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Using Migration Assistance
- Thread starter gelie
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I agree, I keep my Time machine backup on a NAS and set up a new machine recently using Migration Assistant on the network and it worked as smooth as butter. In fact i was really impressed with the speed both the NAS and the machine were connected to the network on gigabit Ethernet.
My Experience with Migration Assistant:
My 2010 iMac 27" died 2 weeks ago.
Ordered and got late 2015 27" 5K last week.
Set it up as new.
Old iMac had HDD corrupt, got new HDD from local shop for £130
El Capitan installed.
Used Migration Assistant on old iMac from time Capsule. On Wi-Fi
Everything worked perfect.
Copied iTunes and iPhone/iPad backups from old iMac on USB disk and moved to new iMac
Everything working fine on new iMac
Conclusion: Migration assistant worked OK for me but took 14 hours for 300Gb data.
Hope it helps
My 2010 iMac 27" died 2 weeks ago.
Ordered and got late 2015 27" 5K last week.
Set it up as new.
Old iMac had HDD corrupt, got new HDD from local shop for £130
El Capitan installed.
Used Migration Assistant on old iMac from time Capsule. On Wi-Fi
Everything worked perfect.
Copied iTunes and iPhone/iPad backups from old iMac on USB disk and moved to new iMac
Everything working fine on new iMac
Conclusion: Migration assistant worked OK for me but took 14 hours for 300Gb data.
Hope it helps
I am also now leaning towards a clean install. My one big worry is Quickbooks 2011 which I will have to reinstall and I've heard horror stories about having to upgrade etc. Oh well. I haven't done a clean install since maybe 2005
... so there is all sorts of crap I really don't want to being over to the new machine!
I migrated from a PC......
Failed first 2 times after running for many hours.
Finally I said enough of this and coupled the two machines together via a wired connection to a network switch.
Ran way faster and no issues.
Failed first 2 times after running for many hours.
Finally I said enough of this and coupled the two machines together via a wired connection to a network switch.
Ran way faster and no issues.
Yes, I noted this several Macs ago and it's one of the first things I change. The problem with the setup process is you haven't gotten far enough along to change that setting so staying close by and moving the mouse every so often does the trick. Seems they could have just made it so there's no sleeping during setup.
Okay, so far everything is going fine with my migration from 2007 iMac to new retina. Right now my screens are saying "transferring documents for the user....." And the bar is moving to the right and it says below "about 54 minutes remaining at 17MB/s" that number was 16 but changed to 17. (Just changed to 18).What will be on my screen when the transfer finishes? Not sure what I am looking for. Thanks for your guidance so far. Oh and my RAM install went fine.
Okay, everything went smoothly and the migration is done. For some reason two email accounts were messed up but I figured it out and got the green dot so I assume the are functioning now. My next question is I need to get rid of all my documents, photos etc. on my old iMac since I am giving it to my brother. Can I just go ahead and start deleting this stuff? I have a backup on an external hard drive and of course everything is now on my new iMac. What about my Time Machine backups on my old iMac? Can I trash those or not? Sorry but I've never done this before. Thanks for the help.
Since this is all in the family, what would be easier is just go into Users & Groups and make a new admin account for your brother. Then login to that account and from there go back to Users & Groups and delete your account and all the data in it.
That way all your data is off of there and your brother starts out fresh.
If you are sure you got everything off the Time Machine backup, you can just delete it.
Thanks so much for the help with all this. I had to order a FireWire to thunderbolt adapter for my Lacie external hard drive so when it arrives I will make a Time Machine backup on the new iMac to be safe and then follow your instructions. One question, I have a bunch of games like Angry Birds etc. on the old iMac, does deleting my account get rid of all them and things like photo mechanic, Netflix and the like? By the way, love this iMac. Way faster and looks amazing.
No.... all the apps should be in the main /Applications folder and they will be available from the other account.
Since I will be doing a clean install, I was wondering....
- Is it possible to recover apps from my TM backup? I would like to be able to bring MS Office and a couple other apps over to the new machine. If not via TM backup, is there another way to get those over?
- Am I correct in assuming that when I plug my external HD/ TM into the new machine, it will behave the same as on the old? i.e. I will be able to just open TM & recover files (and hopefully apps)?
This is my question/worry too. How can I get a few apps over without reinstalling since it may require me to upgrade (Screw you Intuit).
I'll eagerly await the answer from some Guru who knows.
Since I will be doing a clean install, I was wondering....
Although I've used TM since the beginning, I've never had to recover anything from it. Am possibly over complicating this again. Midterms are due this week & I am trying to plan ahead for a smooth transfer.
- Is it possible to recover apps from my TM backup? I would like to be able to bring MS Office and a couple other apps over to the new machine. If not via TM backup, is there another way to get those over?
