It was bound to happen, but I never thought it’d end like it did.
After more than seven years of service, my 2008 iMac gave up the ghost. The culprit wasn’t a bad hard drive but a failed graphics card. Its age, a scarcity of parts, and the cost of opening up and repairing the machine made seeking a fix cost prohibitive.
I tried updating drivers, to no avail. I restarted in verbose mode. I restarted in safe mode. I reset the PRAM. I sought out bad third-party software. I dabbled in Terminal with no luck. I finally created a flash drive installer/boot-up disk. That led to a brief flirtation with a successful boot. But I could never get beyond Apple’s default El Captian desktop image. Any attempt to launch an application would ultimately lead to a restart and the vicious cycle would begin anew.
I was pretty much fsck’d. Fortunately, I’d made a clone of the hard drive and had a Time Machine backup on hand, as well. I could boot the clone on the laptop, so I knew I could get to my files.
So I had to cope with replacing the machine. The hassles of moving to a new computer are well documented. First there’s the upfront expense of a new machine. Then there’s having to wed legacy hardware with Apple’s new standards (read: abandoned FireWire 800). Finally, there’s that moment of truth: whether the data that was dutifully backed-up on the clone of the departed computer makes it onto the new machine.
Having managed all that, I’m finally back online. There are a handful of posts lurking in the wings. I’m mulling whether to post them or just let them wither on the vine. Time will tell.
