GENIUS TIPS macOS
macOS
Shine a spotlight on sagacious solutions
to your most maddening Mac maladies
macOS
quick-fire
questions
Can I continue my
backups when I
change my Mac?
> Yes. Provided you use
the same backup
volume, Time Machine
offers to inherit old
backups when possible.
This is harder when
upgrading macOS:
backups change in
Catalina, and once
converted aren’t
compatible with Time
Machine in Mojave or
earlier. That conversion
can take an hour or
more, and can fail.Why is my Mac so
slow starting up
in safe mode?
> Before starting up in
safe mode in macOS
10.13-14, your Mac
checks all stored Time
Machine snapshots.
Each can take several
minutes to check, hence
the delay. Catalina
doesn’t do this the same
way, so boots briskly.files properly backed up, and restart in
Recovery Mode. There, open Disk Utility,
and you’ll see what the problem is.
You may be able to delete the superfluous
Data volume by selecting it and using the
Delete APFS Volume command in the Edit
menu, or the delete volume button (–) in the
menu bar (see bit.ly/mac350ersdrv). You may
see errors when trying to delete or erase
volumes: try again if these occur, as you
should eventually succeed. If you can’t get
that to work, try performing a clean reinstall,
provided you have good backups for restoring
your apps and documents.
The simplest way to perform a clean
reinstall is from Remote Recovery Mode
(ç-å-R) with a good internet connection.
Open Disk Utility and erase your startup disk
before installing a fresh copy of Catalina.Q
I’ve ended up with two ‘Data’
volumes when trying to reinstall
Catalina. What should I do next?
by VIV GORDONA
When Catalina installs correctly,
you should see two regular volumes.
If you’re using the default name
of ‘Macintosh HD’ for your startup volume,
those two will be named ‘Macintosh HD’ and
‘Macintosh HD - Data’. The first is the new
read-only System volume, and the other is
the volume containing your Home folder and
writable files. These are joined into a Volume
Group so they can work together properly.
If there’s already a volume named
‘Macintosh HD - Data’, the installer may create
another named ‘Macintosh HD - Data - Data’,
and so on. To fix this, ensure you have all your58 | MACFORMAT | APRIL 2020
Two ‘Data’ volumes after a reinstall
macformat.com @macformatAfter installing Catalina, a third
volume on your startup disk is a
problem which may best be solved
by reinstalling from scratch.