Mavericks has left my MacBook Pro useless

[Iproxmagiikz]

So I just installed the developer preview of 10.9 Mavericks on my early 2011 MacBook Pro, which has been upgraded with 8gb ram, a 1tb HDD in place of the SuperDrive and a 250gb SSD.
The installation went fine and was rather quick, but when I logged in to Mavericks, after maybe 3 seconds my screen's hue shifts blue and I then I'm logged out.
I was planning on restoring to Mountain Lion with my Time Machine back ups but they can not be used to restore as they haven't been backing up system files and applications even though these are not excluded!?
I entered safe mode and removed all start up items to no avail.
I also noticed that an error showed up saying CS5sercicemanager wasn't running or something, so I deleted the file from my application support area.
I also noticed that an error says the "to use 'java' I must install a run time environment". I think this may be the problem but when I check the java version in terminal using ' java -version' I'm told that I have a 1.6 version of runtime environment. However I think this might be a default for safe mode which maybe is the reason safe mode works at all?
How do I go about fixing this?
If there is no way to fix this, can someone explain how I would go about re installing mountain lion and then restoring all my stuff from my time machine back ups? <- in step by step if possible, as I don't want duplicate accounts or missing items etc
Also for future reference, how do I make time machine make full complete back ups, as the normal method apparently doesn't back up files needed for restoration.

 

[Meyvn]

The "normal method" does, in fact, backup everything. But if you exclude any folders under the options, you're going to run into problems like that. If you didn't exclude anything but they're still missing, something else would seem to have gone wrong with either them, or your machine's ability to read them. However: if you didn't exclude anything and you restore to ML this problem may resolve itself, depending upon the nature of the problem.

As far as fixing it, you pretty much do have to start over if you want to be safe. If you didn't make a bootable clone on a separate hard drive you might lose quite a lot. It's highly, highly advisable to make one before ever attempting things like installing developers previews on an existing machine.

Assuming you don't have a bootable clone, do you have access to another computer? Also, do you have access to a USB flash drive?

 

[Iproxmagiikz]

I have 4 items on my Exclusion list for Time Machine - 1. The Time Machine HDD
2. Another partition of the same HDD that i use for Media files
3. A pathway to a big games folder that i don't need backed up
4. Another pathway to a folder that i don't need backed up
Nothing else. How do I make sure for the future that i can make full back ups. I thought i was safe with my TM backups to install the preview but obviously i am not :L


At the moment, i can access Safe Mode fine, so i have access to all my files and all the back ups, but the back ups are not bootable. I have got a few external hard drives and i have access to another computer as well.

 

[Meyvn]

First, just in case there is something permanently wrong with your Time Machine backups, before you do anything else, make sure all of your crucial documents and files you can't just re-download are backed up somewhere safe. Your TM backups may turn out to be fine once you're back on Mountain Lion, but you're always better safe than sorry. As far as your TM exceptions, the games and porn thing makes sense. But if you have to exclude your Time Machine, does that mean you're backing up your main hard drive on itself?

Here is an article with a step-by-step instruction set for making a bootable install drive of Mountain Lion.

Once you've got that set up, either with a USB stick or an external hard drive (beware, you'll have to erase the contents of the USB stick or external hard drive unless you want to create multiple partitions on the drive/stick; definitely DO NOT use the one your Time Machine backups are on), go into 'startup disk' in System Preferences, and choose the stick/external drive to boot from.

Once it's booted into the Mountain Lion installation, DO NOT click continue or anything resembling it just yet. Before you do anything else, choose 'Utilities' at the top of the screen, open Disk Utility, and then follow the instructions here to reformat your MBP's internal drive (again, leave your Time Machine drive alone).

Now that your internal drive's been erased, you can go forward with the Mountain Lion installation. Once that's through, if you have your Time Machine drive still plugged in, you should be given the option to migrate from a recent backup to retain your apps and crucial files.

Personally, if possible, I prefer only to migrate the home folder, and to instead reinstall apps individually in the normal way as I need them, if only because simplifying the automated work Migration Utility has to do eliminates possible problems. Though, if you really feel it would be too much work to reinstall all the apps you need manually, go ahead and do a full migration rather than just the home folder.

