Is it possible to go back to High Sierra

[novanut]

If there is nothing of value on the “new” Mac mini then I would second the nuke and reinstall method - or copy everything off, nuke and then copy back. If the OS is acting funny on thr “old” Mac a copy/clone might act funny on the “new” Mac.

To go the nuke and reinstall route, you’ll need a 16GB USB drive.

1. Download Sierra from here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683 and follow steps #1-3.

2. There is a “bug” in the Sierra Installer, so you need to follow the steps here from Eau Rouge: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251380944 to create thr USB installer

If you need more info on thr createinstallmedia step, see here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

3. When your ready to wipe the drive and reinstall, plug the bootable intaller into thr Mac, press and hold the option key, and then power on the Mac. Once the boot menu is shown you can release the option key. Select the usb drive to boot off of, load disk utility and erase the internal drive, then reinstall Sierra. Once complete perform the available updates and then reinstall your other apps and finally copy the data over.

Success!
I now have a USB stick that boots to the new mini.
I clicked on 'install macOS but it wants to install it on the USB stick. It's already on there! How do I get it to install it on the internal drive? Disk Utility? Erase the 1tb drive?
Thanks.

 

[untfan]

Success!
I now have a USB stick that boots to the new mini.
I clicked on 'install macOS but it wants to install it on the USB stick. It's already on there! How do I get it to install it on the internal drive? Disk Utility? Erase the 1tb drive?
Thanks.

Success!
I now have a USB stick that boots to the new mini.
I clicked on 'install macOS but it wants to install it on the USB stick. It's already on there! How do I get it to install it on the internal drive? Disk Utility? Erase the 1tb drive?
Thanks.

Good News!

After you’ve copied everything off thr “new” mini that you want, boot off thr USB (as you’ve done), when it loads go into disk utility and erase the 1TB HDD and format it as HPFS Extended. Exit out of Disk Utility and choose install OS X Sierra. I am guessing it had High Sierra, Mojave or Catalina installed and formatted as APFS.

 

[Fishrrman]

1. Boot from USB installer
2. Open disk utility
3. Does disk utility have a "view" menu?
IF NO -- go to step 4
IF YES -- go to the view menu and choose "show all devices", the go to step 4.
4. Look at the list "on the left". The topmost item is the physical drive
5. Click on it to select it
6. Click the "erase" button
7. Erase to "Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format"
8. When the erase is done, quit disk utility and open the OS installer
9. Start clicking through.
10. When the installer asks WHERE you want to install, make sure the internal drive is selected
11. The Mac will restart one or more times, and the screen will go dark for up to a minute or more with no other indication of activity. BE PATIENT
12. When done, you should see the initial setup screen

IF you have a backup:
13. Setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another drive. YES YOU WANT TO DO THIS.
14. Connect the backup and "point the way" to it for setup assistant
15. Give setup assistant time to "digest everything".
16. SA will present you with a list of stuff to migrate. I suggest you migrate it all
17. Let SA do its job. It will take a while
18. When done, you should see the login screen.

Good luck.

 

[novanut]

Whew!
Can't thank everyone enough times for all the help y'all gave to this Old Man (OM). "Why when I was 30 years younger..."

Now that I have a "Virgin" Sierra drive I would like to determine which, if any, of the apps, programs, folders, websites, etc. from the old mini are "Not Virgin". If there are some like that I would not transfer/copy them to the new mini.

Also, Is it possible to use CCC to copy stuff from the old mini directly to the new mini if they're plugged in to each other? Would I need a copy CCC on the new mini as well?

Many, Many thanks!

 

[novanut]

Ahhh, life is not without its little challenges...

While setting up the new mini I connected a magic mouse. I also have a magic mouse on the old mini. I also had the new mini linked to the old mini to transfer some photos. The new MM worked well,,,for a little while. Then the new MM started taking over the job of the old MM! Now I'm back to a wired mouse until I can figure this out...

