[macvoiceover] Re: Problem solved: how to restore a backup from an external hard disk using only one USB port on a Mac ook Air?
- From: David Poehlman <david.poehlman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:20:22 -0400
now, this is the kind of solution oriented info we need.
On Jul 23, 2009, at 9:15 PM, Robin Kipp wrote:
Hi all,
just for the people who haven't read my last message on here: after
picking up my Mac Book Air from the Apple store, I wanted to restore a
Time Machine backup I had saved on an external USB drive. As the Mac
Book Air only has one USB port, this seemed to be impossible, since
this was already used by the external CD-drive. I needed the CD drive
in order to boot up the Mac Os 10.5 installer DVD, which has a
function to restore a Time Machine backup. Since I therefore was
unable to connect the CD drive and the external disk to the laptop and
thus not restore the backup, I really had no idea what to do. It was
already quite late here in Switzerland, so I wouldn't be able to call
Apple Care here. So what I did, being too desperate to wait until the
next day, is I called Apple Care in the US. I immediately got
connected to a very friendly operator, told him about my situation and
asked him if he could help me. He got right into it (and I noticed how
AMAZING (!!!) the quality of the technical support is compared to the
support in Switzerland, which is quite bad actually). The guy wanted
to know my serial number, but since my Mac Os was completely messed
up, I told him that I couldn't get it from the "About this Mac"
screen. He asked me to read it from the bottom of the device, but when
I told him I was visually impaired he was just fine with that! He put
me on hold for a few minutes to talk to someone else about my backup
problem then came back and told me it was possible to remotely launch
the whole setup DVD, meaning the DVD is in another computer (no matter
if Mac or PC), you have to start up a little program on the computer
that holds the DVD, and then your Mac Book Air can boot the DVD over
the network!!!
The Mac Book Air manual describes this pretty well (I have no idea if
this is also available for other Macs), but here's just a quick
overview of how it works.
As I don't have another Mac computer, I used my Windows PC to do it,
so I'm just able to describe how to do it on there. I'm sure it isn't
much different with a Mac though!
So, basically what you do is put the Mac Os 10.5 DVD into your
computer. A setup window will open, asking you what you'd like to do.
Here, you select CD and DVD sharing. Another dialog will open where
you can choose something like "Remotely install Mac Os". A small
application will be installed which you can then simply launch from
your Programs menu. Leave your Mac Os DVD in the drive and open this
program. There will be on screen instructions which you can read using
the Jaws cursor. The program will ask you to select which CD / DVD
you'd like to share. Next, you can select whether the computer that
will boot from the CD / DVD is connected to the network via ethernet
or Airport (this is normal WiFi, you don't need an Airport station for
that!). I chose the Airport option and clicked next. Now, you're asked
to start up your Mac Book Air. After pressing the power button, you
must hold down the option key for some time. A list of volumes to boot
from will appear on the screen, however VO won't work here (after all,
there's no Os loaded), so this is the only inaccessible part of it
where you will need a sighted person. Here, you can actually pick a Wi
Fi network to boot from, and after a few seconds, the remote Mac Os
DVD appeared in the startup volumes list!!! Neat, isn't it? Anyway,
after selecting this, the installer began booting. Using the wireless
connection, this took me significantly longer than booting from a
connected CD / DVD drive, but I'd already expected that anyway. When I
noticed that the DVD had stopped spinning in my computer's drive, I
brought up VO on my Mac Book and was able to restore the backup from
the USB disk connected to the laptop!!! So, if anyone needs to restore
a backup on a Mac Book Air, this is probably the best way to go!
Robin
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