How to restore a home folder to another computer?

I will try to explain this clearly.....
Our G5 non intel iMac running Leopard has died (motherboard issue). I have been using time machine and do have backups (thank god for time machine!). What I want to do is extract a single user folder (my wife's) to my iMac. I have had an iMac i7 for about a year running Snow Leopard. We cannot buy a new machine right now and I do understand how to do this on a new computer. How do I do this without interfering with anything on my iMac? What if there were software programs on her iMac that I do not have on mine? She ran Leopard and I have Snow Leopard, will this be a problem.

OK I will give it a try....I have a few options besides just checking the user folder, one is applications and the other is settings. While I don't think that I want all the applications to be installed I am not sure what to do about the settings. I have the same applications on my computer only newer versions because I have a newer OS.
Thanks for all your help!!
Kevin

Similar Messages

  • How to restore a hard drive through another computer?

    My mid-2007 iMac would not load up past the white screen. I tried everything and was unable to get the hard drive to boot up. I took it to the Apple store but due to the age if the machine they would not attempt to fix it. They were not able to boot the computer off an external drive or network. I removed the hard drive to salvage any data I could. I hooked it up to my Mac mini via a SATA enclosure. I was able to remove my photos, music, etc. I now want to restore the hard drive in a last ditch effort to try and save my computer. I have the drive pulled up in disk utility on my Mac mini. I verified the disk and attempted to repair the disk. Both times I received the message: "Error: Unrecognized file system" I am unsure how to restore this disk so I can return it to the iMac and try and get it to load up. Any other ideas?

    If the disk cannot be repaired, then try erasing and reformatting it using Disk Utility. If unable, then try with a different disk repair app, such as DiskWarrior, Drive Genius, or TechTools Pro. If still no go, get a new bare HD to put into the iMac.

  • [Solved] How to restore lost home folder permissions

    I recently moved a shared folder with a few hundred home folders in it to fill up drive space. After I moved it i made sure that it was reshared exactly the same way only to discover that each users full rights, originally granted by active directory, were
    missing. I searched the internet for hours looking for a solution and never found one, so when I created my own i decided to share my method.
    We use a simple structure. Use AD to create the home folders (\\servername\share\%username%) which gives the user full control of their folder, then enable access based enumeration so they can only see their
    own folder. What i did was move the already created folders to a temporary location, then select all users in AD and recreate the home folders using the method above. Now I have all of the correct folder/permissions, they're just empty. Next I copy the old
    folders back, and merge them with the new folders. What I end up with is essentially all of the original files in newly created folders with the correct permissions.
    Hope this can save someone the hours I wasted in research.

    Thanks JaMere! That was helpful. I was about to restore permissions from backup, but instead tried your method out of curiosity. Worked like a champ!

  • How do I relocate part of my home folder onto another drive

    Hi all
    I am about to take delivery of my new Mac Pro, but with only 512MB of startup SSD I don't have room for my whole home folder. I have found plenty of info online about moving my whole home folder onto another drive, but as my external drive is only USB3 I don't want to do that. Instead I want to move my Movies and Pictures folders only and then tell my system to forget about the old location and treat the new location as though it is the home folder just for those two bits.
    Sure I can just copy them over and delete the old folder contents, but as soon as I want to do something like save a pic or movie the system defaults to the old empty location.
    It's not the end of the world, but if I can fix it, I'd like to. The plan is to sort this on my current Mac Mini before the new toy arrives, so I can easily set up the new one.
    All guidance gratefully received.
    Regards
    Tim

    Hello,
    You can use some basic unix wizardry to make this happen.  What you will be doing is creating a unix "soft link" from your home directory to the actual location of the directories, wherever they may be.  This link serves as a "behind-the-scenes redirect" to the actual location to which you link.  For example, with the soft link in place, if you
    Here's what you do:
    Use Finder to move your directories of choice from your home directory to the external HDD.  This will require your admin password.  Now you should see the folders on your external HDD, and NOT in your home folder.  For purposes of this procedure, I will assume your external HDD is named "Storage".  Wherever you see "Storage" in the following steps, replace it with the actual name of your external HDD.
    Open the Terminal app.
    From the command prompt, type the following commands (with a <return> after each) to create a soft link (in this example we are using the "Movies" folder.  The "Movies" folder must have been moved in Step 1 to the external HDD):
         cd
         ln -s /Volumes/Storage/Movies Movies
    Repeat the "ln -s" command for each folder that you have moved in Step 1.
    Here's what's happening in Step 3:
    The "cd" command just ensures that you are in your home directory.
    The "ln -s" command creates a link from the external HDD directory, to a directory in your present location (i.e., your home directory)
    There is one side affect that I don't know how to get around.  Once you do this, the icon that shows up for the "Movies" folder in your home directory will no longer be the fancy system icon for the Movies folder.  It will be a vanilla folder icon, with an curved arrow.  The curved arrow is a visual indication that the file/folder is link to somewhere else.
    Hope this helps.

  • How to move/copy Home Folder to a new hard drive?

    Hard drive crashed in Snow Leopard, but before it did I pulled off my home folder. I am going to reinstall Snow Leopard on a new hard drive. How do I move/copy my home folder to the new hard drive? The home folder is sitting on an external hard drive that connects via firewire 400. Do I simply recreate the user account on the computer with new hard drive and copy/move the old home folder over to overwrite the new home folder? Looking forward to any suggestions.
    David

    Normally you can move your exiting home dir to another drive without any problems.  For example, see
    How to Move the Home Folder in OS X – and Why
    But you appear to want to take a home dir from another system and make it the home dir on another system.  That may or may not work.  The operations are the same, i.e., point to the new home dir via the Accounts  system prefs advanced options.  But if the account id's are not the same there is going to be permissions problems.
    Similarly, you can have permissions problems for the same reason just copying the stuff over the newly created home dir. 
    If you already know the user id's are the same then I think you may just get away with the substitution.

  • Restoring previous home folder after turning off FileVault

    HI Folks,
    I turned FileVault on a long time ago and because of its size didn't turn it off before upgrading to Leopard. After the upgrade, it became obvious that FileVault had to go--it was occupying essentially the whole hard drive and spotlight didn't work. I searched out some instructions on how to work around FV to make space and found this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1974?viewlocale=en_US.
    I followed the instructions to the letter except when I got the part where it says "Copy files from the disk image to your new account," I ran into trouble. Thinking it wasn't that big a deal, telling myself I could solve the issue later, I proceeded to nuke enough files in my original user account to give FV the room it needed to turn off. This included (stupid me) my LIbrary folder. When enough space was created, FV turned off and spotlight now works fine.
    I won the battle but lost the war... That's because in Leopard, unlike Tiger (for which the instructions were written), you can't simply "Highlight all items in the sparse disk image and drag them into your new account's home folder." Not allowed.
    I have everything safely stored on my handy external drive but other than transferring folder by folder, is there any other way to restore my home folder? Is there some super-secret workaround or is this the cautionary tale to all you other folks out there (like we need to hear it again): don't get impatient and pay attention to which operating system the instructions were written for. Tiger's troubleshooting articles are not interchangeable with Leopard's.
    Hope I am saving someone else some grief by airing my tale of woe.
    Best wishes,
    T

    Hi VK
    Following the instructions in the link, I made a sparse disk image on an external drive and selected all items in my Home and copied them (by dragging) to the mounted sparse disk image.
    Thanks,
    t

  • HT1202 How do I added my music to another computer thats not my home computer???

    How do I added my music to another computer thats not my home computer???

    Are you wanting to add music to an iTunes library on another computer?  That shouldn't be a problem.  Just import it or rip the same way you would on your iTunes library on your home PC.
    Or are you wanting to extract content from the iPod into this new/different iTunes library?  If so, see this excellent user tip from another forum member turingtest2 on different ways to extact the media on your iPod and back into iTunes.
    https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3991
    B-rock

  • Restoring a home folder backed up using the Backup application (with the umbrella) to a new hard drive running Snow Leopard

    I was running OS X 10.4 Tiger on a 2006 iMac.  My home folder is backed up on a My Passport 500GB USB external drive using Backup (the original application that came pre-installed with the orange umbrella symbol).
    I was intending to upgrade tp Snow Leopard so that I could sync a new iPad with iTunes and iPhoto so had ordered the disc from Apple and was waiting for it to arrive.
    2 weeks ago my hard drive stopped - and I took the iMac to a support store (I am currently in Belgium and there is no Apple store here).  They confirmed the hard drive was dead and as I had my receipt for Snow Leopard installed this for me.
    Now I am trying to restore my home folder but the new OS does not recognise the data.  I can see there is nearly 200GB of data on the external drive - but the folders contain small files call backup.log, backup.log.gz, InfoPlist.stringscat, stat0.....  all under 5MB.
    Applecare told me they did not know about the Backup application and it was not theirs..... then suggested I tried migration assistant.
    With migration assistant, I just get a spinning wheel at the initial 'select your disk' page - spinning now for more than 8 hours.  I checked on line and the only advice I saw was to use firewire - but my external drive works with the new high speed USB...
    Can anyone help?

