Mac Switcher upgrading Mac, advice needed!

[bugfaceuk]

Hey,

About this time last year I bought my first Mac (a little Mini) and it has served me well. However I find myself unable to resist the lure of the new Intel Macs, and I've just ordered an Intel iMac.

Now although I've upgraded from one Windows box to another many times, I've never upgraded a Mac. So I've got a few questions I could really do with some help with while Apple busily assemble my new toy.

I added a usb hard drive to my mini, so I assume that anything on there will be easy enough to move across (my new hard-drive is plenty big enough), I can just plug it in and copy.

How do I move my e-mail settings, favourites, files etc across to the new Mac? I'm not a .Mac member, would that help? Is there any automated way without .Mac I can copy across files and "non-installer" apps?

I'm also assuming for things like Photoshop, I just need to shove the disk into the new machine and do a fresh install? Or does Apple have some magic here to?

I have a home network, and I've heard that there is some kind of "upgrading from another Mac" option during install, but how can I get to the old machine? Can I use my network, or do I have to have some kind of Firewire/USB connection?

If I screw it up first time, can I "redo" later? Or is it a one-shot wonder?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated, even if I've not asked the question I should have, at this point I don't know enough about Macs to know what I don't know, if you know what I mean!

Thanks in advance!

 

[mduser63]

Make sure you have a 6-pin to 6-pin FireWire cable ready. When you get your new Mac and turn it on for the first time, part of the setup assistant will prompt you to connect your old Mac with the FireWire cable, then it will transfer everything, including settings, apps, email, iTunes, photos etc, over to your new computer. Because your new Mac is an Intel machine, you may run into some slight bumps related to non-Universal apps, and those you'll probably need to reinstall with Universal versions (if available). Other than that, everything should "just work."

 

[bugfaceuk]

Sounds great! Will it (for example) over-write the Intel iLife stuff with the old PPC iLife? Is that the kind of bump?

Just so I understand the process...

1) Boot up new Mac
2) Go through the process until it says "Wanna transfer from an old mac?"
3) Get firewire cable, hook new mac to old mac (6pin to 6pin, no cross over stuff or anything? I have a cable for a firewire hard-drive that is same size both ends, is that "likely" to be the right lead?)
4) Boot old mac as usual
5) Automagically does clever stuff
6) Pick up hopefully small pieces afterwards...

Thanks very much for your response, you've already been very reassuring!!

Nigel

 

[FFTT]

AFAIK, you still get a free trial .mac account with any system purchase, so you might as well use it to back everything up too.

Even though the set-up assistant should make everything go smoothly, I would still burn copies of anything critical to CD.
Don't forget to check your User documents folder.

Your User/Library/Preferences folder also contains
a copy of you address book

com.apple.AddressBook.plist

Adobe still has not released a Universal Binary version of CS2 or Photoshop, so you'll need to run your current copy under Rosetta. To overcome the
RAM hunger of Rosetta, you'll probably want 1-2 GB's of extra 3rd party RAM.

You'll be most content with your system anyway running at least 1 GB RAM per processor.

 

[gallivant]

The transfer assistant during setup worked, for me, absolutely flawlessly - every little setting, every file, exactly as I had it on my old computer. It's a treat.

 

[bugfaceuk]

The transfer assistant during setup worked, for me, absolutely flawlessly - every little setting, every file, exactly as I had it on my old computer. It's a treat.

Where you going from PPC->Intel, or PPC->PPC?

 

[bugfaceuk]

AFAIK, you still get a free trial .mac account with any system purchase, so you might as well use it to back everything up too.

Even though the set-up assistant should make everything go smoothly, I would still burn copies of anything critical to CD.
Don't forget to check your User documents folder.

Your User/Library/Preferences folder also contains
a copy of you address book

com.apple.AddressBook.plist

Adobe still has not released a Universal Binary version of CS2 or Photoshop, so you'll need to run your current copy under Rosetta. To overcome the
RAM hunger of Rosetta, you'll probably want 1-2 GB's of extra 3rd party RAM.

You'll be most content with your system anyway running at least 1 GB RAM per processor.

I've filled it with 1Gb for now, single "slice" so I can add another if it really needs it...

I'm more worried about it over-writing UB Safari with PPC Safari or something, does it check versions or something to make sure it doesn't over-write a new one with an old one?

I was thinking about doing that .mac thing... Might be a very good idea...

 

[achie25]

I assume you ordered it online?

If you buy at an apple store they will do that for free.

 

[asencif]

I've filled it with 1Gb for now, single "slice" so I can add another if it really needs it...

I'm more worried about it over-writing UB Safari with PPC Safari or something, does it check versions or something to make sure it doesn't over-write a new one with an old one?

I was thinking about doing that .mac thing... Might be a very good idea...

My suggestions to you is to backup your home folder and any other data to an external HD then copy back whatever you need instead of using the import feature. While this feature is awesome it has caused problems for some importing their data from a PPC Mac to an Intel one. This may be due to some preferences of some PPC 3rd Party apps or even some corrupt files transferring over. You could also just connect your old Mac via firewire to the new one and turn on the old one while holding down the "T" key. This will start it up in firewire Target disk mode and mount the mini's HD on your new mac. Then you can just copy data over you need.

 

[bugfaceuk]

I assume you ordered it online?

If you buy at an apple store they will do that for free.

Doh!

 

[bugfaceuk]

My suggestions to you is to backup your home folder and any other data to an external HD then copy back whatever you need instead of using the import feature. While this feature is awesome it has caused problems for some importing their data from a PPC Mac to an Intel one. This may be due to some preferences of some PPC 3rd Party apps or even some corrupt files transferring over. You could also just connect your old Mac via firewire to the new one and turn on the old one while holding down the "T" key. This will start it up in firewire Target disk mode and mount the mini's HD on your new mac. Then you can just copy data over you need.

I think that's where I've settled to be honest, I have an external usb drive, and that seems like the safest optoin. Biggest thing that is unsettling me is that I've not seen anyone saying "I did it, and it was fine"... not that I've seen anyone saying "I've done it and it was a problem"... but you know....

Oh I like the sound of target mode... what a neat feature!