Back in July my iMac refused to upload images to my blog.To overcome the problem I turned to MacBook Pro where everything worked fine except being an old Mac using an outdated operating system it was snail pace slow and took forever to process RAW images..

Then I remembered that I’d mothballed my old Mac Mini and it’s resurrection commenced.

First I had to load Photoshop CS6. All went well until Adobe called for the key to my copy of Photoshop CS5 extended before CS6 would load.

Being a bit of a bower bird I located the vital key, uploaded the numerals and bingo, all went well for about ten milliseconds before my power board flipped its circuit breaker.  OK thought I, switched the breaker back on and OH no, same thing. Tried again and wow, mini burped, screen illuminated, the Apple logo appeared and then so did the dreaded bloody rainbow coloured revolving wheel.

After four or five more attempts with the mini and efforts to get my beloved Photoshop CS6 disk released I was stumped. It was was  firmly lodged in the mini. How to retrieve it. All methods know to man failed.

Off to the nearest Apple store, only 60 miles away. Mini in hand. Fantastic service too. ‘How long have you had it’? I was asked. ‘Quite a while’, said I. ‘What’s the matter with it’? ‘My Photoshop disk is stuck in it’. I replied.

With that the Apple engineer peered at the back of the mini case, entered its serial number into his computer and told me the Mini was ‘Vintage, can’t be repaired because parts are no longer available’. ‘After all,’ he said,’It was made in 2007′.

I enquired how I could open the case as there were no visible screws. My Apple man smiled as only a genuine computer nerd can, and proudly informed me that there were no visible points of entry. I’d already alluded to that fact.

Back home with a new Mac Mini under my arm I turned to the traditional blokes method of opening an object when all else fails; a screwdriver and a bit of brute force. On this occasion a hammer was unnecessary.

The good news is that after totally destroying my old mini I retrieved the CS6 disk undamaged and have now successfully uploaded it to the this new mini.

For your absolute amusement, hereunder are a few images of my handiwork. No need for the images to have titles, they speak for themselves.

I’ve got a few ideas about the names of these parts but as this is a family oriented blog, their names shall remain unrecorded. I’m sure you know where I’m coming from.

However, the next image is a positive sign of my computer savvy and undoubted capacity to recover, intact, a disk stuck in a vintage Mac Mini.

Hoo roo for now.