 

[Fishrrman]

"Now I'm back to a wired mouse until I can figure this out..."

My recommendation is that you STICK WITH the wired mouse.

Or... get a Logitech mouse with some additional buttons that uses a "unifying receiver" (NOT bluetooth). They work great.

I haven't used an Apple mouse since the ADB days (I'll reckon a good number of members here don't even remember what that was...!)

 

[novanut]

"Now I'm back to a wired mouse until I can figure this out..."

My recommendation is that you STICK WITH the wired mouse.

Or... get a Logitech mouse with some additional buttons that uses a "unifying receiver" (NOT bluetooth). They work great.

I haven't used an Apple mouse since the ADB days (I'll reckon a good number of members here don't even remember what that was...!)

Thanks. I do have one of those Logitech mice. I just got used to the magic mouse... I reckon I'm another who doesn't remember what the ADB days were... (don't ever get old)...

 

[Boyd01]

I got a space grey Magic Mouse with my 2018 Mini, had used them in the past and disliked but decided to give it another chance. Still don't like it and it just does not work properly with my most important software in a Windows VM.

Ended up going back to a cheap $15 USB mouse from the drug store, which I actually really like. But I now use the Magic Mouse on my 2014 Mini, so there aren't any compatibility issues there. Have used it on two 2014 Minis, although they are running Mojave, not Sierra.

I remember ADB mice and keyboards very well, I also setup an office with a LocalTalk network - remember those?

 

[novanut]

I got a space grey Magic Mouse with my 2018 Mini, had used them in the past and disliked but decided to give it another chance. Still don't like it and it just does not work properly with my most important software in a Windows VM.

Ended up going back to a cheap $15 USB mouse from the drug store, which I actually really like. But I now use the Magic Mouse on my 2014 Mini, so there aren't any compatibility issues there. Have used it on two 2014 Minis, although they are running Mojave, not Sierra.

I remember ADB mice and keyboards very well, I also setup an office with a LocalTalk network - remember those?

Howdy Boyd01,
I liked the magic mice because it works well with AE and seems more precise for drawing/animation projects.

Don't remember local talk networks either. My CRS is terminal, I'm afraid. :{

Well, now that the new mini is retrained to be Sierra I'm getting ready to move, via CCC version 3.3, some stuff from the old mini. [I found version 3.3 on my old mac pro and it opens and appears to work with the old mini].

I'm also scavenging an old drive from the mac pro to erase/copy the files to. I'm hoping those files are not what's been causing the old mini to act up. Not sure if it's bad files, OS or age. Any suggestions on how to check?

Anyway, assuming they're good, once they're on the old drive is there a better way of dropping them onto the new mini? The gizmo I'm using is just a box type gizmo where you insert the bare drive. It has a USB cable and not a thunderbolt so I guess it will take forever. :{

Other than that I'm happy I was able to install AE CS4 on the new mini and it works like a charm!

Have a wonderful day!

 

[novanut]

I got a space grey Magic Mouse with my 2018 Mini, had used them in the past and disliked but decided to give it another chance. Still don't like it and it just does not work properly with my most important software in a Windows VM.

Ended up going back to a cheap $15 USB mouse from the drug store, which I actually really like. But I now use the Magic Mouse on my 2014 Mini, so there aren't any compatibility issues there. Have used it on two 2014 Minis, although they are running Mojave, not Sierra.

I remember ADB mice and keyboards very well, I also setup an office with a LocalTalk network - remember those?

Hi Boyd01,

So far, so good. Been selectively copying

I got a space grey Magic Mouse with my 2018 Mini, had used them in the past and disliked but decided to give it another chance. Still don't like it and it just does not work properly with my most important software in a Windows VM.

Ended up going back to a cheap $15 USB mouse from the drug store, which I actually really like. But I now use the Magic Mouse on my 2014 Mini, so there aren't any compatibility issues there. Have used it on two 2014 Minis, although they are running Mojave, not Sierra.

