(no subject)
ACK! Last night I decided I should break down and install the latest updates to my computer, after several weeks of saying "later" every time the notification of updates popped up, so of course this morning, computer issues.
The updates loaded fine and my computer restarted and all was well, until this morning. When I went to start it this morning, it got stuck partway through the startup making pathetic hard drive noises for twenty minutes. I didn't completely panic, because it was manifestly not the same scenario as when my hard drive died, but I did panic a little. Then I read some troubleshooting forums online and panicked a little more. I did gather, however, that it's not fatal to force a shutdown on a mac when it's having trouble starting up after an update, so I did. Then I decided to try again to start it up normally before starting it up in disk recovery mode. And it started! Slowly, and it proceeded to run sluggishly, but it started!
Then, of course, I decided the first order of business was a new backup of my files in case things went pear-shaped again. But it didn't start automatically, which freaked me out again, so I restarted my computer again, and it still worked. I breathed a little more. Then I manually started the backup, and it got what looked like stuck in the disk preparation process. AACK!
Then I looked that up, and apparently that's normal after an update. It can take up to an hour for Time Machine to prepare the disk and figure out what files have changed. And happily, Hughie is now 157 MB into transferring a 1.2 GB backup to my external hard drive.
My fingers are still crossed just in case, but it would appear that, although it was a little rocky, Hughie has now assimilated the updates and lives!
Now, I think I can settle down and work on my paper. I will take this as a sign that I need to be a little more assiduous with backups - whenever I remember, which turns out to be about once every week and a half, is not really enough, even when I'm mostly in reading and not writing mode!
The updates loaded fine and my computer restarted and all was well, until this morning. When I went to start it this morning, it got stuck partway through the startup making pathetic hard drive noises for twenty minutes. I didn't completely panic, because it was manifestly not the same scenario as when my hard drive died, but I did panic a little. Then I read some troubleshooting forums online and panicked a little more. I did gather, however, that it's not fatal to force a shutdown on a mac when it's having trouble starting up after an update, so I did. Then I decided to try again to start it up normally before starting it up in disk recovery mode. And it started! Slowly, and it proceeded to run sluggishly, but it started!
Then, of course, I decided the first order of business was a new backup of my files in case things went pear-shaped again. But it didn't start automatically, which freaked me out again, so I restarted my computer again, and it still worked. I breathed a little more. Then I manually started the backup, and it got what looked like stuck in the disk preparation process. AACK!
Then I looked that up, and apparently that's normal after an update. It can take up to an hour for Time Machine to prepare the disk and figure out what files have changed. And happily, Hughie is now 157 MB into transferring a 1.2 GB backup to my external hard drive.
My fingers are still crossed just in case, but it would appear that, although it was a little rocky, Hughie has now assimilated the updates and lives!
Now, I think I can settle down and work on my paper. I will take this as a sign that I need to be a little more assiduous with backups - whenever I remember, which turns out to be about once every week and a half, is not really enough, even when I'm mostly in reading and not writing mode!