Migrating assistant good or bad

Hi guys...
This is my first post so be gentle... I just have a small question for you guys and girls... what is your view on the migrating assistant, is it good or bad... i have heard someone saying that it migrates some files over that mess up your system... and if it does how do i know which to delete.. and second of all can you choose exactely what to bring over or does it just take everything... is targetdisk mode a better option... maybe a bit more timeconsuming but safer...?? Please give me your opinions... Thanks... ohh forgot to say, reason why im asking is that im planning on buying the infamous MBP..
Mac OS X (10.4.6)
ibook g4 1.33 Mac OS X (10.4.6) Really want MBP

I would say that this is a WARNING [capital letters - if you can't tell already ;- ) ]
My friend - who is a computer tech [Mac & PC] since the Apple II days. For all of you that don't know - that is 30 years ago. He bought his first BRAND NEW computer ever - yesterday - A MacBook Pro 2.16 w/ 7200RPM HD [off the shelf at a local Apple store]. He has made a LOT of money from repairing computers - he didn't have to buy this MacBook, because he has EVERYTHING else - he bought it because the MBP represented the ability to have the Mac OS + WIN XP on the same machine. And also - his clients were asking questions about the MBP, and he had to know - first hand, what they were about.
He used the migration assistant to transfer his files from his PowerBook G4 - 17" [1.67MHz] - and there was disasterous consequences! After the transfer - the new MBP wouldn't boot to the desktop - until several restarts later. Finally when he could - there was some very weird stuff going on.
1. No Airport recoginition
2. Screen stayed on full bright [couldn't be dimmed]
3. His BlueTooth cellphone would shut off [I know - this is crazy - but it is true, the MBP somehow killed the cellphone connection!]
4. Kernel panics - [many]
He [with 30 years experience] promptly returned the MBP to the Apple store - and showed it to the "Genius" - who immediately gave him a brand new one.
He [or the "genius"] never had any reason to doubt the "integrity" of the "Migration Assistant". My friend thought that his MBP was defective - and the Apple "Genius" thought the same thing.
So - he took it [the new one] home - and used the "Migration Assistant" again - and the exact same thing happened!
Finally - he just decided to re-install the whole operating system [clean install] - and now everything is fine.
If I were you - I wouldn't trust the "Migration Assistant".
PM G5 1.8 SP REV A Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Similar Messages

Migration Assistant - Good Times (Help!)

finally have two current model iMacs in the house. both machines with the latest updates to mavericks. trying to set up my wife's new machine using migration assistant. the machines ignored my thunderbolt cable and used the wireless system. it's been seven hours for about 600 GB, and it's been stuck for the last hour with a dialogue that says, "less than a minute remaining."
should i interrupt the process and force-quit the machines?
will that completely screw up the migration?
if necessary, will i be able to start over?
lordy, lordy, lordy, why does this sort of thing keeps happening to me?
(using Apple continuously since 1979)
deep thanks for all responses, opinions, and suggestions.

Since it's a new machine, contact Apple's Support and let them deal with the issue. For more on migrating, see Pondini's Setup New Mac guide.
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/Leopard, 9.2.2

HT4796 Migration assistant is telling me that it has lost connection with my Mac and to ensure they are on the same network. They are, and an ethernet cable is plugged into them. What do i do?

Migration Assistant has been running since yesterday evening. My Dell is now telling me that its trying to reconnect to my Mac and to ensure they are both using the same network. I have an Ethernet cable plugged in them and they are both on the same WiFi. What can I do?

Hello Wyodor,
thanks for your reply on my question.
You are wright the index file is 308 KB.
And offcourse that I delete my files and documents is not an Iweb problem, but because my English is not that good, that I thougt I try to tell the whole story, and hope people can read trough the lines.
Why I didn't use Iweb to upload to the server is because the server company recommanded to use file zilla. And I am a nobody with this kind of things, so I did exactly what they tell me to do.
No, i did not make a backup of Iweb and the domain file, but reading other messages on this forum showed me that I can maybe try to make empty the cashfile (?)
and otherwise I have bad luck and have to make my website again. Offcourse I have a lot of examples from all the pages (copied from the local map to my USB stick) and my website is aprox. 15 Mb, (not so big) so it will cost me a few nigths.
But I'm still hoping on a miracle :-)
greetings Lasource

