Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

Hi,

I have to take my MacBook Pro 2017 [touchbar] in to have the screen fixed or something like that. They are "recommending" that I back it up first.

I run Pro Tools Native HD Ultimate [or whatever its called]. Current version is 2018.12.

I want to make sure I don't lose any authorizations or licenses or anything. I think I have all licenses on iLok anyway. I have everything backed up via Time Machine.

Anything I need to know or do before I give them the computer? There is a possibility that they may need to mess with the Logic Board.

Thanks.



Best,

mighty duck

Re: Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

Buy a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner. (It’s very cheap.) Clone your HD to an external drive and that’s that.

I would NOT rely on Time Machine for a bit for bit clone of your boot drive.


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Re: Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

"or something like that" what does that mean? What are they doing? What problems? This yet another display flex cable failure? If they replace the motherboard you will lose everything on the drive (flex cable failures don't usually mean a motherboard replace... but you always want to have multiple backups). I've had one similar model (2016) motherboard replaced this year for a different failure (that does not affect 2017 models), SSD chips are soldered on the motherboard and Apple will not recover content for you, it's all gone forever if they swap boards.

Do you have the whole drive backed up to time machine? All the partitions? You are asking us if it's OK or what more you need to do but we have no idea what *exactly* you have done. You backed up to what drive/computer?

You have two or three separate backups? Because the moment you need to use one backup you no longer have a backup. You have only one surviving image. What if you make a finger mistake while restoring a backup and wipe the backup... it happens. Have you tested the backups work and can be recovered from?

There are better choices than time machine for boot drive/system backup. Starting with Carbon Copy Cloner. Clone to a high quality external USB 3 HDD. Reboot the Mac off that external drive and make sure everything important to you works. Rinse and repeat for at least one extra external drive. Keep them in separate locations, not connected to the computer.

Re: Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

It means the computer has screen weirdness and flickering [resolved by turning off "automatic graphics switching", btw]. But its not to weird. Usuable, just colors look strange. Text is fine. Everything looks "melted" on boot until I log in. Apple is going to cover the investigation and repair. So I guess they will investigate first, and I suppose I can have them call me to tell me what they are going to do to fix it.


Yup.

Lacie Thunderbolt [big-ass drive, I forget how many TB]

I downloaded ccc, but have not launched it yet. Maybe try the 30 day trial. I guess I could clone the drive onto the same drive I have been using for the Time Machine backup?


Best,

mightduck

Re: Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

I don't really have any session data on the computer that is not already stored elsewhere. I am mostly just wondering about losing authorizations or licenses and such.


Best,


mightyduck

Re: Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

Do you have to have an empty new drive to use ccc, or can I just use space available on my Time Machine backup disk? There's plenty of room there, I believe.

I downloaded the trial version. Is it as simple as choosing the origin drive, then choosing the backup drive, then hitting go? Anything else required or advisable?

Thanks.


Best,

mightyduck

Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

Which is why I wrote in my first reply ‘I would NOT trust Time Machine for a bit for bit clone’.

If you don’t want to lose any authorisations on your boot drive, buy CCC and clone your HD. It’s a very cheap piece of software that is well worth having in your toolkit.

Do more though, that if you have any software that writes authorisations based off the HD ID, you will have to reauthorise that software if you boot from your ext. clone. There’s no way round machine IDs unfortunately.

Having said that, very few do that these days but I have been caught out in the past with the odd piece of software.


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Re: Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

If I clone to a drive with data on it already, I either partition the drive so that CCC is using a blank partition or I get CCC to clone the drive to a disk image on the HD with all the data on it.

I don’t like cloning to a drive with multiple folders on there already. Might just be me, but I don’t find it to be ideal.

If you clone to a disk image, the only draw back is that it won’t be bootable. But, the image can be cloned to a new drive which will be bootable.


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Re: Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

How long does CCC take to do a copy of like maybe half a terabytes ?

Re: Macbook Pro backup before repair
 

How long does it take for you to read a book, say maybe few hundred pages?

Seriously, it is not about CCC but your drives' performance. If they stream 10MB/sec or 100MB/sec or 1000MB/sec makes a huge difference.