- Am I correct in assuming that when I plug my external HD/ TM into the new machine, it will behave the same as on the old? i.e. I will be able to just open TM & recover files (and hopefully apps)?
1. Sometimes... if it is a simple app that was installed just by opening the DMG file and dragging the app from the DMG into Applications, then yes, you can just restore that app file from the Applications folder on the backup and it will work. But many apps use a PKG installer that install support files in other folders and those cannot just be copied over like I described. MS Office is one such app. You will need to reinstall it on the the new machine using the installer.
2. It won't by default see the old backup since it was made on another Mac. What you need to do is option click the Time Machine menu item and select "Browse Other Backup Disks..." then select the old backup.
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It depends on how you transfer. If you use the restore or Migration Assistant options after a clean install, you have completely wasted you time since any problems existing before will be importing right back in. A true clean install is an erase and reinstall of the OS, then a manual copying over of the individual data folders from the backup. The Time Machine backup can be used as the source of this manual copy if you like.
But to be clear you're talking about doing a complete restore or MA...right. If, for example you restore the documents folder from a TM backup that shouldn't be a problem, right?
@Weaselboy thank you for all of your patience and wisdom... you are a rock star!
Something went wrong and really appreciate help/advice...
Just got the 2015 iMac. Turned it on and, in Setup Assistant, connected the 2011 iMac's OS/apps held on a TB SSD. It recognized it and transferred everything. I unchecked one admin account called 'test' and only transferred the one I use 'main'.
On reboot, I was given the El Capitan login screen but when I input my correct password (it accepts it and I get that white circling thing), it responds with: "You are unable to log in to the user account 'eyaloren' at this time. Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred."
I rebooted and I got that message on reboot even without/before inputting the password.
Tried CMD-R and a reinstall OS option but that didn't help.
On phone with Apple now but wanted to see if someone here had any ideas. Should I reboot with CMD-R and use Disk Utility to wipe the drive then reinstall the OS? Will that prompt me to get the Setup Assistant again? If so, can I then make sure both admin accounts 'main' and 'test' are selected and have a hope that this will work?
Or am I stuck doing a clean install? Not the end of the world but I was amazed how fast the Setup Assistant worked to transfer everything.
Thanks!
E
GOT IT! Problem was the unchecking of the 'test' account. I booted with CMD-R, used Disk Utility to wipe the main drive and reinstalled. This time, in Setup Assistant, I transferred everything. Started in the 'test' user and then made sure the 'main' user's account was pointing at the external for the user folder. All set and so much faster/easier than a 'clean' install.
Just got the 2015 iMac. Turned it on and, in Setup Assistant, connected the 2011 iMac's OS/apps held on a TB SSD. It recognized it and transferred everything. I unchecked one admin account called 'test' and only transferred the one I use 'main'.
On reboot, I was given the El Capitan login screen but when I input my correct password (it accepts it and I get that white circling thing), it responds with: "You are unable to log in to the user account 'eyaloren' at this time. Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred."
I rebooted and I got that message on reboot even without/before inputting the password.
Tried CMD-R and a reinstall OS option but that didn't help.
On phone with Apple now but wanted to see if someone here had any ideas. Should I reboot with CMD-R and use Disk Utility to wipe the drive then reinstall the OS? Will that prompt me to get the Setup Assistant again? If so, can I then make sure both admin accounts 'main' and 'test' are selected and have a hope that this will work?
Or am I stuck doing a clean install? Not the end of the world but I was amazed how fast the Setup Assistant worked to transfer everything.
Thanks!
E
GOT IT! Problem was the unchecking of the 'test' account. I booted with CMD-R, used Disk Utility to wipe the main drive and reinstalled. This time, in Setup Assistant, I transferred everything. Started in the 'test' user and then made sure the 'main' user's account was pointing at the external for the user folder. All set and so much faster/easier than a 'clean' install.
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Ok Getting ready to set up new iMac and just re-read this thread. I'm planning on using SA with booting from an external HD Thats been backed up using TM(usb3). What prompt to I respond to? Migrating data from TM? Also by doing this is this considered a "clean install" ? Thanks
You don't want to boot to the external. Just turn on the new machine and it will run through setup assistant and ask you to choose a language etc.... then you will be asked if you want to import data. Say yes then you will be asked from where.... i.e. directly from another Mac or from a Time Machine backup disk. Now attach the TM USB drive and tell it you want to use that as the import source. You will be asked to choose the drive from a list. Then just follow the prompts to import everything.
This is not what is considered a clean install.
Thanks Weaselboy. Two questions:
1) why is this considered a better method that just hooking up my old iMac to the new one and run MA?
2) is it better to do a clean install? If so how do i achieve that?