Migration Assistant created admin user w/ Macintosh HD volume on desktop

Hi,
Summary:
MBP 17" (running Leopard) logic board died
Retrieved hard drive from MBP and put in USB 2.0 caddy
Bought Mac Mini 2.5 intel core i5 w/ latest Mountain Lion
Used for a couple of days as main Administrator user, set up a VPN etc, every working fine.
Made a back up using Time Machine on a USB connected My Passport Edge for Mac
Used Migration Assistant to transfer user account from MBP HD (with Leopard) - this was the main adminstrator (not root superuser) of the MBP
When prompted, renamed the Leopard user account to MacBook so no conflict with new Mountain Lion administrator user
Transferred everything but applications and download folder of the main (administrator) user on the MBP.
All appeared successful.
Restarted Mac Mini and logged into the User account created by Migration Assistant---all files there etc so far so good.
Then I noticed that this migrated user still had Admintrator rights and appears to have reset some of the global settings effecting the original ML admin user (the one I eventually want to carry on using)
First inkly of this was that the VPN server I set up was no longer recognised by Safari in any accounts on the machine.
Logged into original ML administrator user and changed the migrated MBP user to a 'standard' user with no rights to do change settings on the computer.
[still can't get Safari to recognise the VPN proxy server]
Decided I'd better make a back-up to the Time Machine on the My Passport, but had to follow these instructions http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html for a 'Full Reset of Time Machine'. Which did the job.
Then I logged back into the migrated MBP user account to look around. There on the desktop is a volume called 'Macintosh HD' (the same as the main computer default name that is used my Mountain Lion.
When I do a get info on this volume it tells me the following:
Kind: Volume
Created: Friday, 19 October 2012 (which is an odd date)
Modified: Today ...
Version 10.8.2
Formal: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Capacity: 499.25GB
Available: 361.32GB
Used .....(127.93 GB on disk)
          Sharing and Permissions
               You can only read
               system Read & Write
               wheel Read only
               everyone Read only
Can I delete this volume off the desktop or will that mean I lose all the files and folders for this user? Why is there a 137GB volume on the desktop?
Also, as it's called Macintosh HD (the same as Mountain Lion's Computer name) isn't this likely to be causing some clashes?
I will eventually be deleting this migrated user, once I have all the emails, notes, etc off Entourage's Main Identity imported into Outlook 10. In the meantime this volume on the desktop is worrying me.
My question is: what should I do about this double Macintosh HD volume on the migrated MBP user account?
Thanks for your help.
Cheers,
Tracy

There are settings in Finder's Preferences to show Hard Disks on the desktop. So, that is likely normal. Deleting it would be bad.

Migration Assistant questions

I've been having issues with my MacBook .... intermittent it won't start up (freezes on gray screen), that I suspect indicates the hard drive is about to die. I've duly backed up everything via time machine to an external fire wire drive and ordered up a new hard drive.
I propose to do a fresh install of OSX from disc on the new drive and then migrate across my settings (don't want to restore from time machine in case it isn't the hard drive and is system software faults)... but hope someone could just clarify:
1. Will migration assistant bring over Mail, Address Book, Safari bookmarks, iTunes library and iPhoto library?
2. Should I de-authorize my iTunes on the old hard drive (subject to it staying alive long enough) before I remove it?
Any other tips appreciated
Steve

