Arrived back home yesterday from the annual Xmas pilgrimage to the Mother. Switched on the iMac and as per usual, for some reason I get prompted to enter my iCloud password but although accurate and correct it gets rejected. So I cancel. And repeat the action as iCloud pops back up again. As I am definitely logged in to iCloud it is a minor annoyance but a niggle.
And so as I was in a kind of 'demob-happy' mood thought I'd get Apple support to ring me back to see what they suggested. Very helpful chaps. Getting me to do all sorts of things. Do this. Do that. Delete this. Restart. No change. Helpful chap offers to pass me over to Level 2 support. "Why not ?", thinks I.
So under his guidance reboot into Safe mode, and then we start delving into the OS...deeper and deeper we go..deleting more and more. But I drew the line when he glibly told me to delete all my cookies. Now when you empty trash in Apple, it tells you how many files are being deleted. Now I know that, being based on Unix, OS X literally has hundreds of thousands of files but even so, when that Trash window says 'Deleting 65,775 files' one does start to clench.
Especially when you next Restart and notice that all your Mail accounts are offline because the passwords have gone AWOL. OK...park that 'issue' for the moment.
We delve deeper. We clench more. At some point, I detect that my Mac is starting to perform less and less as I am used to and so I call a halt to the proceedings, thanking Helpful Chap B but telling him I'll make a full restore from my backup. You see, I rely on Keychain in Apple. It stores all the helpful things like usernames and passwords. So when it is now totally wrecked - as mine was now - after all the delving, you realise you are stuffed as nothing works. No access to bank accounts or mail. Or many other things. Time to reboot from the external backup and restore.
So's I goes to restart from my external backup which has previously worked fine. This time it does not. No way. It gets worse. I can no longer mount the backup to restore from it. It gets even worse. I cannot even get the external backup to start up. No lights. Disk spins but that's it. Boot sectors duff ? It is now 11.30pm and I have been on this for the last five hours.
I try Command-R to recover my system from Time Machine. My Mac resolutely refuses to recognise this request. I try Command-Option-R to recover via the internet so I can get my system off the Time Machine backup. The Mac is not having any of it. I am now in Full-On Stuffed mode. I have no paper copies of my passwords or usernames.
It is now 12.30 am. I switch everything off. I make another coffee. I somehow manage to find a way to re-write the boot sectors onto the external hard drive. I reboot. It works ! It is now 2am and I start the Restore. Off to bed.
I wake up (too early) to find a fully Restored iMac. Relief.
And all because of that minor niggle. Which, of course, is still there and there it will remain.
Ho hum.
:eusa-think:
And so as I was in a kind of 'demob-happy' mood thought I'd get Apple support to ring me back to see what they suggested. Very helpful chaps. Getting me to do all sorts of things. Do this. Do that. Delete this. Restart. No change. Helpful chap offers to pass me over to Level 2 support. "Why not ?", thinks I.
So under his guidance reboot into Safe mode, and then we start delving into the OS...deeper and deeper we go..deleting more and more. But I drew the line when he glibly told me to delete all my cookies. Now when you empty trash in Apple, it tells you how many files are being deleted. Now I know that, being based on Unix, OS X literally has hundreds of thousands of files but even so, when that Trash window says 'Deleting 65,775 files' one does start to clench.
Especially when you next Restart and notice that all your Mail accounts are offline because the passwords have gone AWOL. OK...park that 'issue' for the moment.
We delve deeper. We clench more. At some point, I detect that my Mac is starting to perform less and less as I am used to and so I call a halt to the proceedings, thanking Helpful Chap B but telling him I'll make a full restore from my backup. You see, I rely on Keychain in Apple. It stores all the helpful things like usernames and passwords. So when it is now totally wrecked - as mine was now - after all the delving, you realise you are stuffed as nothing works. No access to bank accounts or mail. Or many other things. Time to reboot from the external backup and restore.
So's I goes to restart from my external backup which has previously worked fine. This time it does not. No way. It gets worse. I can no longer mount the backup to restore from it. It gets even worse. I cannot even get the external backup to start up. No lights. Disk spins but that's it. Boot sectors duff ? It is now 11.30pm and I have been on this for the last five hours.
I try Command-R to recover my system from Time Machine. My Mac resolutely refuses to recognise this request. I try Command-Option-R to recover via the internet so I can get my system off the Time Machine backup. The Mac is not having any of it. I am now in Full-On Stuffed mode. I have no paper copies of my passwords or usernames.
It is now 12.30 am. I switch everything off. I make another coffee. I somehow manage to find a way to re-write the boot sectors onto the external hard drive. I reboot. It works ! It is now 2am and I start the Restore. Off to bed.
I wake up (too early) to find a fully Restored iMac. Relief.
And all because of that minor niggle. Which, of course, is still there and there it will remain.
Ho hum.
:eusa-think:
