Anatomy of an Upgrade; or Why Computers Suck

[shannon_a]

1. Discovered that Kimberly's MacOS 9.1 computer was crashing when she tried to save a specific file.
   
2. At first thought it might be a full disk; helped her clean up space (15 minutes).
   
3. Then thought it might be an Extensions incompatibility; helped her clean out Extensions (15-30 minutes).
   
4. Learned from Kimberly that computer was showing a disk error on bootup; rebooted computer and saw fatal error on disk repair (5 minutes).
   
5. Ran Disk First Aid, and learned that it couldn't fix problem (5 minutes).
   
6. Installed atalkd on Linux server so that Kimberly could back up all files, just in case (30 minutes).
   
7. Wait for Kimberly to do first pass, just-in-case backup of hard drive (4-6 hours).
   
8. Went to local M.A.C. store to buy better disk repair program, but found they're on vacation and closed till Monday (20 minutes).
   
9. Went with Kimberly to San Francisco to buy Disk Warrior from local Apple store (2 hours + dinner).
   
10. Ran Disk Warrior, and learned that it couldn't fix problem (15 minutes).
    
11. Waited for Kimberly to do second pass, everything-I-can-think-of backup of hard drive (2-4 hours).
    
12. Slept.
    
13. Ran reinstall of MacOS in place, hoping it would repair disk in process (45 minutes).
    
14. Idly noted that reinstall only brought MacOS back up to 9.0, not the 9.1 computer previously had been running. Rebooted and discovered problem was still there (5 minutes).
    
15. Chatted with Kimberly and told her that at this point we needed to reformat hard drive in hope of repairing problem; asked her if she wanted to rebuild MacOS 9 or go ahead and take leap to MacOS X. Told her advantages of each and waited while she went back and forth on possibilities (1 hour).
    
16. Waited while Kimberly went back into San Francisco to get MacOS X from Apple Store, local M.A.C. store still being closed (2 hours).
    
17. Tried to install MacOSX, but watched it fail because firmware was not up to date. Dug through documentation and found no adequate explanation (30 minutes).
    
18. Reinstalled software for USB MacWireless device that Kimberly has used to connect to LAN since her Airport card had died last year. Dug back and forth through docs to figure out how to actually get WEP security working so that she could connect (20-30 minutes).
    
19. Went online at apple.com and discovered I indeed could download Firmware there, but I needed MacOS 9.1, not the 9.0 I'd reinstalled, in order to do the Firmware upgrade. Ground teeth at staggeringly slow apple site (15-30 minutes).
    
20. Downloaded MacOS 9.1 and reupgraded Kimberly's machine. Worried over fact that part of upgrade was corrupt due to continued disk problems (30 minutes).
    
21. Downloaded Firmware upgrade, upgraded firmware successfully (20 minutes).
    
22. Tried to install MacOSX, but watched it fail because of disk problems; searched for way to reformat disk in MacOSX prior to it crashing, without success (30 minutes).
    
23. Reinstalled MacOS 9.0 with "erase this damned disk" option (35 minutes).
    
24. Tried to install MacOSX, and saw it successfully keep going this time. Whew (2 hours + dinner + episode of Oz).
    
25. Ran MacOSX and discovered that (a) the bastards at Macwireless.com had never written a OS X driver for their wireless USB device, as they'd promised to have done last fall, and that they'd generally dropped support for OS X, perhaps as a prelude to changing their names to BillGatesLackeysWireless.com, and as a result Kimberly had no Wireless way to get on our LAN under MacOSX; and (b) "Classic Mode", which was required to run any OS 9 programs, such as the older wireless driver, was not working (45 minutes).
    
26. Fooled around with old airport card for a while, because I'd never been 100% sure it was dead. After reading help files online, decided that it was more compatible with 128-bit WEP security, then the 64-bit WEP security I'd been using, so upgraded WEP on wireless server. No dice (30 minutes).
    
27. Read the manuals to learn how to get Classic Mode working and was mystified by the instructions to install MacOS 9 right over MacOS X from the "software recovery disks" (15 minutes).
    
28. Tried to go online to verify these strange instructions, but discovered upgrade to WEP had knocked every wireless computer in house off of LAN (15 minutes).
    
29. Read the instructions for the classic mode installation a few more times, then went ahead and did it, running the Mac OS 9 installation disks for the third time (35 minutes).
    
30. After installation, rebooted computer and had it hang forever at boot (5 minutes + forever).
    
31. Reread manuals several more times, and finally decided that problem might be that MacOSX required MacOS 9.1 for Classic Mode while disk that came with computer only supported 9.0 before upgrades from apple.com. Decided that there was no way I could install MacOS 9 for Classic Mode following MacOS X installation. Read manuals more and discovered nothing about what might happen if I had MacOS 9.1+ installed beforehand, and decided to cross fingers and hope, despite evidence thus far, that Apple would do the right thing (tm) and install an older MacOS as Classic Mode when MacOS X was installed if it was at least 9.1, as opposed to the 9.0 I happened to have on disk during last MacOS X upgrade. Goddammit (15 minutes).
    
