Computer saga, Le Fin (I hope)

... or, I think I finally lost some of my Mac naivete, for whatever it was worth.

When I posted yesterday, I was convinced my computer issues had been caused by an internal Mac software problem; however I was also still convinced there was some problem lurking within my external hard drive.  That was because Time Machine, the built-in Mac back up system that writes to that drive, had been working flawlessly up until a couple of months ago; now that it was reinstalled, all fresh and pristine, it should be working perfectly, and yet I was still getting a very unhelpful error message when I tried to run it.  So with the OS (theoretically) being clean, what else, besides the drive, could it be?

So... I started external hard drive shopping.  But I had all manner of nagging thoughts.  What if I was wrong, yet again?  What if I shelled out for a new drive, only to find that IT didn't work, either?  And why, if my current drive wouldn't work as an automatic back up, did it behave perfectly when I used it as a manual back up prior to my whitewashing the system?  Did I really understand the problem?  The answer to that very obviously being no, I embarked on a Quest for Understanding.

I would make a long story long, as is my wont, but I truly can't recall everything I did or learned.  I can only say that I am FAR from being alone in having issues with Time Machine.  I learned how to find error codes and tracked them down; found fixes for them that did nothing for me.  I installed an error logger that showed me more error codes and found fixes for them that also did nothing for me.  I learned how to reindex Spotlight, something I didn't even know I had.  I read blogs of Mac geeks who wrestled through the same problems, found the same error codes, and tried the same fixes as I did; while a few were able to resolve their issues, many couldn't.  After a good solid six hours of this (no exaggeration), I decided if a bunch of Mac brainiacs couldn't solve this, no way would I, so I did what I think was the next best thing: abandon the Time Machine ship and buy a third party backup program. The one I picked is called SuperDuper!, and gets very good ratings from totally geektastic Mac-o-philes. While it will reportedly do advanced tricks for power users, it is also completely MacIdiot friendly, with a simple, predictable interface, and to my utter relief, it works and plays happily with that external hard drive I was looking to replace.  Le. Fin.

And now, to continue a tour of some of my favorite photos:

Locke Ober, my bud of many years.