Tragistrophic Leopard Upgrade

The advertisement from Apple says “So advanced, it practically installs itself.” What a load of garbage! Here is the story of my nightmarish upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Before we even begin, I have to own up to my culpability for not ensuring I had full and complete system backups before beginning the software upgrade. In my defense, I did not have sufficient external disk drive space to perform this backup, otherwise I would have done so. And while I have seen glitches and issues with Apple upgrades in the past, I have never experienced complete, total, catastrophic data loss. Now I know what true suffering feels like…

The new Mac OS X release “Leopard” came out while I was accepting a new job and moving across the country, thus it wasn’t a good time to perform an operating system upgrade. So I waited. It wasn’t until I had settled into my new town and was learning the ropes at my new job that I felt the urge to see what all the fuss was about. November 12th was that fateful day. A day that will live in infamy as far as I’m concerned. I had three years of customizations and perfected settings in my 10.4 Tiger system and was concerned about losing those settings. I should have been a lot more concerned.

I have been having data storage problems lately, as my music library grows well over 300 Gigabytes in size and my movie collection is easily 100 Gigabytes or more. Currently I cannot afford to purchase more external disk drives and the idea of burning everything onto DVDs is about as appealing as unnecessary root canals. I had as much as possible copied onto my external hard drive, but there was not enough free space to make a current copy of my user directory or the all important ~/Library directory (hint: your email lives here if you use Mail.app). Like I stated above, I’d seen some funky behavior at upgrade time in the past, but never had everything destroyed.

My main system drive is 500 GB, which in real terms means 465 GB. At the time, I was using 460 GB on this disk. The first Leopard upgrade attempt failed because there was not enough disk space to install the new operating system. So I grudgingly deleted a few crappy movies and other random files of lesser importance. Once I had about 7 GB of free space, I chose the most minimalist upgrade option and the installer told me it would need just under 5 GB of disk space. I figured “No problem! I’ve got at least 2 GB to spare.” This was where my thinking was terribly, terribly wrong.

On a fast system, the average time to upgrade an OS is about 20-25 minutes. Mac OS X likes to perform a system analysis before actually beginning the upgrade and this can run a couple of minutes tops. Well, it was stuck in an “Analyzing system” state for a good hour or so before even beginning the install process. This was my first clue that something was going awry. I assume it was indexing all the files on my hard drive during that time, but it should have stopped itself at some point with a message akin to “Dude, your hard drive is too full. This upgrade is going to make your data toast.” Instead, it ran the disk through a grinder for hours and hours — always telling me that it was 99% installed and “1 minute from finishing installation.”

After four or five hours of waiting and praying that this wasn’t the end of my happiness, I called my friend Ian in a panic. It was the middle of the night where he was, but I had an emergency! He nervously tried to offer trouble shooting advice from thousands of miles away and we finally conceded that my only option was to power the box down and pray for the best. Well, the power up was a bit shaky with screen resolution doing some crazy things and it seemed like it took 10 minutes to boot (but was probably closer to 5 minutes). Behold! A login prompt!!

From the first moment I logged in, the machine was exhibiting bizarre behavior. Lots of GUI errors and things jiggling and fritzing with no correlation to user input. My data was still there, however, and I was now running a Leopard system. But the instability bugged me and I wondered if there was an Apple patch to deal with issues on freshly installed systems. I don’t remember checking available disk space, but if I had to guess, the main drive only had a couple of MB left free. Foolishly, I went to Software Update and commanded it to heal thyself. This was a bad idea.

Had I known what lie ahead, I would have gone immediately to the all-night external disk drive store and purchased an emergency drive (you can always return it in the morning, right?). So, the PowerMac hurled and wheezed and spun its wheels for hours downloading Apple patches and filling up the remainder of space on my drive. Then it wouldn’t boot. At all. Like nothing. Nada. Blue screen of “You’re a dumbass.” And with that, all my years of diligently acquired data were gone. I spent more hours into the wee morning trying to access it, perhaps boot it as a firewire target drive, anything. All to no avail. My Mac was gone. I was making the sad Mac face. Well, it was more like the completely exhausted and utterly pissed Mac face. I had to go to work in, like, three hours.

The next day I sat at work completely disgusted with myself. I ran over every data recovery scenario in my head and thought of my mistakes along the way. As you can see, I am taking most of the blame for this royal screw-up, but I still refute Apple’s claim that Leopard is “So easy to install, a monkey could do it.” It told me that it needed 5 GB of disk space. I had 7 GB of available disk space. At no point did it say, “Oh yeah, we was just kidding about the 5 GB claim. ABORT! ABORT!!” That error message would have been a welcome sight compared to losing all my files.

So here is the post mortem: I lost ten years of meticulously archived and sorted email. TEN YEARS! A folder for each friend, family member, business contact, you name it. All gone. This has burned my britches the most. I am sad that there are people I will probably never hear from again and I have no real way to contact them without an email address. I lost every single imaginable system preference, saved password, application customization — basically anything that helped me work better, harder, faster, stronger. I lost every single file I had added in the month prior to November 12th. That was hundreds of MP3 files, quite a few movies, lots of personal photographs, and many text files with notes about important shit that I have now forgotten. The frustration, at times, has been too much to bear. Oh, and I also lost all my applications — the things that enabled me to make websites and edit photos and record music and do just about anything. All gone.