As far as best practices in the future, many (most, perhaps even?) of us here, in addition to (or even instead of) a Time Machine backup, will have what's called a "bootable clone" on an external hard drive. Rather than selectively backing up files as they change, a bootable clone is just a single copy of your entire hard drive exactly as it is. It isn't going to help you if you accidentally delete a file you needed and remember that you did it several weeks later (which Time Machine can help you with).

But if your hard drive fails, you can boot directly from the bootable clone and your machine will go on working exactly as it did the last time your clone was updated (I prefer daily). You could also, in case you hadn't guessed by now, erase your internal hard drive in the event of a major software problem, and clone the clone back onto it, returning your machine to normal in cases exactly like this one.

SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner are the recommended solutions for this. Disk Utility can clone a drive, but it can't create bootable clones or create an update schedule that routinely replaces just the changed files, greatly reducing cloning time and drive wear.

Best of luck. If you have any other questions I'd probably direct them to the 'Mac Basics and Help' forum. You'll typically get more hits there than here.

EDIT: Re: the "I thought I was safe" bit, I understand. The thing is, TM is a consumer-facing backup solution. It's designed to help with things average consumers do, like accidentally deleting files they didn't realize they needed, or dropping their machine, killing the HDD (or just, having the HDD fail on them by no fault of their own). They don't usually install developer previews of OS X.

Devs who install developer previews are advised by Apple to only install them on test machines, rather than daily drivers. Non-devs are advised by Apple to not install them at all. Many do this anyway (which is fine). Those who do are wise to adopt a backup solution more suited to their needs, namely, a bootable clone.

 

[Iproxmagiikz]

Firstly, i ran a sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine SkipSystemFiles in terminal, and got 0 as a reply, indicating that System Files should be backed up. Now i am at a loss as to why they aren't.
I liked the idea of using CCC a couple of months ago, but i never ended up switching to it. As for excluding Time Machine, it is greyed out in the exclusions list, so i think its just the default.. i wouldn't want it backing its self on it itself anyway.

From what you are saying, i should:
Clone everything on my IHDD and my ISSD to my ExHDD's Film partition, using CCC.
Then use a second ExHDD as a Bootable ML Installer.
Bootup using the ML installer and use disk utility to.... what. At the moment i have my OS loaded on my SSD, and my Home Directory loaded on my HDD. Do i wipe both and install everything on my SSD? or can i just wipe my ssd and install ML fresh on that..?

Also, when migrating, can it use the TM back up if the system restore cant use the TM back ups?

Thanks for your help by the way, i appreciate it.

 

[Meyvn]

As for excluding Time Machine, it is greyed out in the exclusions list, so i think its just the default.. i wouldn't want it backing its self on it itself anyway.

Ah, didn't realize that was the default; I haven't used TM in years and must not have noticed it when I did. Yeah, i wouldn't want TM backing up itself. I just assumed since TM is on an external hard drive it would be unnecessary for it to do that. Apparently not. Anyway:

From what you are saying, i should:
Clone everything on my IHDD and my ISSD to my ExHDD's Film partition, using CCC.

No. If you have two drives in there you'll want to do two separate partitions, ideally both of which are exclusively for those purposes.

Then use a second ExHDD as a Bootable ML Installer.
Bootup using the ML installer and use disk utility to.... what. At the moment i have my OS loaded on my SSD, and my Home Directory loaded on my HDD. Do i wipe both and install everything on my SSD? or can i just wipe my ssd and install ML fresh on that..?

That does complicate matters. It would certainly be cleanest to wipe both, and then try migrating first from the Time Machine (which may or may not work if it wasn't working for system restore), and then from the clones. Permissions get very messy if you don't wipe both drives. It will be the least messy if you can just migrate successfully, one way or another, since Apple would be handling the bulk of the burden.

I also might consider in the future, keeping your Home folder on the SSD if that's where your OS is installed. You can still keep your huge files like the iPhoto and iTunes libraries, download folders, GB projects and so on, on the HDD instead, but having the Home folder itself on the boot drive means it only takes one drive to boot your Mac, instead of two, something you might be grateful for your if your internal HDD ever fails and your SSD doesn't.