Dual boot OSX with Accordance in both partitions

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hi ya,

 

  I am considering preparing to go from Mavericks to Yosemite.

  I am thinking that I'll target 10.10.3 for production and I believe this is not yet released though I cannot find out easily from the Apple site exactly what the current one is - I believe it's 10.10.2.

  Anyhow in the spirit of try before you don't buy I was thinking to create a separate partition and do Yosemite install on the second partition. This would allow ready comparison of cosmetics and function before upgrading the production partition. It would also allow me monkey with partitioning/dual-boot on a Mac which is not something I've played with to date.

 

  I would naturally take also few apps out for a spin in this configuration. Accordance is one of a handful apps that is up if the Mac is up, which it always is unless something bad happens.

 

  So finally the question. Will I confuse Oaktree records of my account, or otherwise break anything - eg. DropBox - if I was to install a second copy of Accordance in the Yosemite partition and switch back and forth between them to check stuff out ? If DB sync is an issue I could of course turn that off. I don't believe this violates licensing given the 5 machine limit and in any case it's all me and only one image would be active at a time etc. Obviously let me know if that's an issue.

 

Thx

D

[Peter Brylov Christensen]

I'm still very hesitant about upgrading to Yosemite due to the many reports of it being glitchy even at 10.10.2, although it seems to have gotten substantially more stable compared to the initial release. So I might reconsider upgrading once my Master's thesis is done. And yet, I'm not a fan of how the the interface looks at all. I guess the minimalistic "flat design" thing just doesn't appeal to me. Anyway, making a separate partition is a pretty good idea if things should go awry. As for using Accordance on both partitions, I'm not sure how that'll work out either - maybe you might just want to install the trial version in order to avoid the possibility of messing up your account and using an additional license. Best of luck, if you decide to go through with it!

 

With kind regards

 

Peter Christensen

Edited March 20, 2015 by Pchris

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Thanx Peter. Yeah it's at least in part the minimalist design that got me concerned along with reports of a new system font which is harder to read on non-retina displays. So I want to be able to not do this if it isn't really good. And  yep I hear you about 10.10.2 not really being quite there yet it seems. Anyhow will certainly report back as it goes on if it goes on.

 

I actually don't know if Oaktree records the number of licenses in use. I suspect not but it is an unknown currently and one reason why I posted. And certainly the demo version is a good option - I hadn't thought of that.

 

Thx

D

Edited March 20, 2015 by Daniel Semler

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Well the dual boot thing is a few steps but it works. Well I think it does. I am still in Yoseland and have yet to try to boot back but my Mav partition is still present and looks fine. Firefox and Acc demo installed and functioning.

 

It's certainly a bit flat out there and the minimize, maxmize, close button really look like a traffic light on its side ! Some icons I like well enough, like the one for the Terminal app. Others not so much.

 

Yep that worked - back in Mavland. Cool. I can post details if there is interest.

 

Thx

D

Edited March 22, 2015 by Daniel Semler

[Peter Brylov Christensen]

Sure, I'd like to hear more about it!

[Λύχνις Δαν]

So the basic theory is to create a second bootable partition on your disk (if you only have one like I do) or one another disk if you have several. My system disk is 1TB but not especially full so there was room to create a 100GB play partition for Yosemite. The procedure is documented in a set of web pages mostly on osxdaily.com. The most important thing is a full backup before the partition resize operation and actual installation. The installation I did from a USB installer created from the downloaded Yosemite upgrade. I suspect you could live without this step but later on if the test is successful and you want to do the upgrade for real you can save yourself a download. Well except that by then 10.10.3 might be out and you might want that. In any case I ended up creating a dual boot USB drive that would boot to either the Mavericks or Yosemite installer.  As a bit of background it is worth understanding how to downgrade if anything goes horribly wrong, though in this case with a second partition you can pretty much just destroy the partition and start again. But I looked at how to downgrade via TimeMachine if required. I haven't had to do it so I cannot speak to its efficacy but the process is apparently very easy. Finally there is a Mac Tips description of how to do a dual boot Mavericks Yosemite setup. Most usefully it shows you how the Startup Manager looks if you've not used it before, which I hadn't.

