{"id":347,"date":"2020-05-30T09:39:21","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T14:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=347"},"modified":"2020-05-30T09:39:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T14:39:29","slug":"why-backups-matter-even-when-they-dont-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=347","title":{"rendered":"Why Backups Matter (even when they don’t matter)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Apple continues its multi-year assault on my beloved “late 2011” 17 inch MacBook Pro. First by shipping it with a famously defective logic board<\/a>, which I learned to repair by periodically baking and now by stymying my efforts to to restore backups to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the 17-incher’s hard disk started to suffer from an “invalid fsroot tree” as reported by Disk Utility, I migrated my account over to a new 15 inch MacBook Pro and started using it as my primary computer. But the 17 kept chugging along and I continued to use it mainly for designing and slicing 3D prints for my awesome Prusa MK3S<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wouldn’t support any OS after High Sierra and occasionally I was unable to open documents but the laptop performed well enough for its current purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the work I was creating on the 17″ Mac was either one-off stuff or stored in the cloud. So I saw no point in wasting storage and backing the laptop’s increasingly corrupt file system. When the time came, I would just reformat or replace its SSD and restore from the 15-incher’s backup. Easy peasy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the day finally came when ‘Ol Seventeen just kept crashing and I replaced it’s 1 TB SSD with a 2TB disk. I fired it up in Internet Restore mode (Command-Option-R), formatted the SSD, and installed High Sierra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So just use Migration Assistant to restore my account from a Time Capsule backup, right? Nope, that didn’t show any valid backups to restore from. No problem, I could use Migration Assistant to push the account from the 15-inch to the 17-inch, correct? Um no, Apple wouldn’t have any of that either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Backups from the 15″, which is running Catalina, could not be migrated to the older High Sierra OS. So instead of restoring my account the easy way using Migration Assistant, I will need to manually copy my stuff over from the 15″, reinstall applications, re-set preferences, re-enter passwords and all that kind of fun stuff. Uck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So don’t assume that the migration tool that makes it so easy to move from an old to a new Mac works the other way around. In retrospect, I can understand why this isn’t just a diabolical plot to get me to buy another new Mac. There’s no practical way for an OS to know what incompatible applications, features or documents could be added in future<\/em> operating systems, so no way to determine what stuff is compatible and what isn’t. Lesson learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apple continues its multi-year assault on my beloved “late 2011” 17 inch MacBook Pro. First by shipping it with a famously defective logic board, which I learned to repair by periodically baking and now by stymying my efforts to to restore backups to it. When the 17-incher’s hard disk started to suffer from an “invalid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7,4,20,5],"tags":[66,67,65],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8sNNV-5B","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":304,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=304","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":0},"title":"13\" Retina MacBook Pro Retina won't boot, fan running full blast","date":"March 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"So this repair is mildly interesting. \u00a0The user's late 2012 MacBook Pro just wouldn't start up one morning. \u00a0It would get as far as a \"missing boot disk\" icon and shortly thereafter the fans started running full blast. Apple Diagnostics recognized that an SSD was installed but was unable to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":307,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=307","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":1},"title":"Resurrecting a 17\" MacBook Pro with a heat gun","date":"March 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"So the dreaded day came when my beloved \"late 2011\" 17 inch MacBook Pro died.\u00a0 The screen wigged out while it was in use, then it would only boot halfway before stopping at a gray screen.\u00a0 From experience, I knew that it was suffering from the dreaded AMD GPU logic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=69","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":2},"title":"Did you hear about the Rabbi who didn't charge for circumcisions?","date":"August 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He only took tips! I don't charge friends for repairing their electronics, which I'm always glad to do and genuinely enjoy. \u00a0But I'll happily accept a bottle of wine as a token of appreciation. \u00a0Sometimes people are\u00a0really happy to get their stuff fixed. Look at the pile of swag that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"Booty!","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/jimandnoreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/20130801-133502-768x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":331,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=331","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":3},"title":"Reflow Madness","date":"August 12, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the past several months, I did a few more reflow repairs with my trusty heat gun.\u00a0 I successfully resurrected a Beats Pill bluetooth speaker but it failed again after a few weeks.\u00a0 Another Pill is still working okay.\u00a0 I rescued a 15\" MacBook Pro with video problems but had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=12","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":4},"title":"Reviving a drowned laptop","date":"July 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"My friend spilled a glass of water into her 13\" MacBook Pro.\u00a0 She had tried (unsuccessfully) to dry it out by sticking it in a bag of rice, followed up by a blast from a blow dryer.\u00a0 The laptop would not turn on at all.\u00a0 The battery was installed but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/jimandnoreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/macpro-logicboard-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":178,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=178","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":5},"title":"Microsoft Surface Pro 3 first impressions","date":"January 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"My office is replacing its aging fleet of HP 620 notebooks with Surface Pro 3\u00a0 (256 GB, Intel Core i5) tablets. \u00a0Each tablet will be deployed with an optional keyboard cover and docking station. \u00a0This is the middle-of-the-road model, which is powerful enough to run most business applications but not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}