32. Reformatted disk and reinstalled MacOS 9 from CD. Getting good at it by this point (30 minutes).
    
33. Downloaded 9.1 from staggeringly slow apple.com and installed without problem (30 minutes).
    
34. Decided to upgrade OS 9 as far as I could before OS X upgrade, so next downloaded 9.2.1 (there being no single upgrade file to get from 9.0 to the newest 9.2.2). Despaired slightly over crash at conclusion of download, but rebooted and installed without problem (30 minutes).
    
35. Downloaded 9.2.2 from staggeringly slow apple.com and watched it crash with a very scary disk error, given disk problems Kimberly was previously having (20 minutes).
    
36. Ran Disk First Error, which showed no errors, then rebooted into Disk Warrior, which showed only very minor errors, which it fixed. Breathed sigh of relief (20 minutes).
    
37. Rebooted computer and installed 9.2.2; upgraded without problem (10 minutes).
    
38. Reinstalled MacOS X over 9.2.2 (2 hours + episode of Jeremiah).
    
39. Fixed wireless connectivity to rest of house by downgrading security back to 64-bit WEP. Ran physical network cable to Kimberly's Mac since I had temporarily given up hope on wireless connection (15 minutes).
    
40. Rebooted Kimberly's machine after OS X upgrade. Told it not to connect to network. Watched it connect to network anyway. Got to admit, it did it easily and automatically thank to DHCP (5 minutes).
    
41. Watched computer decide to software upgrade all out of date programs, including Mac OS X, which it upgraded from 10.3 to 10.3.3 (1 hour).
    
42. Verified Classic Mode did now work. Yeah! And screw Apple's worthless documentation (10 minutes).
    
43. Installed MacWireless USB software for MacOS 9 to run in Classic Mode (10 minutes).
    
44. Rebooted machine & discovered that MacWireless USB software for MacOS 9, running in Classic Mode, could not find USB ports. Decided this limited possibilities for Internet access (10 minutes).
    
45. Slept.
    
46. Tested airport card more to do my best to verify it wouldn't work. Got it to work once for about 1-2 seconds. Finally decided to cross my fingers, hope it was an airport card failure, and not the airport card antennae, and send Kimberly back into city to get either a Mac OS X compatible USB wireless device or else a new Airport card (1 hour).
    
47. Installed new versions of many programs Kimberly had been using, all of which were fortunately available in OS X versions, syncing data as possible (3 hours).
    
48. Waited while Kimberly made third trip into San Francisco Apple Store, this time to talk with tech staff there and probably buy an airport card, which we would hope worked (2.5 hours).
    
49. Installed new airport card and immediately found it working better than previous one, though it refused to reconnect to network on boot (30 minutes).
    
50. Went through all combinations of old and new airport card and old and new adapter to test what worked and what didn't. Generally found that both new and old adapter worked, but only new airport card did (30 minutes).
    
51. Eventually set airport software to a technically incorrect setting which nonetheless got network to come up on boot. Whatever (5 minutes).
    
52. Discovered that we couldn't copy backed up files back from server using appletalk because server thought files were Terrabytes large rather than Gigabytes and Mac OS X helpfully wouldn't let us copy those big files. Gotta love programs that know better than you (5 minutes).
    
53. Started upgrading UNIX server in hope of fixing file-size problem. Upgrade completed, but problem still there. Oh well (1 hour).
    
54. Gave up on retrieving files via AppleTalk and started using Fetch to copy files from server to Mac. Watched Fetch crash three times due to files called "Icon" which it claimed weren't there (1 hour + 1 episode of Oz).
    
55. Finally decided that problem might have been Appletalk creating files called "Icon^M" when everything was backed up. Started digging through server to delete scores of files called "Icon^M" so that FTPing of files could continue (45 minutes).
    
56. Let Kimberly FTP all of her files back from server. FTP occasionally crashed due to missed "Icon^M" files or general annoyingness, so much had to be done directory by directory (4-6 hours + 1 episode of Oz).
    

For those keeping track, the highlights were: 4 MacOS 9 installs, 4 MacOS 9 upgrades, 4 MacOS X installs, 2 of which were aborted, 2 new computer programs, 2 new pieces of hardware, and 3 trips to San Francisco.

Things look relatively stable at this point, Kimberly's just going to need to do some more work copying the last few files, rebuilding her data, and connecting up some of it with appropriate programs.

New Hardware Purchases: $110
New Software Purchases: $250
Time Spent at Computer Consultant Rates: $4000+

Competently Written Upgrade Process: Priceless

For users who want stable computers, there's Linux, for everyone else there's MacOS or Windows.


Stupid, stupid computers.

Comments

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I'm exhausted just reading about it.

[andrewducker]

Ya see, if you'd just use Windows this would never happen.

:->

Computers Don't Work

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

You would be much more at ease with the world if you simply remembered this truth: Computers don't work. Every time they do work, it's a gift to be treasured.

[odheirre.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just wow.