Can I restore settings, apps and data from an external hard drive to new Macbook Pro?

I recently lost my Macbook Pro to water damage. It was about 3 years old and tuned for comfort. Unfortunately, my most recent backup is at least 3 months old. I purchased a new MacBook Pro and I'm wondering what my options are for migrating my settings, apps and data from the old hard drive to the new MacBook Pro? I have a USB drive bay that I plan to attach to the new MBP to gain access to the old hard drive. Someone suggested Migration Assistant but my research hasn't turned up any information about migrating data from an external drive.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

THANKS! I guess my research wasn't THAT thorough. I booted with the external drive attached and setup immediately gave me the option to setup using Migration Assistant. It was a little slow via USB (2+ hours) but it was nothing compared to the time it would have taken to do it manually. My new 15" MBP looks exactly like my old 13" MBP. AWESOME!!!
Thanks again!

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Yes; if it's an USB drive, you can just plug it in, and there are adapters to connect a FireWire drive to a Thunderbolt port. You'll be given the option to migrate data from it when setting up the new computer or by launching the Migration Assistant in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder.
(113054)

How do I transfer an imovie from an external hard drive to my macbook pro iMovie 9

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Then click VIEW/EVENTS BY DISK. You should see your external drive listed in the Project Library and the Event Library.
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Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
You can only start from an external drive if OS X is installed there. If not, it won't appear as a bootable volume because there isn't any operating system inside it.
As you have a Mid 2009 MacBook Pro, it's better to start from the Mac OS X disc that came with your Mac. Insert it and hold the C key while your Mac is starting. After starting, go to Utilities menu > Disk Utility, select "Macintosh HD" in the sidebar and repair it. If you can't get it repaired, take the computer to an Apple Store.
If the hard drive can't be repaired, the only option to recover your files is to use an application as DiskWarrior, but it's expensive and it's not sure that it will work, because it may fail

I have yosemite on my iMac.Can i restore to an earlier time from my external hard drive when i had Mavericks installed?

Hi all. I have Yosemite on my iMac. Can i restore via my external hard drive to an earlier time when i had Mavericks on my iMac? If i can which operating system will i end up with? I would like to do this because i prefer Mavericks to Yosemite. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

I've never seen that problem, but others have reported it. Maybe you should search for those other topics. You might try the following:
Try these in order testing your system after each to see if it's back to normal:
1. a. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
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2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode, then restart again, normally. If this doesn't help, then:
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When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
4. Reinstall Yosemite: Reboot from the Recovery HD. Select Reinstall OS X from the Utilities menu, and click on the Continue button.
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Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
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Can I copy music iTunes Music Folder from my external Hard drive to new PC?

not sure if this is possible but I copied my folders (documents/music/itunes/itunes music folder) from my local hard drive from laptop to my external (for backing up purposes) and now i have a new computer. can i just simply copy/paste this folder to my new computer and open itunes and it will be there. i know it's probably too easy but was hoping someone could help me out???? thanks.

You can by dragging them from itunes to your external drive this will copy them to it. Then do the opposite for from you drive to the new computer. Just make sure if you don't intend to keep the drive connected to your new computer. That you put copies of the songs in a folder on it before putting them on itunes or you have problems playing your songs.

How to transfer my backed data from my external hard drive to new user

I have backed up my profile using Time Machine onto an external hard drive. I have opened a new user name on the same iMac but have not been able to transfer my backed up profile to this new user name. I see that my Launchpad apps are there but cannot see my files. I thought that once I used Migration Assistant to do this, my iMac would look exactly the same as the original profile and have my files visible etc. My files are not here. What am I doing wrong? Have I missed out a step? Thank you!

If you deleted the old user, try to inherit the backup.
Inherit a Backup
Inherit a Backup (2)
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HOW DO I TRANSFER PC ITUNES FILES FROM WESTERN DIGITAL EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE TO NEW MACBOOK PRO?

I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT MY NEW MACBOOK PRO AND ITS SUPPOSE TO BE HERE TOMORROW! THERE IS ONE MAJOR CONCERN I HAVE THOUGH, I HAVE ALL MY MUSIC FILES ON MY WESTERN DIGITAL ELEMENTS HARD DRIVE (1TB). THE HD IS FORMATTED FOR WINDOWS THOUGH. I WATCHED YOUTUBE VIDEOS ON HOW TO REFORMAT THE HD TO MAC BUT IT ERASES EVERYTHING OFF THE HD. SO TWO QUESTIONS,
1.HOW DO I TAKE MUSIC OFF OF MY EXTERNAL HD AND PUT IT ON MY NEW MAC EVEN THOUGH ITS WINDOWS FORMAT AND NOT HAVE IT ERASED WHEN I FORMAT TO MAC?
2. HOW DO I REFORMAT THE EXTERNAL HD FROM PC TO MAC AND WHAT OPTION SHOULD I SELECT?
THANKS

