So find my mac can't track a serial number? It'll only track a mac that has find my mac set up on and if someone resets it to default then it will no longer be trackable?

Things are not sounding good for him.
 
There is a blog of someone who had his mac stolen and got revenge on the thief, however I can't see that happening in this case as the guy had some stuff installed etc...

I'd be tempted to call apple. Let them know the product is stolen and see if they could potentially black list the product so at least if it breaks they won't repair it (not sure if they'll do this).

Log on to icloud and go to the find my xxx and select email me when it comes online. You never know, he might get an email (i'm not sure if it can locate it when its just turned on or if it has to be logged on).
 
Back
Top Bottom