Tuesday night seemed to be as good a night as any to upgrade my Mac OS to Tiger. I have upgraded Mac operating systems before and occasionally I have experienced a bug here and there, but nothing truly horrifying or catastrophic. I had other things to do that evening, including helping out with the kids and getting some more work done on our three-months-and-running bathroom refurbishment project. As I inserted the first disc into my computer, the last thing I recall thinking was, "Ah...How long can this take?" So, I started the Installer and sat down to eat dinner with Thomai and the girls.
About 20 minutes into it, I went over and checked the computer. Now even with the benefit of hindsight, I can't honestly say what worried me at this point, but hopefully it will be sufficient to just say, "Something didn't look right." Soooo...I decided to abort the Installer. I am pretty sure this was my first mistake. I prompted the Installer to quit and I was asked how I wanted to restart the computer...My options were basically to restart from the CD or the HD. I was really reconsidering my decision to upgrade at this point, so I thought, "Better restart from HD and make sure everything still works." The HD icon didn't look right — It said something like "Macintosh HD: OS 10.4" and I briefly thought "That's weird; I don't have 10.4 yet. That's what I am upgrading to. I wonder how this will work." Yep, that's what I thought. Then I hit "Restart."
Time to reconsider an old cliché or two:
Murphy's Law:
If anything can go wrong, it will.
Corollary 1: Nothing is as easy as it looks.
Corollary 2: Everything takes longer than you think
When
I restarted, I got a gray screen with the power icon in the background
and a message stating "You need to restart your computer" in about 8
different languages. Over top of all this was computer code that
was mostly gibberish to me, although I did note the word "panic" and
"We are hanging here..." among the code. I have seen Macs do
stranger things, so I manually restarted again and hoped for the
best. The same thing happened. It was time for my first
meltdown of the evening.
Our eMac is full of materials that we have created and amassed for years and years. Journals, stories, photos, songs, web-based projects...And I don't really have a good way to back it all up. I have never really gotten around to buying a huge external storage system for backup (although we have a 10 GB external HD that we have used for selected projects) and I can't bring myself to back up on scores of CD-Roms that become useless once I update the original versions on the HD. At this point in the evening, I am thinking all of that is gone. It's about 6:30 PM.
I tried restarting a total of about 5 times with each attempt ending the same way. It was around about this time that I started cursing how stupid I am for even attempting any of this to begin with. I told Thomai what was going on so she could share in the misery.
I decided to restart from the CD and I restarted the Installer. Installation (when uninterrupted) takes around 2 hours. So I set it to work and sat down and stewed, obsessing about how expensive it would feel to take the computer in for service and how nerve-wracking it would be to know that someone would have all my personal files (if they hadn't already been deleted by now) at his or her disposal to peruse for two weeks or longer. We were both on pins and needles while life went on around us. The television was on and the kids were running around and playing while we felt the computer grinding away silently in the corner of the room.
I had a brief moment of optimism when installation appeared to be successful for disc one. The computer restarted and basically froze. I restarted, waited and then it froze again. Not a good feeling. I have owned at least 5 Mac desktop computers 3 laptops (of varying quality) and I have only experienced 2 significant system failures in the past, but I have never had so much to lose. Time for my second meltdown...
I called David, who is a good friend and a fellow Mac user. David is out on the West Coast. It was 5:00 his time and I apologized for calling. His response was classic...Something like "No problem; I'm at work, so I can talk as long as I want." We chatted for a minute. He sounded a little concerned but cautiously optimistic. He suggested I call our mutual pal Brian, who is on the East Coast. Brian was great. Very businesslike, but almost therapeutic at the same time. He would make a good psychologist (Yes, that is a compliment). He said things like "No worries" and then asked me if I back up my HD. I had to tell him the truth, to which Brian responded: "You have learned a valuable lesson tonight." Very true, very true. Brian walked me through a few things and told me he was optimistic that I hadn't lost the data on my HD. He ultimately recommended I attempt installation again. The two-hour process began anew.
In the meantime, Thomai put Zoya to sleep and Kalli kept us company for a while. Once Kalli went to sleep, we tried to watch television while we stewed about the situation. If there was anything worthwhile on TV, we were too preoccupied to know it.
Around 11:00, the Installer indicated the software on disc one had been successfully installed. The computer automatically restarted and then slowly made its way to the Installer, prompting me to insert disc two. We were almost done, but it was difficult to be optimistic. I tried to maintain a "reverse karma" attitude, figuring that if I resigned myself to the fact that all was lost, somehow things might magically work out (Yes, I know how irrational this is). At one point, I even grabbed the phone book and started writing down phone numbers for local Mac repair services. Initially, disc two wouldn't install. Installer would cycle through to "keynote" and then stop and restart. This happened three times or so. I ultimately restarted off the CD and started installation of disc two again. This time it worked.