Options to further know if it's your HD.
You can perform a hardware test on the computer. check here to learn how to do this : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509
Try booting from an install disk. hold the option key down when you power on your computer. choose the install disc, Run disk utility to verify the disk or use other similar software like disk warrior to see if the HD is bad.
TO ANSWER YOUR DIRECT QUESTIONS: with important information about Time Machine and Migration Assistant Utility
1. Will migration assistant bring over Mail, Address Book, Safari bookmarks, iTunes library and iPhoto library?
Yes. Migration Assistant Utility transfers documents, music, photos, applications, network settings, and preferences. It works on a user level by basically moving over your user account with everything in it. Migration Assistant DOES NOT transfer over the Operating system so you will have to install a fresh copy on the the new hard drive anyway.
Pulled from the Apple Site.
" If you’re setting up a new Mac(or HD) with files from an old Mac, *Time Machine* can help simplify the process. Just use Migration Assistant to copy portions of any Time Machine backup to a new Mac, or select *“Restore System from Time Machine”* in the Utilities menu on your *Mac OS X install disc*. Choose any date recorded in Time Machine to set up your new Mac exactly as your previous Mac was on that date."
2. Should I de-authorize my iTunes on the old hard drive (subject to it staying alive long enough) before I remove it?
You can leave this authorized because you are not installing in a new computer. iTunes will never know you changed hard drives
Good Luck
Matt
Message was edited by: msurowiec

Migration assistant fails to *find* machine

Very simple, thought I'd fire it up before going to sleep and have a baseline to tune from in the morning. No such luck -- just a band-new 10.5.7 MBP seeking to slurp from a couple year old 10.5.7 Core2Duo iMac. I haven't any FW800 small-port cables, but neither on a dedicated point-to-point ethernet nor on the regular network does migration ***'t get past "looking for other machines" stage after specifying who is sending and who is receiving. I presume this is either a sign I shouldn't bother with it or some completely braindead thing done on my part.

Thanks, Pondini, but the Time Machine disk passes the Disk Utility repairs and only the spinning wheel was visible under both the Setup Assistant and the Migration Assistant.
I now have some good news, and some bad.
First the good news: Lion's Migration Assistant offers the option to copy user (and other) files from the previous OSX disk, not just the Time Machine disk. If this option was already in Snow Leopard, then I missed it.
Now the bad news..
I spent several hours reading (Pondini's and others') suggestions to ensure that my Time Machine is as seamless as possible, namely, for the next backup to be incremental. No luck: all user data are copied. Until the interface of Time Machine stops trying so hard to shield us naive users from making decisions on our own, one idea is to keep the iPod and pictures/video collection backed-up by the straight-forward rsync. Then whether Time Machine is really incremental will not matter, and in any case a spare copy of the documents you wrote by hand is nice in case the some blocks of the disk fail.
But I may have been the one who messed it. In Preferrences \ Time Machine \ Options... I excluded all users except the user "Admin" who restored the user accounts. The idea was to test first whether the mildest user will get a full backup. It may be that Time Machine does not look in the history to see if a given file or set of files already have some copy in the past. If a file does not exist in the very last backup, it is saved to the Time Machine disk.
If you're reading this and are keen on an incremental backup, try this: restore your user accounts using a user Admin, but do not start to backup until after the accounts are restored. Will the backup afterwards be incremental?

Migration Assistant hang

I'm using migration assistant to move my data from Time Machine on a non-apple external drive to a new macbook pro. It got stuck with 33 minutes remaining and when I opened Activity Monitor to see how much of my storage was in use, I noticed that it had transferred 328gb of 400gb or so of data (consistent with where in the status bar Migration Assistant was), but the precise amount is increasing or decreasing by a small amount every time it refreshes. For instance, one second it will say 328,981,555,500 bytes in use and the next it will say 328,981,540,000 bytes in use and then bounce back up a little higher or lower.
Any idea what is causing this and what I should try to do?

RESOLVED.
My solution was to
Boot up the New Mac while pressing T,
then hook it to the old mac and use Disk Utility to Erase the The new mac's Drive,
Then Boot up the New Mac,
and insert the OSX disk that came with the New mac,
and reinstall the OS on the new Mac.
This put it almost back to the Default that it was when it arrived.
I then hooked the Old mac to my External HardDrive, and turned on TimeMachine, and then did a backup.
When it was done,
I turned on the new Mac, plugged in the External Harddrive, and used the TimeMachine Backup to transfer all the data at the Welcome Window, instead of the Old Mac.
This took about 5 hours, and it gave me an error, but the error was minor.
The error said that my old mac, and new mac, both use a FIXED IP to connect to the internet, and it would cause issues. I need a fixed IP at work.
I then inserted the Application Disk, and reinstalled all the new iLife stuff.
I'm good to go now.
My suggestion is, to check your Internet settings before doing your transfer. I'm going to reTest this, but if someone else wants to try it, let me know.
It's the only error I got, and TimeMachine didn't HANG, it just dumps bad stuff into a Folder.
Hope this helps you guys.

