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honestone,
73 !?!?!
Wow. OK then.
Yessir. Scout ahead and keep me posted.
But back to the computer
1-
So... doing an upgrade “in place” is not the best practice?
I’m trying to imagine the alternative. [:scratch head:]
Can you elucidate?
2-
OK, I get the car analogy.
I remember all the time spent “defragmenting” my HD on my PC, what... 30 years ago?
But I thought Macs were self maintaining.

I’ll try to learn, then practice, a maintenance routine down the road.
But...
anything by way of diagnostics or repair to be done NOW?
3-
Yipes!
I definitely got a “few” third party stuffs.
I’ve gone through them and... all of the below open and “seem” to work
(although sometimes you don’t know until you get into the weeds a little bit)
- some Adobe products (Reader mainly, some other tchotchke)
- Olympus Studio 2
- Olympus Viewer 2
- Photo Mechanic
- Team Viewer
- VLC Media Player
- Volitans Smart Utility
- Microsoft Office/Word/Excel for Mac
I have Photomatix Pro and ... it’s minor enough, I’ll happily ignore it for now, deal with it later.
Worst thing I found... I have Photoshop CS3, which is importante to me.
And it won’t open. I get this:
"To Open 'Adobe Photoshop CS3' you need to install the legacy Java SE 6 runtime"
If I can just get it to open, I guess then upgrade to the latest version, A.S.A.P.
BUT... regardless of "my" problem, if maybe I have lost the "use" of any of the programs,
were you saying that those "incompatible" apps could be causing my BLACK screen problem?
4-
And now you have gotten to the question that has been lurking in the back of my mind.
I did the CCC and the OS upgrade, I don’t know, week or 10 days ago.
I have not done very much work since then, been too busy working/fighting on/with the blacking out screen.
But there is a bit of “work” of the last week or so that I would strongly like not to lose:
- 1/one Numbers spreadsheet page that I have made entries into
- some Pages documents that I have either created or edited (hard to know how many and which ones)
- my Desktop
MY ANALYSIS for You to Critique
- the single Numbers spreadsheet I can certainly put onto a thumbdrive and add back into the Numbers application once I get this whole thing stable again. I guess. Right?
Assuming there is no “compatibility” issue depending on the OS we put it into.
- my Desktop
See, I really sorta like Sierra, some of the functionality, some of the aesthetics.
So... see my “Desktop” had sort of gotten out of control,
I don’t know... coupla hundred documents and/or folders strewn all over the desktop.
So when I got Sierra installed it sort of inspired me to do some Spring Cleaning.
I’ve cleaned off maybe half of my Desktop.
Boringly, laboriously, file by file, folder by folder, seeing what each one was,
then finding where it “belonged” in my Finder “tree” and putting it there.
I’d HATE to have to do that all over again.
So my plan... just put A/one new folder on my Desktop and drag ALL the existing files and folders into that one folder.
Then name it: “All the Files and Folders That Were On My Desktop That I Put In Here to Come Back To When The Dust Settles and Proceed with Finding a Proper Home for Each of Them

”
And then put that folder somewhere, anywhere, don’t matter.
And my Desktop will be empty and not an issue for going back in Time, or having to redo the work, or anything. Yes?
- New or Edited Pages Documents
I am least clear on this. All of my Pages documents are in one folder.
But that folder also has other “types” of documents in it as well.
Some old Word documents that I brought in from my last PC. Some web urls I have drug in.
Even an odd .jpg file or two, that live there rather than in my D.A.M. program for whatever reason.
The total folder is small enough (4+ GB) that I could put it on a thumb drive I have here (16 GB)
until the upgrade dust settles, then put it back over.
But I’m nervous about that. Lotta stuff in that folder. CAN’T LOSE IT. I’m gonna put it on a stinkin' thumb drive?
And take it off my computer? I don’t know. Any suggestions?
Any way one can search a batch of .pages files by their “created on” date, or “last edited” date?
And just put those few on the thumbdrive?
5-
I don’t understand this paragraph:
“There is the possibility that recovery can be made from your Time Machine backup. But, the process will need to begin by booting your Mac from the Carbon Copy Cloner backup.”
6-
As far as “Go the the App Store again and...”
I’m not even THINKING that far ahead. Get to that later.
7-
One thought on my mind though:
What do we do when we are ANYWHERE, who KNOWS where?, in the MIDDLE of this process, zipping around in Time Machine, CCC doing it’s thing, WHEREVER... and the screen goes BLACK? Where are we then?
8-
Could any of the issue be with coming all the way from Lion to Sierra?
Any logical strategy in going back in time to where I was the day before the upgrade to Sierra,
and... doing, then, an OS upgrade/install of Yosemite or El Capitan?
And then in a second step (when? then? later?) going to Sierra?
9-
Finally, I realize this is a LOT of text back and forth already.
[not for ME, this is my "life" right now, but for anybody just popping in, man, I can understand]
And we ain’t hardly started yet, certainly no where close to “done”.
But I’ve GOT to be clear on this this time, think it through, get it right.
Ol Ross Perot, I first heard say, “Measure twice, cut once.”
Or... Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Many more similar I reckon. Take your pick.
And that’s where I’m at. I just can’t fly through this.
So, for honestone or anybody else that picks this thread up,
if this gets too tedious, I’ll understand, no hard feelings,
but for anyone who has the patience, I’ll be much obliged.
James
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