I'll try to make this short... four days of remote-tech-support-hell.
A friend's 2011 MacBook Pro was behaving oddly, and incredibly slow. Unusable.
I walked her through various diagnostics and eventually determined that the Hard Drive was on its last legs... an original Hitachi 320gig unit.
We (very slowly but) successfully performed a Time Machine backup to a new 5-TB WD external.
I walked her through installing a new 1-TB hard drive (easy-peasy).
Started up with Internet Recovery to install the OS (she had misplaced her original system discs years ago when moving across the country).
Herein begins the saga.
Turns out the 2011 MBP (came with 10.7 Lion, but had been updated to 10.10) required a firmware update (which was never one of Apple's automatic or suggested updates via the App Store) in order to reinstall the OS from Internet Recovery. Took a crapload of searching web forums to find that out. Wasted time.
Fortunately she has an iMac in the house as well. Downloaded High Sierra (no others were available with her AppleID) with the intent of making a thumb drive installer to bypass this Internet Recovery stupidity. This is my first warning: apparently there was a recent change in how Apple is distributing the OS - you no longer get a full 5.x-gig installer; it's now a 20-meg installer that downloads the OS once the process begins. This isn't universal: some people are getting the full package; but nothing we did (several attempted workarounds found online) would do the trick. Eventually I found a way to get Sierra downloaded from the Apple Store via a direct link (provided by Apple in a tech support document).
Got the thumb drive installer made, booted the MBP, but the install would not complete. Something about the package failing an integrity check or some damn thing. Apparently this is a common problem (though it's the first time I've ever encountered it). After attempting *many* workarounds, we hit an impasse. She drove an hour to an Apple Store and had them reinstall Sierra (preferred over High Sierra).
She forgot to take her external along, so asked me to walk her through restoring her files. "Sure," I thought. Easy-peasy. NOPE. Booted up, launched Migration Assistant and it refused to see the external drive, could not find the backup. Exited MA and confirmed that the external drive can mount, and the .backup file is present.
Tried a reboot with Command-R into Recovery and attempted a Restore. It could see the backup drive, but still refused to identify the .backup file.
Many more attempts made, none successful, and my reputation as a long-distance tech guru has taken serious damage. She's off to the Apple Store again today to see if they can restore the backup.
Perhaps things would have gone more smoothly on the .backup side if I'd gotten her to use CCC to mirror the drive, but having done the TM route many times before, I was confident it would be a quick fix. It was not to be.... :( Waiting to hear how her Genius appointment went....
A friend's 2011 MacBook Pro was behaving oddly, and incredibly slow. Unusable.
I walked her through various diagnostics and eventually determined that the Hard Drive was on its last legs... an original Hitachi 320gig unit.
We (very slowly but) successfully performed a Time Machine backup to a new 5-TB WD external.
I walked her through installing a new 1-TB hard drive (easy-peasy).
Started up with Internet Recovery to install the OS (she had misplaced her original system discs years ago when moving across the country).
Herein begins the saga.
Turns out the 2011 MBP (came with 10.7 Lion, but had been updated to 10.10) required a firmware update (which was never one of Apple's automatic or suggested updates via the App Store) in order to reinstall the OS from Internet Recovery. Took a crapload of searching web forums to find that out. Wasted time.
Fortunately she has an iMac in the house as well. Downloaded High Sierra (no others were available with her AppleID) with the intent of making a thumb drive installer to bypass this Internet Recovery stupidity. This is my first warning: apparently there was a recent change in how Apple is distributing the OS - you no longer get a full 5.x-gig installer; it's now a 20-meg installer that downloads the OS once the process begins. This isn't universal: some people are getting the full package; but nothing we did (several attempted workarounds found online) would do the trick. Eventually I found a way to get Sierra downloaded from the Apple Store via a direct link (provided by Apple in a tech support document).
Got the thumb drive installer made, booted the MBP, but the install would not complete. Something about the package failing an integrity check or some damn thing. Apparently this is a common problem (though it's the first time I've ever encountered it). After attempting *many* workarounds, we hit an impasse. She drove an hour to an Apple Store and had them reinstall Sierra (preferred over High Sierra).
She forgot to take her external along, so asked me to walk her through restoring her files. "Sure," I thought. Easy-peasy. NOPE. Booted up, launched Migration Assistant and it refused to see the external drive, could not find the backup. Exited MA and confirmed that the external drive can mount, and the .backup file is present.
Tried a reboot with Command-R into Recovery and attempted a Restore. It could see the backup drive, but still refused to identify the .backup file.
Many more attempts made, none successful, and my reputation as a long-distance tech guru has taken serious damage. She's off to the Apple Store again today to see if they can restore the backup.
Perhaps things would have gone more smoothly on the .backup side if I'd gotten her to use CCC to mirror the drive, but having done the TM route many times before, I was confident it would be a quick fix. It was not to be.... :( Waiting to hear how her Genius appointment went....
via ehMac.ca https://ift.tt/2H6JBrR
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