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Waited to upgrade MBP- Now reading older posts about access problems to Time Machine backups made with Catalina.. Any advise/cautions? We want to use same external drive [2T WD My Book] and keep the files.
Appreciate community taking the time.
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
Personally and IMHO - set the Catalina TM Drive aside for safe Keeping. Start a New Drive for Monterey
As previous person mentioned - the TM Backup with Catalina only has the items mentioned in that response. But least the TM Backup Drive with Catalina will be useful if one needs to get back to Catalina after a Clean Installation is performed.
Do you have a Rescue Plan In-Place. This comprises having 3 Backups using 2 methods and 1 Off Site incase of Theft, Loss or Natural Disasters. A Time Machine Backup is very useful and can be used to Revert to Previous Working macOS.
For addition purposes - two Tested Clones each to separate external drives. This is insurance incase the upgrades goes sideways. At least one Tested Clone and / or Time Machine Backup should be Off - Site
Does my CCC backup have to be bootable for me to restore data from it?
Some users have experienced problems/upgrade failure skipping macOS versions like you want to do.
I would first upgrade to big Sur and then go to Monterey.
To get Big Sur see:
To add you previous persons posting regarding Catalina to Big Sur and then Monterey.
There are reports appearing on the ASC Forums regarding failed installation of Monterey on older Qualifying Apple Computers. In most cases this is related to having a NON Apple Original Internal Drive ?
The EFI Boot ROM included in Monterey is verifying for Original Apple Drive and if not found , may Balk or fail to upgrade to Monterey.
Reports indicate the EFI BOOT ROM is Required to Flash the Computer and is a requirement for a Successful Monterey Installation.
Empty Space Requirements >> If upgrading from macOS Sierra or later, your Mac needs 26GB of available storage to upgrade. If upgrading from an earlier release, your Mac needs up to 44GB of available storage.
Would suggest 50+ GB empty space to be more sure of things.
It's a backup file and is there in case something fails. But it contains only user data, user settings and apps ... no system at all. So if the upgrade fails, TM will be of no use as far as the OS is concerned.
If you upgrade successfully to Monterey, just erase the TM drive and create a new backup.
Thank yous for all the advice! 😁
No CCC does have to be bootable
Yup, does not have to be and even CCC is suggesting not to attempt if going to Monterey as the ASC is a Best Effort
Any advise/cautions for upgrading to Monterey from Catalina 10.15.7 in terms of accessing the older TM files
