Question re: Mavericks install over 10.8

[mikeshep]

Hi, been awhile since I've done a new installation or reinstall on any of my machines and just
needed a refresh on a couple of things. I have a Mini quad i7 -2012 - that my studio needs
to run Mavericks on, for a certain piece of 'legacy' software that won't work well with newer OSX.

The machine's been on 10.8.5 for a long time and I've never downloaded Mavericks so I can't get it
from the App Store but I know there's a way to make a bootable installer disk with a USB stick.

Question. I want to back up all data that now exists using Carbon Copy Cloner - as good as
anythying I guess. (I am not a bit Time Machine fan and generally haven't used).

If I do not do a Clean Install, I presume that I would then boot from the Installer disk,
install, then reboot into the new Mavericks OSX, and should find all my data intact, right?

Meantime, as far as the CCC clone, that can't be restored back to the Mini if the OS is newer,
right or no? Hope this q makes sense.. Just wanna have this all straight and not lose access to
data by doing something careless.

THANKS!

 

[hobowankenobi]

1. Make your CCC clone to an external. Boot to it, verify it works!

2. Make a second clone if you can, more is better. Test it too.

3. Run the 10.10 installer on the internal drive as-is, don't erase or change anything. It will effectively upgrade the OS and everything associated from 10.8 to 10.10.

4. Run all applicable updates to be sure you have the the latest versions for the OS.

5. If you need to restore 10.8 from the cloned external drive: Boot to the external clone, erase the internal drive with Disk Utility (being sure to backup/copy anything new or unique on it first), and clone back to the internal drive.

 

[organicCPU]

The machine's been on 10.8.5 for a long time and I've never downloaded Mavericks so I can't get it from the App Store but I know there's a way to make a bootable installer disk with a USB stick.

Usually you'd need the Mac App Store download to make the USB installer thumb drive.

@hobowankenobi, 3. should be 10.9, not 10.10

 

[mikeshep]

Usually you'd need the Mac App Store download to make the USB installer thumb drive.

@hobowankenobi, 3. should be 10.9, not 10.10

Yep, hoping someone can do me a favor and point me to some source for 10.9 installer resource... Crazy why these things are so guarded for legacy users who've been loyal to Mac forever but ...i digress. Anybody Here happen to have some means of finding a 10.9 installer download outside of App Store ? Thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

Mavericks wasn't Apple's best work.
Could you use Yosemite (or even El Capitan) instead?

Regarding the CCC backup -- one cloned backup should be good enough.
Be sure to actually boot from it first, to be sure that it IS "bootable" if needed.

As for finding a 10.9 installer...
If you can't get it from Apple, well.... "there are other ways" (cough, choke).

Another option:
There are ebay sellers who will sell you a flash drive with the Mac OS installer of your choice pre-installed. Will run about $20 or so. Might be an option if nothing else works for you.

 

[mikeshep]

Mavericks wasn't Apple's best work.
Could you use Yosemite (or even El Capitan) instead?

Regarding the CCC backup -- one cloned backup should be good enough.
Be sure to actually boot from it first, to be sure that it IS "bootable" if needed.

As for finding a 10.9 installer...
If you can't get it from Apple, well.... "there are other ways" (cough, choke).

Another option:
There are ebay sellers who will sell you a flash drive with the Mac OS installer of your choice pre-installed. Will run about $20 or so. Might be an option if nothing else works for you.

Yup, it might be stable (this software ) in 10.10.5 or 10.12/13...haven't had chance to test but will - and
hopefully can/wil lmove ahead if so... meantime apparently 10.11 is a definite no, and 10.9 said to be best (for this).

I do remember finding the ebay options for this sort of thing a few yrs ago. Thanks for reminder...

As for CCC, yeah I already have a LaCie backup USB drive ported to this machine so figure I can just put the CCC clone there (of the current HD in 10.8.5) and will try that and a test boot before I do the Mavericks install.

Thanks!

 

[mikeshep]

One quick question for any CCC users... I decided to create a new Partition on an external 4tb HD which already had 3 partitions on it. AFAIK - and from what I'm reading in CCC Help, That partition alone should be able to be a Bootable CCC Backup, right? I think CCC has made that a relatively 'automatic' thing in recent versions - I'll test it once the backup is done anyway. (This Mini HD is 250G so I made the partition 300G).

Thanks again!

 

[Fishrrman]

You'd really do better to create the cloned backup on a drive that is dedicated specifically for such backup.

Sometimes trying to put a bootable cloned backup onto a partition that is "several partitions down" from the "first" one... doesn't work all the time.

I'm not saying it won't work. It might work.
Try it first and see.
But the bootable cloned backup on a separate drive is the better way to go.

 

[mikeshep]

You'd really do better to create the cloned backup on a drive that is dedicated specifically for such backup.

Sometimes trying to put a bootable cloned backup onto a partition that is "several partitions down" from the "first" one... doesn't work all the time.

I'm not saying it won't work. It might work.
Try it first and see.
But the bootable cloned backup on a separate drive is the better way to go.

Ahh, was afraid of that. I hate to have to buy a separate external HD just for one individual machine's backup since most of my spare HDs have so much space open...

 

[organicCPU]

For me multiple partitions with different bootable backups made with CCC have always been working since Mac OS X 10.3.

The only inconvenience I've ever had was with cloning two different systems hosting the same macOS version (Sierra) to different partitions of the same drive. It happened, that just one Sierra Recovery HD could have been successfully built on the external drive. I guess that this is not a big deal as they should have been equal, anyways. However, all partitions (El Capitan, 2 x Sierra, High Sierra, 3 x Recovery HD) on that drive are bootable.

If I change to another major OS version, right before, I use to make a bootable backup and write an additional copy to a compressed Disk Image file that I store at two different safe places. The dmg file isn't bootable directly, but it can be restored to a bootable drive (including Recovery HD), if ever needed.

Everyone has different backup preferences and needs, so there is no one fits all strategy.

At least in case you seriously depend on a backup, there is one widely known wisdom:
If you didn't successfully restore (or boot) a backup, you don't have one.

 

[mikeshep]

For me multiple partitions with different bootable backups made with CCC have always been working since Mac OS X 10.3.

The only inconvenience I've ever had was with cloning two different systems hosting the same macOS version (Sierra) to different partitions of the same drive. It happened, that just one Sierra Recovery HD could have been successfully built on the external drive. I guess that this is not a big deal as they should have been equal, anyways. However, all partitions (El Capitan, 2 x Sierra, High Sierra, 3 x Recovery HD) on that drive are bootable.

If I change to another major OS version, right before, I use to make a bootable backup and write an additional copy to a compressed Disk Image file that I store at two different safe places. The dmg file isn't bootable directly, but it can be restored to a bootable drive (including Recovery HD), if ever needed.

Everyone has different backup preferences and needs, so there is no one fits all strategy.

At least in case you seriously depend on a backup, there is one widely known wisdom:
If you didn't successfully restore (or boot) a backup, you don't have one.

Good to know. I think I'm fine with this backup being on a multi-partition backup drive - worst case scenario, even if it weren't bootable i could copy important data and reinstall the OSX and apps - wouldn't be bad to have a clean install at some point anyway...

 

[organicCPU]

even if it weren't bootable i could copy important data and reinstall the OSX and apps

Just test it to be bootable. If it isn't, you might get important data from it and some apps might be transferable, too. But it's unlikely that you could ever reinstall Mountain Lion from an expected bootable clone that doesn't boot.