I'm very glad your excited about getting your first Mac.
On the Internet, it's not polite to use ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT MEANS YOUR SHOUTING!!!
So with that out of the way.
efromlancaster wrote:
1.HOW DO I TAKE MUSIC OFF OF MY EXTERNAL HD AND PUT IT ON MY NEW MAC EVEN THOUGH ITS WINDOWS FORMAT AND NOT HAVE IT ERASED WHEN I FORMAT TO MAC?
First your Mac is going to need to read the external drive.
Mac's can read exFAT (since 10.6.5), FAT32 and HFS+ (Mac format) external drives.
I'm going to assume your drive is formatted NTFS, the Windows format that is also on the boot drive of Windows machines.
For that your need to install a free piece of software on the Mac here (bookmark this page!)
NTFS Mounter (for WindowsNTFSdrives)
That will allow your Mac to read the NTFS formatted drive. You then get all your files off that you want to save.
efromlancaster wrote:
2. HOW DO I REFORMAT THE EXTERNAL HD FROM PC TO MAC AND WHAT OPTION SHOULD I SELECT?
Once you have gotten all your files off, in the Applications/Utilities folder on the Mac is a program called Disk Utility and it looks like this.
You select your external drive on the left and click Erase > Format > exFAT and click Erase. A warning will pop up and you say ok.
The exFAT format can be read on both Windows PC's and Mac's. Allows for large file sizes over 4GB.
Now this format is for going between Windows and a Mac. Windows Vista and 7 can read this format fine, if you have XP you need to download a free update for exFAT from Microsoft (its easy to find, just search for "exFAT XP microsoft")
Now! however there has been one report that the exFAT formatted on a Mac didn't work on the PC. So if that happens, just format the drive exFAT on Windows first, then the Mac should see it. So check first before doing anything and have a copy of the data elsewhere just in case.
Now if you intend to use the external drive for TimeMachine or a Carbon Copy Cloner/Superduper clone (like "Ghosting") of the OS X boot drive, then you need to format the drive HFS+ journaled in Disk Utility and it cant' be read natively in most cases by a PC unless you install adiditonal software on the PC. (and likely the PC can't read a TimeMachine drive, I don't know I haven't tried it, so your on your own on that)

Beachball and hanging after putting old hard drive into new MacBook Pro

Hi there,
I really hope to find some help here.
The situation:
I had a MacBook Pro Early 2008 running Lion (10.7.5) until it died about a week ago (mainboard broken).
In this old Macbook Pro I had two hard drives: 128GB SSD and 1TB SATA 5400.
I bought a second hand MacBook Pro Late 2011 on ebay and upgraded the Ram to 16 GB.
Then I put the two hard drives in the new MacBook Pro Late 2011.
The Macbook is super fast and very responsive but every couple of minutes it is hanging for a few seconds or I get a beachball randomly.
This can happen in Finder, Google Chrome, Adobe Dreamweaver, basically anytime using any software.
I tried to create a new account and see if the problem persists. And yes, it does.
I tested the hard drives (disk utility) and the Ram (memtest/terminal) and all is ok with this.
The Macbook Pro Late 2011 comes with a 256 GB SSD and an empty slot for the second hard drive. The Macbook seems to function normal when using the 256GB SSD with Lion installed.
Unfortunately my external backup hard drive is not working anymore so I can't restore from there.
What do you recommend? Would it make sense to make a backup now, take out the 128GB and put in the 256 GB hard drive?
Please advice!
Thanks for any kind of help in advance!
Chris

I know people that have been doing things for longer than 10 years and they know jack. Formatting the HD is not really good "advice" in this situation.
I'm not cocksure - you just think I am because I'm disagreeing with you opinion, which you believe to be sacred (because you've been commenting for 10 years?).
So I thank you sir for your opinion but I certainly do not need your luck.
Later.

HT201250 How do I get my information from my external hard drive to my MacBook Pro?

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What follows assumes that you have been using Time Machine, backing up to that external drive.
The easiest way would be to connect the external drive, then reboot into Recovery HD. When you restart and you hear the chime, hold down the option key until the screen appears with the different drives displayed. Click Recovery HD.
In the screen that comes up, choose Restore from Time Machine Backup. You will then be given a choice of full backups to restore from; you would try the most recent one first.
Reply with problems or results please

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its not even old i just bought it on november 2012. it worked fine 2-3 weeks but now it not good. even apps take more time to open. it is getting too slow so soon. anyone with solutions ? please help me.

What kind of external device is it? USB 2 is the slowest port on the Mac, Firewire 800 and eSATA and Gigabit Ethernet are much faster, USB 3 and Thunderbolt are extremely fast.
Also, if the hard drive is almost full things can slow down.

Can't copy my music from external hard drive to new MacBook Pro hard drive. "This operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items."

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Hi..
Best to post your topic in the iTunes for Mac community here.

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Hello B3NN13,
If you would like to add the music from your external hard drive to iTunes without copying it to the iTunes Library on your internal hard drive, you may find the following article helpful:
Add files to your library without adding them to your iTunes folder
When you add an item already on your computer to your iTunes library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder. The original file remains in its current location.
You can change this setting so that files are added to your iTunes library without being added to the iTunes folder. You might want to do this, for example, if you prefer to store video files on an external disk but still want to view them in iTunes.
Choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced.
Deselect the checkbox next to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.”
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Sincerely,
- Brenden

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I used Migration Assistant to transfer my data from my external hard drive via Time Capsule to my restored Mac Book Pro. When I now go into Time Capsule I there are red minus signs in the corner of all the folders that are contained in my back up. How do I get rid of this and access my previous back-ups?

Select the drive and Finder > Get info and at the bottom "ignore permissions on this volume"
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..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Another method is to copy the entire folder, then change it's permissions.

How can I restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. Using Migrat

I would like to restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. When I tried using Migration Assistant it only gives me my internal hard drive as an option to restore to. The internal hard drive on my macbook isnt large enough to store the files.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
OS X can only restore data to the drive where Time Machine backed up files from.
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Can I restore settings, apps and data from an external hard drive to new Macbook Pro?

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