TarDisk and Mojave

I feel for you, having lost all that data because Luis at TarDisk screwed up. But I wouldn't rush out looking for a lawyer just yet. I'd give the End User License Agreement (EULA) a look-see first before shelling out for legal representation. Odds are that there are numerous clauses in it that indemnify the company from any liability in your case.

Your typical boilerplate EULA basically reads something to the effect of "we don't care if your computer blows up, your house burns down and your cat gets pregnant, even if it's the result of our negligence or product defects; you've already agreed, simply by using our product, that you can't hold us liable for anything." Only in the computer hardware/software industries can companies sell a product like this - if a car company or electrical appliance maker tried it (heck, if ANY company making other types of consumer products tried it), various Departments of Consumer Affairs at the federal and state levels would be down their throats feet first. But for computers and related items, it's completely "use at your own risk." I don't know if anyone's ever tested the validity of the boilerplate EULA in court, but I'm inclined to doubt it - that's the kind of thing that would be major news. I think it's a pretty heinous practice, but unfortunately I don't know of any computer-related company that doesn't use the EULA as a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for dodging any kind of legal responsibility regarding a defective product or service.

Consider the experience a valuable lesson: for your most important and hard-or-impossible-to-replace data, make MORE THAN ONE backup. Good to keep one copy offline - saved to shiny plastic discs or to a hard drive that's disconnected when not in use - so if something does happen to make the computer keel over and take everything it's connected to with it, your data is still intact. Better still, keep one copy somewhere OTHER than where you keep your computer, preferably at least a few hundred miles away - good protection for major disasters like fire, flood, etc.

No thanks 🙂

Especially that TarDisk guys disappeared and not answering for any emails

Gah. No clue. Restore from backup again? Maybe a slightly earlier one?

If that doesn't work you'll probably have to take it in.

I'm not suggesting anything - I'm just describing what worked for me with past OS upgrades. I have no idea as to whether it will work for this one or not, so proceed at your own risk.

So far I'm still standing here hitting that button myself. I'm up to about 30 reboots at this point... going to keep trying for a few days. I do have a backup I can restore from if it comes down to it, but for me that's much more of a headache, time suck notwithstanding.

I had a dream about that restarting worked. I’ve restarted over 30x so far. I was at Apple for iPhone battery replacement & it was too busy to get support with Mojave Install. Will go again for Mojave/TarDisk issue

Right, I mentioned that above -- it actually mandates APFS for Fusion Drives, which appeared to be part of the problem.

This is very helpful information and thank you for sharing it -- it's the one ray of hope we've had so far!

So after you did the clean install, did you have to re-pear your Tardisk to the drive, or did it just install the OS directly to the combined drive to begin with? Also, what kind of backup did you restore from?

I haven't even started yet... just posted the above a few minutes ago.

The doc was clearly created a year ago for High Sierra, so I guess the link must be out of date.

There must be a place you can download Sierra from somewhere...

Samfromdyer, if we could get more details regarding your lone upgrade success story, it would be very helpful to us all.

Do you know whether you were using APFS under High Sierra or not? This would have been the case if your machine uses anything other than a solid state drive, or if you had previously followed TarDisk's pearing instructions above under High Sierra.

When you did the clean Mojave install, did you do it on the existing TarDisk partition or did you have to repear your TarDisk again afterwards?

Did you restore from a High Sierra Time Machine backup after you got on Mojave, was was it a new backup that you did before the clean install?

Thanks!

In general, it sounds like this is an undertaking for more advanced users -- and simplicity was one of the primary reasons I went the TarDisk route. These clean installs and APFS conversions are scary and a bit beyond my comfort-level, even though I have a Time Machine backup. I fear that making these fundamental structural changes might interfere with a Time Machine restore.

This definitely is a very complex process, but the main thing about being an "advanced user" is to simply not be intimidated by complex processes. The guys in the Apollo moon rocket had literally a thousand switches around them and had no idea what most of them did. They just read the manuals, the whole way there and the whole way back, and followed the steps, one at a time.

Lol. I failed three times. That is a critical step as that is the step that re-formats from APFS to HFS+. Most of you guys will likely get it on the first try, but if it helps just one person save a few minutes of time, its worth me simple message.

So after ten days, a couple dozen frustrated emails exchanged, and my support ticket getting deleted, I finally managed to wring an ACTUAL SOLUTION out of the distracted, absurdly vague tech support guy.

It largely jives with what we've been hearing here from our very helpful peers, but I laid out with a bit more granularity in my email so it should be easier for the less technically savvy among us to understand. Here we go:

I reiterated my complaint to Luiz that TarDisk has made no effort to get this complex and uninituitive process out to its customers, and asked again that they do so now.

Not surprisingly, he didn't respond.

I feel so duped by this company. This process seems so intimidating, for a product that is (and continues to be) sold on its simplicity. That nothing on their website has any reference to any OS since Sierra -- while they're continuing to sell their product -- seems irresponsible. And their support and response-time has disintegrated.

Agreed. This product was widely marketed and doesn't have a lot of competition for what it does -- they must have a huge customer base. Macs are known for having an extremely high proportion of users who always upgrade to the newest OS, so this must be affecting nearly everyone who uses a TarDisk. And yet there still hasn't been one public word about any of this from the company. No warning ahead of time, and no guidance after.

Their shiny, friendly website hasn't been updated in years and their support pages are dated to the point of obsolescence. Their support staff seems to consist of exactly one guy, and he's not what I would call a man of many words. It took me weeks to get that process out of him, and I had to piece it together one bit at a time based on the most pithy, vague descriptions imaginable.

Despite many email exchanges over a great many days, Luiz did not even take the time to understand my problem until just this morning (he thought I was somehow already on Mojave, despite my repeated reminders that I was not), and so he was giving me not only vague but also frequently inapplicable instructions this whole time. Even once the misunderstanding was cleared up, I would never had understood his undetailed replies were it not for the additional information that other users were kind enough to post here for us.

And now we have to go through another days-long series of grueling procedures just to get us to where everyone not using TarDisk has already been for three weeks?

Wretched.

Wonderful idea, though if he quit being CEO four months ago I don't know how much help he might be. Hopefully he's willing and able to forward our concerns to the new management, or at least give you the information we need to do so. Let us know how it goes!