Migration assistant can´t find TM backup

I have just done a clean install of Mavericks on my MBPr. However, the migration assistant does not recognize the time machine backup.
I CAN se the disk just fine, and I can even choose to to a complete recovery of the TM backup, so it seems to me that the machine knows that there is an external drive with a working backup there.
How can I get migration assistant to understand the same thing?

WhyCantThingsBeSimple wrote:
Well I have good news. By following the various steps and repairing the sparse bundle file on the TC, the Migration Assistant was able to see the backup like it had always been there.
The restore of my entire backup file seems to have transferred completely.
Yay!
I will spend the weekend pairing down my HD and moving data I don't readily access to an external HD, then running a running a new TM backup to that external drive.
Not to the same external HD, I hope? That's not a good idea. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #3 for details.
Can I run a repair on the TC the same way to see if that helps the disk, or is there something else that I can/must do if portions of the TC's HD are failing?
As far as I know, there's no utility that will do that. There are plenty of disk evaluation/repair utilities, but they only work on internal or directly-connected drives.
About the only thing you can do is to erase and zero-out the disk; if that fails, you know the disk is bad, but if it succeeds, that doesn't necessarily mean it's ok. And, of course, you lose all your data!
At this point my gut says that the backup file was probably damaged from Time Machine backing up during my last round of issues with the new OS updates crashing the system
That's quite possible.
How old is your Time Capsule? A few fail in the first few months, of course, and some of the original 2008 models are still going strong, but a fair number seem to start having trouble after 2 or 3 years.
But, as posted earlier, depending on a single set of backups, especially if made wirelessly, is a bit risky. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for more explanation and some recommendations. I'd strongly recommend making some sort of "secondary" backups.

Migration Assistant - worth using?

Dudes,
Am just about to upgrade to a Unibody Macbook from a white MacBook and need to move all my stuff over.
The last time I did a transfer was when I went from a G4 iBook to the MacBook, and I meticulously copied over all the files and data I had using FW. Which took forever. And I had to redo all my settings too. I'm not sure whether I should have used Migration Assistant then, but I certainly have heard a lot more people talking about it now to give it some consideration for the new move.
Is it a reliable way to move all your data over? Does it really transfer all your files and data and settings? Does it leave anything behind (either in a good way, like caches, or bad way like stuff you might want to keep but have saved in an obscure location)?
Any thoughts/feedback/info appreciated.
Needless to say I'll backup using TM before I do anything and both Macs are/will be running Leopard.
One final question - sometimes it's good to start afresh when getting a new computer / OS, like a clean install. Would using MA to move everything over still maintain this "freshness/newness" of the new Mac, or will it overwrite everything from the crudded up OS on the old MacBook to the new MacBook? Hard to explain, but I'm sure some of you know what I mean
Thanks!
JC

So is it better to install all your apps fresh, then?
Yes. You should go to their web-sites and get the latest versions.
That's a shame as I was hoping that MA would cut out pretty much all the work of transfering my data from the old MB to the new one.
So it's OK for data (and user settings, prefs etc I presume) but not for much else?
The last time I used it, I let it move the applications, since I new they were all the latest versions. Most worked, but some were not able to do certain operations because some files did not have the special settings needed.
Is email included in your user files?
Yes, but the first time you use Mail it will rebuild its database to include all the old mail.

Migration Assistant fails to recognize a Time Machine disk (itself migrated using Disk Utility)

So I outgrow my Time Machine disk. I listen to the advice (repeated in multiple places) that one can simply use Disk Utility's Restore tab, select the old time machine disk as source and the new one as destination, and click restore to copy block-by-block, then rename the disk.
This works very well. I have indeed been able to use Time Machine on the new disk without losing any of the history.
But now I am in trouble. I am also outgrowing my MacBook disk. I put a larger disk in and install Snow Leopard from scratch. Now Migration Assistant does not recognize the new Time Machine disk (perpetually spinning wheel). Renaming the disk to the old name does not help. M.A. does recognize the old Time Machine disk, but that means manually managing the changes (and giving up on the larger TM disk). I reinstall Snow Leopard and do not miss that time the option to restore from Time Machine, but it still does not see the new Time Machine disk.
How does one convince Migration Assistant to use a Time Machine disk that duly has Backups.backupdb as a root folder and where "ignore ownership on this volume" is not set?

Thanks, Pondini, but the Time Machine disk passes the Disk Utility repairs and only the spinning wheel was visible under both the Setup Assistant and the Migration Assistant.
I now have some good news, and some bad.
First the good news: Lion's Migration Assistant offers the option to copy user (and other) files from the previous OSX disk, not just the Time Machine disk. If this option was already in Snow Leopard, then I missed it.
Now the bad news..
I spent several hours reading (Pondini's and others') suggestions to ensure that my Time Machine is as seamless as possible, namely, for the next backup to be incremental. No luck: all user data are copied. Until the interface of Time Machine stops trying so hard to shield us naive users from making decisions on our own, one idea is to keep the iPod and pictures/video collection backed-up by the straight-forward rsync. Then whether Time Machine is really incremental will not matter, and in any case a spare copy of the documents you wrote by hand is nice in case the some blocks of the disk fail.
But I may have been the one who messed it. In Preferrences \ Time Machine \ Options... I excluded all users except the user "Admin" who restored the user accounts. The idea was to test first whether the mildest user will get a full backup. It may be that Time Machine does not look in the history to see if a given file or set of files already have some copy in the past. If a file does not exist in the very last backup, it is saved to the Time Machine disk.
If you're reading this and are keen on an incremental backup, try this: restore your user accounts using a user Admin, but do not start to backup until after the accounts are restored. Will the backup afterwards be incremental?

I have new hard drive, should I use migration assistant before I install Snow Leopard or install Snow Leopard first?

I just had a new hard drive installed after a hard drive failure. I need to install Snow Leopard, Lion and VMware Fusion. Should I use migration assistant to reinstall my old files and applications first or should I install the new Operating Systems first? Some of the old files do have corrupt data and I will have to pick and choose what back-up files I re-install.

Pondini wrote:
memalyn wrote:
Some files were backed up on another external drive but not all.
How was that done? Drag & drop? An app like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper?
Initially files were backed up on the iMac with Time Machine. I purchased a My Book external hard drive and after doing a full back up on it, I began doing all of my incremental back ups on it using Time Machine. Sometime later, I purchased a Western Digital external hard drive that included back up software on it called "WD Back-up" so I could use it to store all of my Music and Audiobooks on to keep my iMac and My Book free of those file types. The WD Backup software allowed me to pick and choose what files I wanted to back-up. I don't think I had been backing up Music and Audiobooks on the Mac anyway or maybe I was, I don't remember if I can selectively pick and choose files with Time Machine - I have not checked as I have not yet plugged it into my new hard drive. Once The My Book drive became full with regular back ups, around June or so I had to switch over to the WD Back up drive. I recall that I was very concerned that I could not do a full back up on the WD drive because if I did, I would have to reformat the drive and I did not want to do that, so I think I was able to selectively back up some additional files from my iMac but again, I do not know for sure since I have not looked at what is on the drive. I do know that if I was able to back up additional files I had to do it with WD Back up and not Time Machine, if that matters.
I know that the files in the partitioned drive and files associated with VMware Fusion are damaged. If I do a full restore, it will restore the VMware Fusion app and partioned drive
We need some clarification:
Do you mean there were 2 partitions on your internal HD? If so, how was the second one formatted? Was it backed-up?
No, there was only one partitioned drive. The way I understand it is the VMware Fusion software does the partitioning and the app resides on the Mac. After that was done, I then installed the Windows software on the partitioned drive. There is a critical file on the Mac under a Folder called Virtual Machines and in the Virtual Machines folder, the "Windows Bundle" or some such thing keeps locking each time the software crashes due to the problem files somewhere within the files in the VMware Fusion software that (I think resides) in the Windows environment that I cannot access. The Virtual Machine file on the Mac gets backed up so the Windows Bundles files get backed up and that includes all the screen shots (essentially backups) of the Windows environment. The Windows environment includes some of the apps and their data in Windows such as Quicken. Theoretically, the partitioned drive does not get backed up but in reality if the screen shots do, some of the partitioned drive does - corrupt or not. If you have a Quicken file open and a drop down screen in Quicken frozen when the system crashes, that is what gets backed up and there is no way you can get back into Windows or Quicken.
               If I do a full restore, it will restore the VMware Fusion app
If you restore an OSX volume, yes, that will restore all apps, but that's not necessarily bad. If necessary or desired, you can always delete or reinstall a suspect app. That way, all your other apps will be ok. For most users, reinstalling all apps is a considerable project. See Transferring Applications for an explanation.
Well, that is true. To reinstall VMware Fusion, Windows and Quicken would much, much easier than all of the Mac software I have. Plus, the VMware Fusion version I have is not compatible with Lion and my goal is to install Lion, so I will have to upgrade VMware Fusion no matter what. Further, I'm so aggravated with the dual operating system, I've been looking at products to replace Quicken, so if anyone knows of a good home, small business and home rental financial product they can recommend, I'm all ears!
               If I do a full restore, it will restore . . . and partioned drive
If there are 2 partitons, a full restore only restores the OSX partition. If a non-OSX partition was backed-up, it must be restored separately.
               Now that I've said I only have 1 partitioned drive, does that mean it will restore the partitioned drive? I would prefer it did not. It seems now that it would be much cleaner to restore the OSX drive. Would I be able to do that?
So, depending on the exact circumstances, your best be may be to restore the most recent OSX partition, then restore/copy those files that were backed-up on another drive; reinstall VMware if necessary; restore the other partition.
So . . . things may be a bit more complex than we though, but perhaps less dire.
More detail on the various partitions and backups should clarify things.