 

The basic upgrade safely procedure is here : http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/13/prepare-mac-for-os-x-yosemite-update/  [uPGRADE]

The procedure for creating USB boot drives from the installation software is here : http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/16/make-os-x-yosemite-boot-install-drive/[uSB]

Partition resizing using Disk Utility is very simple even with data in the partition : http://osxdaily.com/2009/11/20/resize-partitions-in-mac-os-x-with-disk-utility/[DISK UTILITY]

Downgrade procedure : http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/22/downgrade-os-x-yosemite-to-mavericks/  [DOWNGRADE]

Dual boot of Yosemite Mavericks : http://mac-how-to.wonderhowto.com/how-to/dual-boot-mac-os-x-mavericks-10-9-yosemite-10-10-0155422/ [DUAL BOOT]

http://osxdaily.com/2010/07/21/how-to-do-manual-backups-with-time-machine/[bACKUP]

 

Procedure:

 

0. Read all the above first before doing anything. This step is really important.

 

1. Download the Yosemite installer from the App Store. It will automatically start running and present you with the first splash page. Just go to the menu and exit it. You will find the /Applications/Install OS X Yosemite.app. You need this file later so remember where it is.

 

2. Get a USB stick that you can erase or repartition. There is a little bit of confusion in some posts about how big this drive needs to be. Both Mavericks and Yosemite create a bootable installer of about 5.3 GB, with Yosemite being ever so slightly smaller. So I created a two 8 GB partitions on a 32GB flash drive so I could do both. But if its just Yosemite you'll only need one. Follow the steps in [uSB] above to do this.

 

3. At this point do a full backup of your system. I did this with TM. See [bACKUP] on how to get an immediate TM backup done. I actually dropped in a new USB drive for other reasons, into TM and it pretty much decided to do an immediate first backup which is always a full one, so that was simple. In any case get one. TM is a good choice because [DOWNGRADE] above shows you how to use it to get yourself out of trouble if necessary. I always like not only to have a backup but also to know how to use it before that becomes necessary. Researching how to do recovery while your Mac is in critical condition is not as entertaining as it sounds.

 

4. After the backup is done, you can repartition your system disk as per [DUAL BOOT] above. I created a 100GB partition so I had lots of room for test apps and so on but it's really way too much for most purposes.

 

5. Then load up the USB boot installer and restart the Mac holding the option key. I am not a Mac expert and don't know exactly how when the key is checked for but the simplest way I found on my iMac to do this reliably was to do a Shutdown, not a restart, and then hold the option key down while hitting the power switch to boot the Mac. Then once the Startup Manager appears (again see [DUAL BOOT] for a screen shot, you use the arrow keys - yep no mouse support at this point to select the OSX Installer. From here on it's just a straightforward fresh installation of Yosemite. Make sure you select the new Yosemite partition you created when you choose where to install !

 

6. This seems obvious, but do not rush through this. It will take some time, the back can literally take hours, but don't short cut it.

 

7. Switching back and forth between the systems is another shutdown, option-startup cycle but that's it.

 

Thx

D

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Ok so finally bit the bullet and did the real upgrade.

Did a new full backup. This is pretty straighforward. I dropped one of my TM drives (I have three) out of TM reformatted it and then put it back into TM. That caused a full initial backup to be done. Then I grabbed the 10.10.2 USB I had from above and booted it. It booted the installer and failed generally to identify itself as Yosemite which was a bit irritating. You can tell because the progress bar is different in Y. I selected the Macintosh HD as the target and mildly alarmingly it said Installing .... I would have preferred it said "Upgrading ..." but it didn't. Anyhow I waited the requisite 30 minutes and found that it had indeed done an upgrade which was what I wanted.