At about 11:35, my desktop finally appeared. We knew everything was intact when we saw my desktop pattern, which is a vintage picture of Ozzy and Randy Rhoads. We both yelled out, hugged and collapsed on the sofa. Let's return to the title of this particular entry:
Our eMac is full of materials that we have created and amassed for years and years. Journals, stories, photos, songs, web-based projects...And I don't really have a good way to back it all up. I have never really gotten around to buying a huge external storage system for backup (although we have a 10 GB external HD that we have used for selected projects) and I can't bring myself to back up on scores of CD-Roms that become useless once I update the original versions on the HD. At this point in the evening, I am thinking all of that is gone. It's about 6:30 PM.
I tried restarting a total of about 5 times with each attempt ending the same way. It was around about this time that I started cursing how stupid I am for even attempting any of this to begin with. I told Thomai what was going on so she could share in the misery.
I decided to restart from the CD and I restarted the Installer. Installation (when uninterrupted) takes around 2 hours. So I set it to work and sat down and stewed, obsessing about how expensive it would feel to take the computer in for service and how nerve-wracking it would be to know that someone would have all my personal files (if they hadn't already been deleted by now) at his or her disposal to peruse for two weeks or longer. We were both on pins and needles while life went on around us. The television was on and the kids were running around and playing while we felt the computer grinding away silently in the corner of the room.
I had a brief moment of optimism when installation appeared to be successful for disc one. The computer restarted and basically froze. I restarted, waited and then it froze again. Not a good feeling. I have owned at least 5 Mac desktop computers 3 laptops (of varying quality) and I have only experienced 2 significant system failures in the past, but I have never had so much to lose. Time for my second meltdown...
I called David, who is a good friend and a fellow Mac user. David is out on the West Coast. It was 5:00 his time and I apologized for calling. His response was classic...Something like "No problem; I'm at work, so I can talk as long as I want." We chatted for a minute. He sounded a little concerned but cautiously optimistic. He suggested I call our mutual pal Brian, who is on the East Coast. Brian was great. Very businesslike, but almost therapeutic at the same time. He would make a good psychologist (Yes, that is a compliment). He said things like "No worries" and then asked me if I back up my HD. I had to tell him the truth, to which Brian responded: "You have learned a valuable lesson tonight." Very true, very true. Brian walked me through a few things and told me he was optimistic that I hadn't lost the data on my HD. He ultimately recommended I attempt installation again. The two-hour process began anew.
In the meantime, Thomai put Zoya to sleep and Kalli kept us company for a while. Once Kalli went to sleep, we tried to watch television while we stewed about the situation. If there was anything worthwhile on TV, we were too preoccupied to know it.
Around 11:00, the Installer indicated the software on disc one had been successfully installed. The computer automatically restarted and then slowly made its way to the Installer, prompting me to insert disc two. We were almost done, but it was difficult to be optimistic. I tried to maintain a "reverse karma" attitude, figuring that if I resigned myself to the fact that all was lost, somehow things might magically work out (Yes, I know how irrational this is). At one point, I even grabbed the phone book and started writing down phone numbers for local Mac repair services. Initially, disc two wouldn't install. Installer would cycle through to "keynote" and then stop and restart. This happened three times or so. I ultimately restarted off the CD and started installation of disc two again. This time it worked.
At about 11:35, my desktop finally appeared. We knew everything was intact when we saw my desktop pattern, which is a vintage picture of Ozzy and Randy Rhoads. We both yelled out, hugged and collapsed on the sofa. Let's return to the title of this particular entry:
Wyszkowski's Second Law
Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.
Indeed.
After making few phone calls and sending an e-mail or two, the adrenaline wore off and we got a half-decent night's sleep. All is in order now...In fact, everything is working better than ever!
Over the last 30 days or so, I know have already posted 2 other entries featuring photos of Randy Rhoads. I can't resist posting one more so everybody can see the image that made us shout out in unrestrained elation after enduring 5½ hours of pure agony. Two horns up!
After making few phone calls and sending an e-mail or two, the adrenaline wore off and we got a half-decent night's sleep. All is in order now...In fact, everything is working better than ever!
Over the last 30 days or so, I know have already posted 2 other entries featuring photos of Randy Rhoads. I can't resist posting one more so everybody can see the image that made us shout out in unrestrained elation after enduring 5½ hours of pure agony. Two horns up!
