Hi Brian,
OK, it definitely helps to know what your problem is! We all tend to have our different ways to go about things like this and I'm not familiar with your USB mobile modem. I have used them when travelling overseas when some places I have stayed that offered internet access used them. Some worked better than others but that could just have been down to how the owners set them up ;o) So.... just a few thoughts: An alternative approach: · You do not say what model of a Huawei USB modem this is but the Exetel site https://www.exetel.com.au/mobile-broadband suggests it is the Huawei E8372 and the quick start guide for this modem https://wirelessgear.com.au/content/huawei-e8372-qsg.pdf shows that it has a wi-fi function - if this is your model, have you tried turning on the wi-fi whilst the modem is in one off the working computers and then connecting the other computer(s) by wi-fi? · If the modem DOES have inbuilt wi-fi then this could be the most convenient way to go - installed in one of the fixed macs (iMac or Mac mini) and providing wi-fi internet access to the other two - which would avoid having to swap the modem from computer to computer. · The performance of this set-up is likely to be very dependent on the positioning of each device both with regard to the mobile reception of the modem in the host device and the proximity of the other computers for the wi-fi connection. · If this seems like a good solution except for the poor performance of the inbuilt wi-fi then there are wireless routers which accept a plug-in USB modem eg: https://wirelessgear.com.au/dovado-tiny-3g-4g-lte-usb-modem-router-bulk-packaging/ note this is just an example from google – not a recommendation. Troubleshooting the existing problem: The alternative solution may not be an option or, like me, you like to solve the problem anyway ;o) Whilst re-installing your OS MIGHT solve the problem - to me it seems a bit premature to jump to this conclusion. Sort of like "My car won't start, I'd better put a new engine in!" Personally, I would be trying a few tests to try and work out where the problem lies. The fact that the modem is working with the two other computers proves that the modem and network connection work OK. The fact that your Mac mini also uses El Capitan rules out basic OSX incompatibility - I assume both computers are running the latest El Capitan version OSX 10.11.6? Have you tried setting up a new, bare admin account and seeing if you can get the modem to work – that would rule out the problem being any corrupted user preferences/settings. With regard to your old setup and the warning to install legacy Java SE 6 – this is definitely an old, unsupported version of Java – so this may well have been the problem (rather than the old technology of the old USB device. The current version of Java is Java 8. Installing Java is straying off topic a bit but, if you are interested, there are OSX FAQs here < https://www.java.com/en/download/faq/java_mac.xml> Your idea of booting of of a clean bare install of El Capitan on an external boot drive should work OK – but it doesn’t really help you know where the problem is. The problem then is how to manage the mirastion of all your user apps and data that you do want - without migration over whatever is causing the problem. Not that it can’t be done – but it may involve eitherquite a bit of time and trial/error or just starting with a completely clean installation and then re-installing apps one by one and managing your data accordingly. That’s probably enough for now ;o) Just my thoughts. Cheers Neil Neil R. Houghton Albany, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 Email: [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: <[email protected]> on behalf of Brian W Scott <[email protected]> Reply-To: WAMUG <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, 30 June 2019 at 11:34 To: WAMUG <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Is it possible to have an External USB boot drive? Hi Neil, Thank you for your reply. The short WHY is I have a Huawei USB stick fitted with a SIM for mobile internet that works with my iMac (High Sierra) and my Mac Mini (El Capitan) but there is something stopping it from working on the MacBook Air (El Capitan) so I want to clean out what ever is stopping it from working. To make the WHY even longer; Web pages I use were not loading any more while the OS on the MacBook Air was Lion so I updated to El Capitan. The web pages work fine now using my home modem, but when I tried to access the web using my old USB stick (from Optus, mobile account with Exetel) that had been working fine since 2011 under Lion it came up with a warning to install legacy Java SE 6 which I did, I in fact updated to the latest, and the warning went away. But the stick still was not logging onto the web. So I figured the stick is simply old technology that won’t work anymore and got this latest one from Exetel with a new SIM and new account. Except it’s not working on my MacBook Air but works fine on my other computers. When the stick is first inserted a window pops up with an Install icon which I double clicked and something was installed, what and where I don’t know. The stick doesn’t appear as device on the system so there is no way finding an un-install which probably doesn’t exist any way. I feel that there may something from the old stick in the MacBook Air’s system preventing it from working, (maybe the Java update?) I can’t find anything in my Library