Cloning VS Migration Assistant VS Time Machine restore

Dec 2006 MBP, disk has never been defragged or re-formatted from day 1, so it's pretty cluttered up.
New HDD coming in today, what do you think is the best way to transfer my system, apps and files to the new drive in a clean way?
(running OS X 10.5.8 now, think I want to do an upgrade to OS X 10.6 while I'm at it...
Should I do that before/after transfer? How does that affect Migration Assistant or Time Machine?)

My preference would be to make a bootable clone on my internal on an external. The clone will allow extraction of users, files, apps, and data at the end of an erase and install. Also, if your Sno install goes bad, then you can clone back to your internal to get back where you started. My preference for installing Sno is an erase and install.
Upgrading ought to be pretty much as good as, as good as, or better than (depends on who you talk to) erasing and installing, and having done so everything still should be in place except for archived incompatible programs after the install. Having a bootable clone is just as important in the case of upgrade as in the case of erase and install.
You bootcamp partition won't be affected under either install method. But, keep in mind that if you want to change its size, then erasing and installing will give you the opportunity to do so. No migrating needed for the Boot Camp partition.
Message was edited by: donv (The Ghost)

Migration Assistant - Windows Outlook 2007 subfolders not transferred

When using Lion Migration Assistant, Outlook subfolders did not migrate (only inbox).
How can I migrate all other subfolders (1.5GB)?

Thanks for the reply. Funny, when I got through to a senior person he told me that I had had an anomolous experience and that WMA should have transferred everything. I also found that all of the files that WMA had transferred had their dates changed to the transfer date--a circumstance that he again said was not the intended result and was not the common experience. Sigh.
I too backed up and did the migration manually. Contacts and calendar were the easiest since I'm already on MobileMe (score one for cloud computing). And yes I did what you did and converted my POP email history to IMAP, so the migration was via the ISP and I'm now permanently in the cloud on that too.
Apple is so good on some things and so bad on others. They really don't like exceptions and they really don't like to communicate with users. But (after 5 days of work) I'm finally happily on my Mac, so ... we'll see.
Thanks again for taking time to reply.
Dan

Migration assistant stopped working and has left me with 100gb in 'other'? How do I delete 'other' and what is it exactly?

