Tonight, I have just, mostly, got my computer back up and running. Sunday night, as I was winding down for the evening, I saw that there was an update available for my computer that included a security update. Since I want to keep my computer safe, and earlier in the day I’d installed security-focused updates to my iPhone and iPad, I went ahead and started the update.
I went off to start my evening routine. When I returned half an hour later, the computer was off. That alone was odd, because usually it restarts after one of these updates and I have to enter my login credentials.
I tried to turn on the computer, but it wouldn’t start.
I told myself not to panic, that I could figure it out in the morning. Fortunately, I’d just run my nightly backup, so I was up-to-date with that.
Except, come morning, I still couldn’t get it to boot up even after trying a variety of tricks suggested as ways to get the computer to start in safe mode.
A bit of internet searching and I discovered that I wasn’t the only person who’d ended up with a dead computer after attempting the latest update. I sure wish I’d taken the time to search before applying the update!
So my computer was down all of Monday. I have a really old MacBook Air and was able to use that to do a tiny bit of work, but it’s slow. It’s so old it can’t run any of the recent operating systems.
I went online and booked the first appointment available at the Apple Store. Unfortunately, the store nearest me didn’t have any appointments this week. So today I drove over 45 minutes to take my computer in to the Apple Store’s Genius Bar.
Two very nice guys helped me. I even got to talk writing with one of them.
They ended up having to restore my computer. Meaning, everything on there was wiped. Plus, I ended up with the newest operating system. Something I’d been avoiding upgrading to because it’s a recent release and not all of my programs are fully compatible yet.
But, since I’d brought my backup Time Machine drive with me, they were able to show me how to restore my latest backup. I did this once I returned home.
Not everything is back to normal. The settings are slightly different on a few things. I still haven’t tested all my programs. But the most important ones, such as Scrivener so I could write this post, are working.
So yeah, I was saved today by the fact that the last thing I usually do on my computer each night is make a backup.
