Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I just unable to back up my macbook. the backup disk shows not available even i have connect it to my matchbook. "Toshiba EXT" i remove it and wanted to reselect , it's not coming back and not showing for selection anymore. Why is this so difficult to use? can someone assist ? thank you
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.13
Thank you Lucy!
Apple Stores are bound to some rules, so they rapidly become disinterested in equipment beyond a certain age. Arguably, Apple customers support that approach, when consumers demand the latest technology and assume (wrongly) that if a Mac or an iPhone doesn't meet the latest macOS or iOS system requirements, it becomes instantly worthless.
The desire to run the latest software offering the latest features is understandable, but as you update expensive software products from Adobe or Microsoft or whoever you will find it becomes more demanding of the Mac or iPhone on which it runs — hardware with limitations that cannot be changed.
The decision to buy new equipment ought to be when whatever you have no longer does what you need it to do, or develops an intolerable fault that's uneconomical to repair. Your Mac's screen may be one of those cases. Apple generally will not repair "vintage" hardware, but competent repair shops can almost certainly replace your Mac's screen. The cost is likely to approach $1000 or so, leaving you to decide whether it's worth the cost.
If you value the information on that Mac, you should definitely invest in a new backup disk for Time Machine. It will work fine. It may interest you to know I'm typing this reply on a 14 year old iMac. It still does everything I needed it to do when I bought it, including backing up to a Time Capsule and external hard disk drives:
Despite its age it's not even breaking a sweat performing all my usual tasks.
I did upgrade its memory from the original 4 GB, but its original spinning 250 GB hard disk drive is still working fine. If and when that fails I might replace it with a solid state drive, making it work faster and extending this ancient Mac's lifetime even more.
However, I will never be able to unlock it with my Apple Watch, which wasn't even released until after this Mac was relegated to "vintage" status. How will I cope?
Sure! Here you go:
How to back up your Mac with Time Machine — Apple Support
There have been many internal changes to the way Time Machine works over the years but its basic user interaction has not changed at all.
Thanks John, this is helpful. I have bought an external disk drive(LaCie) from Apple store yesterday to backup my machine. As they told me my external storage device has broken. The team is able to do it manually but they are unable to use the Time Machine to help me to back up due to various reasons and partially my laptop is vintage, i am not sure what happen too, i know nothing about it. I will need to explore Time Machine later if i would need to change to a new Macbook.
However i dashed down to the nearby Apple Service centre yesterday afternoon. I had spent about 3.5hours for them to figure out and solve the issues about 6 persons supporting it. Due to my laptop is being told a VINTAGE, what a shame, nothing much they could help further unless I bought a latest version, bought a new one is no way, i had been struggling to use and understand macbook since i bought it at my own use and never have chance to learn to use about it.
But, at least the team at the orchard service centre is manage to help me to upgrade to the macOS Catalina and solve some of the compatibility issues after i got home and notice it, like some movie or mewatch from internet, some graphic is blank and only able to hear sound but Catalina works.
Aside, I have told the team another problem, the side of the screen has started to become white patch or any words/tool bar along the edge won't be able to read or see unless i use extended Monitor.
My laptop is still looks news, keyboard is good and able to function at minimum - turn on/off, sound good, use page, numbers, keynote, upload pictures (although not much fantastic functions compare to window 11 Microsoft excel, words), i do not think i need to change or buy a new machine unless the Apple store won't support anything VINTAGE, and it sounds unwelcome when nothing of the team know much about vintage here.
Have a lovely weekend!
Much Thanks
Lucy Yapp
Many thanks John.
This is very informative and helpful.
Do you think I could find some video instruction on using or trying Time Machine to backup my Vintage Macbook air by using the highest version MacOsCatalina that my vintage machine can go. Or How to use MacbookOS Catalina Time Machine to back up to LaCie (External hard disk drive)?
Have a lovely weekend.
Thanks & Regards
Lucy Yapp
Many thanks John.
This information is very helpful.
I will try on my machine.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Regards
Lucy Yapp
how to reselect my prefer backup disk