I remember ADB mice and keyboards very well, I also setup an office with a LocalTalk network - remember those?

Hello again Boyd01,

Hope I'm not being too much of a pain in the neck (or other areas) with all these questions. Just an old guy whose forgot how easy things like this used to be when I had a few more neurons...

I did use CCC to copy some music and photos from the old mini to the drive I stole from my mac pro. I discovered that the drive got really hot after copying the folders. Can those things catch on fire? Then I plugged that drive into to the new mini. Still pretty hot. I had previously copied CCC onto the new mini. When I looked at the contents of the mac pro drive it had the music and photos along with more stuff I didn't know CCC had copied. See attached. I opened CCC and selected only the music and photos, not the other stuff, to copy to the desktop and hit the button. Then I began to think, a dangerous pastime for this OM. So I canceled out of it. 1) Could I have just dragged and dropped those folders onto the desktop? 2) Would it have been better to use my time machine backup to do all this rather than the mac pro drive? Not much experience with migrate assistant or target mode. 3) What if the stuff on the time machine backup is bad and would only transfer that bad stuff to the new mini? 4) Is there any way to selectively find out which, if any, files are bad and get rid of them or fix them?

Ultimately I would like to be able to transfer all those websites, mail, messages, preferences and the like to the new mini but not some of the other stuff. I'd like to be able to transfer all the iTunes music (several days worth) I've collected over the years to the new minis iTunes. But don't know if the old minis iTunes app is bad or good.

Again Boyd01, thanks for all your help and guidance in this scary journey I'm on.

God Bless.

 

[Boyd01]

Not quite following you, sorry. If you just want to selectively copy some folders, you could do that with Finder or with CCC, but in my experience CCC will be faster and is also better at dealing with errors. If you want to move mail, preferences, etc. you could use the Migration Assistant which is part of MacOS. You will find in the Utilities folder which is inside the Applications folder.

I'm kind of lost in this thread... maybe this was posted before, if not then have a look

Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support

Use Migration Assistant to copy your files from another computer.

support.apple.com

 

[novanut]

Not quite following you, sorry. If you just want to selectively copy some folders, you could do that with Finder or with CCC, but in my experience CCC will be faster and is also better at dealing with errors. If you want to move mail, preferences, etc. you could use the Migration Assistant which is part of MacOS. You will find in the Utilities folder which is inside the Applications folder.

I'm kind of lost in this thread... maybe this was posted before, if not then have a look

Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support

Use Migration Assistant to copy your files from another computer.

support.apple.com

Thanks Boyd01,
So I guess I could use the time machine backup drive and migration assistant for most of that stuff?

 

[novanut]

Not quite following you, sorry. If you just want to selectively copy some folders, you could do that with Finder or with CCC, but in my experience CCC will be faster and is also better at dealing with errors. If you want to move mail, preferences, etc. you could use the Migration Assistant which is part of MacOS. You will find in the Utilities folder which is inside the Applications folder.

I'm kind of lost in this thread... maybe this was posted before, if not then have a look

Transfer to a new Mac with Migration Assistant - Apple Support

Use Migration Assistant to copy your files from another computer.

support.apple.com

Good morning Boyd,

Just a follow up on what finally ended up as a solution to my wild ramblings.

After making a bootable flash drive with Sierra OS, thanks to you and others' suggestions, I used my time machine backup drive and made a clone for the new mini. Not what I originally had in mind. I felt the old mini had some bugs and was trying to avoid passing them on to the new mini.

I finally figured out (I think) how to use both magic mice by deleting one from the old and new minis' bluetooth setup.

The new mini is lots slower booting up than the old mini. Strange since it has a 1tb ssd as does the old mini.

Anyway, thanks a million; nowadays I guess it should be a trillion thanks for all your help and understanding of the ramblings from this OM.

God Bless.