 

Had another moment of oh no when Accordance seemed to not want to place with the Check For Updates. Not sure what it was but a restart of Acc and it was all good. So, so far all is good on 10.10.2. So yep I'm behind but I'll do the update though Photos seems a bone of contention but apparently iPhoto is no more. Doesn't worry me I don't believe, but apparently concerns some very much.

 

The only remaining step was to remove the 100GB test partition via Disk Utility and then coalesce the space into the main partition.

 

So overall the approach worked fine.

 

Thx

D

[Boni]

Hi,

I have been working with OS 10.10.3 and accordance 11.0.4 for quite some time without any problems - if this information helps.

Boni

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Thanx - yep it looks good. Finished all updates last night and so far so good.

 

Thx

D

[Peter Brylov Christensen]

Hm, perhaps it is time to upgrade after all. Still don't like the visuals, though..

[Fabian]

Hallo Peter

 

Ich habe hier im Forum geschrieben, dass ich Probleme habe mit Accordance und Yosemite. Nachdem Joel sich die Crash-Reports angeschaut hat, hat es sich herausgestellt, dass die Dateistruktur meines Mac durcheinander geraten ist. Auch der gute Mann an der Genius-Bar konnte nicht mehr helfen. Nun steht ein clean-install an. Ich habe durch Internet Recherchen herausgefunden, dass wenn man den Mac zu doll abwürgt, die Dateistruktur schaden nehmen kann. Und das habe ich einmal gemacht.

 

Was will ich damit sagen: Die Probleme zwischen Accordance und Yosemite bei mir sind selbstgemacht und es besteht nun keine Gefahr mehr für ein upgrade deinerseits.

 

Grüsse

 

Fabian 

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hey Fabian,

 

  That's really interesting/scary. What did you do to the file system exactly ? Did you fill the system disk ?

 

Thx

D

[Fabian]

Hello Daniel

 

Im not really sure that my problems came since then. But I had a crash, I believe Word or LibreOffice, (Accordance was open too) and then I want to shut them down with alt+cmd+esc but this was not really helpful so I had with a little anger shut the Mac down. Against the pop-ups that then came. 

 

After I had many problems with Accordance. The Mac repair program was not able to solve the issue. So I went to the App Store and they made a Filesystem check, with the conclusion, that they also can't repair my Mac. 

 

In the meantime I found on a Forum that when we shut the Mac rough down the Filesystem will crash.

 

Since then I had new install Yosemite and Accordance. I had delete all from Accordance first, except my User Notes and Tools. 

 

At the moment Accordance and Yosemite works fine (except what is not solved from Apple since Yosemite and my native language surface). But I have now that sometimes I set my Mac on Standby by close the cover in the evening that on the other morning the battery is more than empty. But that is a new issue and I think it is not related to Accordance.

 

Greetings 

 

Fabian

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Ok that makes better sense. Unix file systems (FS) are usually not too bad at recovery from unclean unmounts like that. But it can certainly happen that there are problems. After that FS repair is a specialist job. fsck (Filesystem check) is run routinely for uncleanly unmounted FSs on boot up. They will detect various metadata issues in the filesystem and repair some. I've read about DiskWarrior being useful in cases like this but honestly I have never had any experience with it. At some point it's not worth repairing and you wipe and reformat the partition and reinstall which is what it sounds like you did. That completely recreates the FS is a clean and healthy state. But this of course requires that you have a good back up or you lose data.

 

The battery thing I don't know. If that is unexpected behaviour which it sounds like it is (I don't own a Mac book so don't know) then there is either something running consuming the battery, or they have a bug somewhere - hardware or software. One for Apple or an Apple forum I'm afraid. One thought though, given you say that you are putting it into standby by closing the cover I wonder if it's not actually going into standby mode at all. If there is another way to put it into standby I would try that and see if it also results in a flat battery. Good luck with sorting it out.