November 2007 was one of the saddest months of my life because of this data loss. All thanks to a wonky OS installer that told LIES! Lesson learned: NEVER TRUST AN APPLE UPGRADE! Now I don’t want to have any data on my machine at all. I am looking for a network file server solution to house all my important data and I’ll just keep current working projects on my workstation — with regular backups, of course. I don’t know what is embarrassing in other lines of work, but when you are paid to do computer work and you completely hose your home system it is more than egg on your face. It is like a Denver omelette with jalapenos and motor oil all over your face. I felt like I had been Jackassed and Punk’d and Flip This House’d all into one. Total Lame-Tard status.

Anyway, in case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been doing with myself over the past few months, I can tell you I’ve been working a lot. And in the few hours I’m not eating, sleeping or working, I am tiring endlessly to restore my system to the state it was in before November 12th. I am now living in a post-11/12 world and it is painful and terrifying. Never forget November 12, 2007. The day I lost my data and all related happiness. That is my tale of the tragistrophic Leopard upgrade. I hope it didn’t happen to you!

As a final note, I want to plug Joe Kissell and his amazing work on the Take Control series of eBooks for Macintosh. This guy is awesome and historically I have purchased every version of his “Upgrade to [new OS X version]” eBook ever published. This time I was in a hurry and look what happened. I should have bought his eBook, read its contents, meditated on the Kissell koans and then hired a shaman to do my upgrade. If you try to tell me there is a better person out there writing about Mac upgrades, then I will beat your ass. Capiche?

Insta-Blizzards

So one of the coolest things (at least to me) about North Idaho is that in a matter of minutes an enormous snow storm can whip up out of nowhere — even at times when no snow is predicted. This happened two weeks ago when I went into Wal*Mart and there was no snow, nor signs of snow. When I came out from shopping 25 minutes later, it looked like I fell off Santa’s sled somewhere over Antarctica. Just blizzardy-ass snow from out of nowhere.

This evening, I was too lazy to make dinner so I decided to drive across town to Winger’s. You guessed it. Winger’s is a hair band themed restaurant where they only serve blazing hot chicken wings and blare Winger out of their 40,000 watt stereo system. Totally chic and romantic, if you are in that sorta mood. Anyway, I was only in there for about 40 minutes, but when I tried to leave it was difficult to see my vehicle across the parking lot because this Class 17 snow tsunami had sprung out of the blue.

It was great. I got to race home in the sideways driving wet snow, sliding around corners and honking at all the slow moving locals. I have no idea why everyone slows down when a tiny little blizzard hits. I mean, they are supposed to be used to this, right? Well, I consider a good snow storm to be a stealth mechanism for my car so all bets are off and all rules of the road are suspended. When it snows, it is time to put on your game face. And nobody better be in my way. I just wish I had a camera good enough to share it with you.

All the power just went out while I was posting this. Thank goodness for uninterruptible power supplies. Someone must have bowed out of the Snow Dog 500 and into a telephone pole. Ooops. Time to go reset all the other clocks in the house…

Got Me Some Netflix

Well, I had been putting off getting a Netflix account for several years now, but that wind of change was blowin’ through 2008 and convinced me to commit up to $17 per month to another online merchant. They say the first two weeks are free…

Now I fully expect to become a couch-ridden blob, unable to answer the phone or go to work, simply popping in DVDs and making snacks 24/7. This is my destiny! However, I am not so impressed with their service. I opened my new account thirty minutes ago and I am yet to receive a single DVD. What? Do they think I’ve got all night??

Happy New Year to you! What is your resolution (if you chose to make one)? Does it require as much athleticism and physical endurance as my New Years Netflix resolution? What movies should I put in my queue?

Got My Christmas Wish

Well, it wasn’t until 7:00 PM tonight, but it finally started snowing! It has been coming down for the last hour or so and since the temps are below 30 it should stick around for a while. Now if it would just snow hard for the next 24 to 48 hours, then I can go sledding on campus. Woo-Hoo!!

Please Let It Snow For Christmas

…if only in my dreams!

Actually, we have four solid days of snow predicted, so I hope at least a few flakes fall. I am ready to see more Winter Wonderland.

Merry Christmas, all!

Happy Holidays!

Goodness gracious, another year gone by! I hope everyone is keeping warm and getting ready for a few days off. I know I am!

My new neighbors brought over these delicious cupcakes and other goodies for Alva and me. The true message of the holiday bag was lost on me until days later when I realized what it said. “Ho! Ho! Ho!” indeed!! Merry Christmas, y’all!

Planning A Big Move?

Are you thinking about making a large scale move? Something like moving the contents of a three bedroom house all the way across the country? If so, you need to be prepared. However, RELAX. No amount of planning and worrying can prepare you for all that could go wrong. To assist with this process, I have prepared a list of my “Top Tips for Moving.”