and don’t know what to look for anyway hence the desire for another clean install. I thought if I boot from an external drive with the stick in the MacBook Air and it works I can be more confident in re-installing the OS on it. Of course I could just re-install the OS on the MacBook Air without doing and external boot drive but I thought there would some benefit in having one and I don’t want to risk disabling my MacBook Air by risking what may be a faulty re-instal. I have a clone of my MacBook Air when it had Lion on it, but I only use the machine when I’m out, it mainly gets used to access the web and nothing else. So I’ll have another go today to make a boot drive though I’m not super confident after yesterdays fail. The drive I’m using has 3.99 TB available and the MacBook Air has 208 GB available but I’m wondering if the USB powered drive may be too slow and that may be effecting the install. I thought of going to something smaller like an iPad Air but then I’d end up with a MacBook Air siting around doing nothing. Plus I’m 70 now and don’t get about much any more so I don’t want to spend heaps for a mobile device when I already have one, even though at the moment it’s one that isn’t doing what I want. Exetel support tried to help but once they learned it works on other computers they figured the fault lay with the MacBook Air. I’ve not tried to contact Huawei and I am not sure if that’s even practical except to maybe to find what was installed and where. Thanks for your help. Brian > On 29 Jun 2019, at 6:18 pm, Neil Houghton <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Brian, > > Before starting anything, I assume that you have at least one full up-to date backup of your existing system! > > > I think you need to be a bit clearer on what you are trying to do and why. > > Some thoughts: > > • If you just want to have a temporary external USB boot drive then you do not need a large USB drive. When I decided to upgrade 3 computers to El Capitan I created a bootable USB flash drive with just the El Capitan installer on it. The actual USB drive is only 32GB capacity and only 6.2GB of that is used for the El Capitan Install app. > • This drive allowed me to boot-up the computer and erase/reformat the internal hard drive and do a clean install of El Capitan. Obviously this approach requires that I have already got my original system and user data backed up elsewhere. Then you need to decide what apps and data you want/need to migrate over. > • When you say "I would like to wipe MacBook Air’s drive and re-establish El Capitan on it. (Why I need to do this is a longer story)" - the "WHY" will probably have a bearing on "HOW" you should go about it! For example: > • If your existing setup is all working fine and you just want/need to reformat the internal drive (say change the partition scheme) then you would probably just clone the existing system drive/partition to an external drive, reformat the internal drive and then clone back from the external drive to your new internal target. > • On the other hand, if your reason(s) to wipe the drive and re-install the OS is down to some perceived problems with the existing set-up then just moving the existing set-up to the external drive and then back again will most likely retain the problem! > • The nature of any existing problem would, most likely, tend to drive the best approach to reinstalling the system and user data - is the problem likely down to system corruption or user data/preference corruption? > > I'm not sure how helpful all that is but my experience has definitely been that more time spent analysing and planning BEFORE you dive in will often save problems down the track and save time in the long run. > > HTH > > > Cheers > > > Neil > -- > Neil R. Houghton > Albany, Western Australia > Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 > Email: [email protected] > > > -----Original Message----- > From: <[email protected]> on behalf of Brian W Scott <[email protected]> > Reply-To: WAMUG <[email protected]> > Date: Saturday, 29 June 2019 at 17:23 > To: WAMUG <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Is it possible to have an External USB boot drive? > > Hi, > > I found I could do it with the Recovery Disk/Partition. > > But it’s complaining that the 4TB drive I’m trying to put it on is not big enough. > > I suspected it must using the MacBook Air drive to store stuff so I’ve made some room on it and will try again tomorrow. > > 208.95 GB should do it I guess. > > At one time it said it had About 1,102,053,030 hrs 22 mins to go. (That’s 125,722 average Gregorian years) > > But about a minute later it continued on to it’s next activity. > > > > On 29 Jun 2019, at 1:34 pm, Brian W Scott <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > I have a MacBook Air 13 inch, Mid 2011 with Mac OS 10.7.5 El Capitan 10.11.6 on it. > > > > I would like to wipe MacBook Air’s drive and re-establish El Capitan on it. (Why I need to do this is a longer story) > > > > I have a 4TB USB powered by the USB port it doesn’t have a power supply. > > > > I was thinking I could use it as an external boot drive while I deal with the MacBook Air’s drive. > > > > If it is possible to do the above could someone please point me to some instructions for getting this done. > > > > Thank you, > > > > Brian Scott > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > > Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
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