 

Thx

D

[Fabian]

Hello Daniel

 

Thanks for your replay. The Guy on the Genius-Bar also taken the word DiskWarrior in his mouth. But he might it is better to make a clean install. And then make a 1:1 copy and store this as last help for next time. He sad this has help him a few times. But the Software for this is not without costs, so I'm unsure if I will do so.

 

I have a NAS with 2 HDs (Raid 0) which runs as Time Machine too. Crypted, but I'm not sure if I make a clean install I have access to download the missing files. I will ask my Mac and NAS reseller in the next town. 

 

This is my first Mac and I had it bought especially for Accordance. With the XP I am more familiar.

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

[Peter Brylov Christensen]

Hallo Peter

 

Ich habe hier im Forum geschrieben, dass ich Probleme habe mit Accordance und Yosemite. Nachdem Joel sich die Crash-Reports angeschaut hat, hat es sich herausgestellt, dass die Dateistruktur meines Mac durcheinander geraten ist. Auch der gute Mann an der Genius-Bar konnte nicht mehr helfen. Nun steht ein clean-install an. Ich habe durch Internet Recherchen herausgefunden, dass wenn man den Mac zu doll abwürgt, die Dateistruktur schaden nehmen kann. Und das habe ich einmal gemacht.

 

Was will ich damit sagen: Die Probleme zwischen Accordance und Yosemite bei mir sind selbstgemacht und es besteht nun keine Gefahr mehr für ein upgrade deinerseits.

 

Grüsse

 

Fabian 

 

 

I'm very sorry to hear that, Fabian, but I'm glad that things finally have cleared up for you. It does seem that Yosemite is more stable now - the only thing that holds me back these days (other than the visuals) is that I don't need the upgrade at all in order to do my work. When that day comes, I'll make the switch..and hopefully get used to the minimalistic graphics interface.

 

With kind regards

 

Peter

[Fabian]

Hello Peter

 

Yes its a good choice to finish first your Master? degree and then switch to Yosemite or however the next will called.

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

[Enoch]

Vot der dumboozle?

 

I have gone to Yosemite & found nothing bad, only good.

For one thing it continues the marvelous Dictation application which turns speech into typing in a word processor.  And Yosemite has very many languages you can choose to work in.  You can even choose USA Spanish!

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hello Daniel

 

Thanks for your replay. The Guy on the Genius-Bar also taken the word DiskWarrior in his mouth. But he might it is better to make a clean install. And then make a 1:1 copy and store this as last help for next time. He sad this has help him a few times. But the Software for this is not without costs, so I'm unsure if I will do so.

 

I have a NAS with 2 HDs (Raid 0) which runs as Time Machine too. Crypted, but I'm not sure if I make a clean install I have access to download the missing files. I will ask my Mac and NAS reseller in the next town. 

 

This is my first Mac and I had it bought especially for Accordance. With the XP I am more familiar.

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

 

On the access to the old files you should be able to use Migration Assistant to copy files off a Time Machine disk. It appears that it was possible to mount TM devices in Mavericks from the previous install in the new one, but there are reports of issues there also. Best to check with Apple or Apple specialists. I don't claim to be one. I note also that last night one of the updates I did was a recovery update which was 500MB in size, and it was related to recovery from TM backups under Yosemite. I don't know what they fixed but it struck me as a large update. But that doesn't always indicate how much was actually changed.

 

One other thing on Migration Assistant. It appears that it and Accordance do not play nicely together in all cases. I don't know the details but it appears to result in a permissions problem. There are posts in the forums on this issue for example : http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/topic/12282-migrated-to-new-imac-cant-use-many-modules-or-workspaces/?hl=%2Bmigration+%2Bassistant&do=findComment&comment=56959. The basic answer seems to be a reinstall of Acc, then use Easy Install and then copy your preferences and notes and such from a backup.

 

As to 1:1 cloning software, hmmm. It works of course but you then you need to be able to get the additional changes that occurred since you made the clone until the point when you have your problem. If you don't you'll lose your changes in between. So TM or something like it is unavoidable.

 

Thx

D