1. Don’t have a lot of stuff. The more you have, the more you suffer.
2. Don’t be too emotionally attached to your stuff. Items will disappear and things will get broken. If you think the label “Fragile” means anything to your movers, then you are completely insane.
3. Let the moving company pack EVERYTHING (since they assume NO liability for whatever you pack). As you stand there holding your broken items with a pained expression on your face, their favorite thing to do is ask “Did you pack that?” It is like an instant Get Out of Stupid card for them.
4. See Rule #1. My advice? Burn it all.
5. Always retain original boxes for delicate/valuable items (such as your computer, stereo, TV, etc). Failing to do so is like asking for your valuable item to get broken. That form-fitting styrofoam is there for a reason.
6. Your most valuable items and those things you consider irreplaceable are best moved by you personally. This means that you pack it, you load it in your vehicle, you secure it and you carry it into your new home. Failing to do so guarantees your future unhappiness.
7. Be prepared for LOTS of wasted paper resources. Watching professional packers or unpacking their parcels is enough to make even the most casual environmentalist cry. I think they killed 25 redwoods just to pack this one lamp I got at a thrift store.
8. Remember that persnickety box description – “Misc.” Everything you are looking for is in that box. Maybe you should open this box first to prevent yourself from buying a lot of stuff that you already own.
9. Don’t have a lot of stuff. A good rule is worth repeating twice. A perfect rule is worth repeating thrice.

If you can follow the above instructions, then your large scale move should go fairly well. If you don’t follow the above instructions, then you should just take a sledgehammer to your belongings right now. Oh yeah, and drive down the highway and dump a bunch of your favorite things out the window at 60 MPH. This should simulate the average cross country move with great accuracy.

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there in Internet-land! I’m feeling a bit like Lewis and Clark having traveled 3000 miles from home and settling down for a long, cold winter with unfamiliar locals. Well, my plight isn’t quite so intimidating and my voyage was nowhere near as dramatic — but you get the point. Anyway, I’ve been in my new town for two-and-a-half weeks and every single day I’ve had dozens of moments which have reminded me to be happy and thankful. The folks I’ve met here in Moscow are amazingly sweet and not in that syrupy, insincere way. Just down home folks who seem to share an innate belief that we are all valuable as human beings. It is nice, I’ll tell ya.

Life moves rather slowly here and progress is measured and deliberate. The original Pita Pit location burned down months ago and they have been building out its new location for most of that time. The University of Idaho campus is a peaceful study in non-construction. It is awfully nice to not have to compete with back-end loaders and dump trucks and jackhammers just to get to your workplace. And there is a distinct lack of that jaded cynicism which builds as you realize that your employer would rather spend $500 million on building renovations instead of providing you with a reasonable 6% cost-of-living adjustment.

2007 was an extremely stressful and difficult year for me. I blindly walked into a home renovation that blew up in my face and took away every dime I ever had. I endured caustic battles with my family members over the project management of said home renovation. I watched in fear as my available pool of close friends shrunk, most succumbing to pressures of marriage, family or career. And I suffered great bouts of self-doubt and depression as I was turned down by one good company after the other. I’m sure other stuff happened as well, but it was peanuts compared to that listed above.

Yet despite all the trouble and worry, I am thankful. For the record, I am extremely happy and thankful. While I still have lingering headaches back in North Carolina (house to sell, lawsuit to settle, etc), I am finally on a path that I can respect and appreciate. And I have not felt so free since I first went off to college. Besides having to please my new employer and making sure that my dog is fit and healthy, I have no responsibilities. This thought is always at the forefront of my mind and I am constantly seeking to further simplify my life. It has been a hard fought battle, but I’m finally starting to feel as if I am winning.

So, I am thankful for my awesome new job and the opportunity it provided me to enhance my career. I am extremely thankful that I actually get to do work which I find interesting and challenging. I am extremely thankful that on my busy days at work I can return home feeling like I learned something valuable. I am extremely thankful that I found a nice, small community to settle into which seems to acknowledge and appreciate my presence. I am extremely thankful to be in good health and that my loved ones are also doing well. I am extremely thankful that I am here — here on Earth — alive, employed, loved, missed, and still able to tie my own shoelaces.

For all those whom have helped me and supported me over the years – Thank you. I am extremely thankful for your assistance and patience. Along with my parents, I owe all of my success to you and it will not be forgotten. I am always happy to lay eyes upon old friends. Of which, several are already making plans to come visit me in Idaho. This is turning out to be a very good move for me. And I am thankful every day.

Purgative

The cat is finally out of the bag. I am moving to Idaho today and thus my life in Chapel Hill is coming to a close. It has been a pretty good decade, but it is time for me to move on. New town, new job, new challenges! I hope to be writing more about it soon, but I also think I am going to be very busy at the new gig. Well, the moving truck is here. Gotta go!

Brand New Kitchen

Well, the kitchen is finally installed. Ten months after the renovation began and only eight months beyond the scheduled move-in date! Not too shabby!!

If you are interested in learning more about the house and how you can purchase this newly renovated Chapel Hill estate, then visit www.726Bradley.com.