    Thank you for your help - I now have a solution  ...in case it helps someone else.....
    ...I also think I may have been a bit silly...
    The solution - thanks to a great guy in Apple Support USA - thank you Matt!!
    first I partitioned my hard drive using disk utility - and set 235GB for a separate install - I called it Tiger install disk
    this allows your hard drive to act as 2 totally separate systems (by holding down the option key when you start the computer you can choose which you want)
    then I reinstalled Tiger from my original discs onto the new part of my hard drive
    then I read my backed up home folder and copied it to the Tiger system on the new hard drive section
    then I rebooted and started up Snow leopard on the original part of the hard drive
    then I used migration assistant to transfer from the 'Tiger install disc' drive - it was recognised by migration assistant
    Where I think I may have been a bit silly
    I am now not sure if the orginal backup was always visible in Snow Leopard
    in Tiger I found backup.sparseimage - which when double clicked opened up my home folder
    now that I have istalled Tiger as well - I can also find this in now Leopard...  ...so maybe I just hadn't opened all the original folders on my backup disk...
    ...but for sure migration assistant could not read the backup copy

  • If I imported a CD into my iTunes library from one computer how can I listen to it from another computer?

    If I imported a CD into my iTunes library from one computer how can I listen to it from another computer?  I imported music from a CD into my compter at work and when I got home and went to my iTunes account none of the songs were in my library.  I also noticed that on my Work computer there were a couple songs that I had to click on the little 'cloud' icon before I could listen to them (these were not songs I imported they were songs that were already in my library).  Not sure if this makes semse...help.

    jamie171 wrote:
    My question is since I have imported them into my iTunes library from one computer why can't I access them from my iTunes library from another computer that I have authorized to access whats in my library?  Is there no way to import songs only once into the library and then access them from all my authorized computers?
    Only if you have iTunes Match or of the computers are on the same local network.

  • Backup contacts & messages and restore on new iphone with another computer

    Dear,
    My brother gifted me iphone-4 which was in his use, he has no music, videos even not much photos. But he has much contacts and messages also messages on viber.
    I made backup by iTune and also copied the backup folder from mobilesync from my computer. the backup is just only about 256MB.
    If i email him this backup folder or give on flash drive, Can he restore on his new iphone-4 or iphone-5 ?
    please advice me in this regard that the itune backup include contacts & messages and can be restored on new mobile with another computer.
    Thanks.

    Hey shoaibadil,
    Thanks for the question, and congratulations on the iPhone gift.
    It sounds like you are doing everything correct, however I suggest that you backup your iPhone, and restore his iPhone with the backup at the same time (instead of emailing). The backup file is probably too big to email to your brother. You could also use iCloud to accomplish this:
    Transfer content from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a new device
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2109
    Thanks,
    Matt M.

  • How do i activate cs 1 on another computer?

    how do i activate cs 1 on another computer?

    You don't. The activation servers for cs and cs2 were taken down, and your original copy of cs will not work.
    Adobe has provided a non-activation version of cs2 for cs and cs2 owners.
    Download the mac or pc installer and use the serial number provided with it.
    https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=cs2_downloads

  • My computer died. I do not want to loose one video on my iPod, how can I  use the iPod  on another computer? Please help!

    please advise how I can put my iPod on another computer, my old one died a slow death.  There is one short video on my iPod that can't  be replaced.

    - What is the source of the videos? If taken by the iPod you can transfer them to the new computer by:
    Copying personal photos and videos from iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your computer
    - If they were iTunes purchases by:
    iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to a computer
    - If they were synced to the iPod and not iTunes purchases then you need a third-party program like TouchCopy or PhoneView.

  • How do i transfer ipad backup to another computer

    I'm having a new Mac soon to replace the current windows computer now. I have been syncing my iPad with this computer and wonder if I can transfer my iPad Backup to the new Mac so I can sync my ipad with it. Anyone has an idea?

    This article is pretty easy to follow and contains the steps needed to transfer your iPad content to the new computer.
    http://www.tcgeeks.com/how-to-sync-ipad-to-a-new-computer-ipad-tips/
    If you want to just transfer the iPad backup to new computer here is where it is located.
    Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
    Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
    Windows Vista: \Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
    The information is from this article
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4079
    This thread also discusses how to move the iPad content to another computer.
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/11527071#11527071
    Message was edited by: Demo

  • How do i transfer my itunes to another computer

    My laptop that I have itunes on broke so how do I transfer the info to another computer so I can update

    Welcome to the Apple Community.
    In what way did it break, please.

  • How do I move my account to another computer?, How do I move my account to another computer?

    How can I move my account to another computer?

    An account is just a user name and password.  You can sign into your account from any computer that has itunes.
    Are you wanting to move your itunes library?
    If so, then type "move itunes library" into the google search bar.

Maybe you are looking for