I recently invested $2000 (one week ago) in a Macbook Pro Retina 2014 2.8ghz 512gb. Dont get me wrong, I am in love with my product and am extremely satisfied but I have honestly encountered nothing but issues.
My first issue was the transferring of data from my 2010 white macbook 500gb. Both laptops have Yosemite installed and are 100% up to date but I have spent the last week getting them to talk to each other. I am not new to the workings of Apple but I have never endeavoured to use applications such as airdrop, migration assisstant or even bluetooth.
My first attempt was to transfer 200gb of files (Photos mainly, I'm a photographer) to my other laptop via a 64gb USB in segments. But after an hour and only 10gb getting copied across, I decided other alternatives may be of more help.
That is when I came to my first dilemma: AIRDROP. Airdrop is crazy. Yes I did click the option on my retina to search for older macs and yes they did connect. I can send files from my MBR to my white macbook 2010 immediately but my old macbook will not send files to my retina. Yes all of the necessary sharing settings are in place - both MacBooks have the same settings selected so I cannot figure out what to do. Information on this subject would also be helpful yet it is not the end of my troubles.
Second Issue: Migration Assistant.
So yesterday I discovered this little 'gem'. I am a very impatient person so you can imagine i did not appreciate 20 hours of file transfers (via wifi as i do not have a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor for MBR). Anyway that's all well and good if it actually worked. But of course it did not. I followed apples instructions and I was down to my final 4 hours this morning when my MBR told me the connection was lost and to reconnect. It was making the loudest whirring noise like air coming from inside the hard drive or something. I freaked out. My $2000 machine should not be doing this. It was only a little bit warm; not hot but it was incredibly loud, I'm not sure how to describe it. Keep in mind this computer is brand new so please tell me: WHAT WAS THE SOUND?!?!?!?! AND WHY? what was wrong? what could I have possibly done wrong? My wifi WAS working because my desktop PC was connected. So i waited and waited. Of course I couldn't actually do anything without quitting airdrop and in the end that's just what I had to do. A lot of time wasted for such an unsuccessful cause.
That brings me to my final issue:
So after migration had.... "completed" or crashed or whatever you want to call it, I at least assumed some of the files had maybe copied over and i could just resume from where I left off last time somehow. Oh how stupid that assumption was. My user account did in fact copy over but not a single file copied. And yes, I did log into that user account to check. ANYWAY, I went onto "about this mac" to see my storage info (still being optimistic about my wasted 20 hours). SURPRISE SURPRISE: Yet another problem. I now have 100gb in "other". This macbook is brand new. I should not have any GB in other. I am so incredibly annoyed. HOW DO I DELETE OTHER?! (preferably without downloading software) and is there anything else of importance in other that i should be careful not to delete that is contained within other?
I am only 15 years old and this was a massive investment for me so I treat my Macbook like a baby. And no, I'm not spoilt by my parents. I had to work at Subway for a year to earn $2000 - without spending a single cent (My wage is only $9.00AUD an hour so i essentially worked some 222 hours for this macbook). And I'm not crazy, I needed it for school.
Anyway I'm not impressed with apple. I have Applecare but they aren't open on the weekends or whenever I try to call so that hasn't exactly been helpful. PLEASE HELP ME.

Make a note of all your settings for Wi-Fi in the Network preference pane, then delete the connection from the connection list.
Launch the Keychain Access application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Keychain Access in the page that opens.
In the keychain list, an item named "System" should be listed. If it isn't, select File ▹ Add Keychain from the menu bar and add the following:
/Library/Keychains/System.keychain
Now search in Keychain Access for the name of the wireless network (not the name of the router.) Double-click one of the items and check the box labeled Show password in the inspector window. You'll be prompted for your keychain password to confirm. Make a note of the network password. Then delete every "AirPort Network Password" in the search results. Quit Keychain Access.
Go back to the Network preference pane and recreate the Wi-Fi connection with the same settings as before. You do this by clicking the plus-sign icon below the connection list, and selecting Wi-Fi as the interface in the sheet that opens. Select Join other network from the Network Name menu, then select your network. Enter the password when prompted and save it in the keychain.

Migration assistant freezes - PLEASE HELP ASAP

I am trying to run the migration assistant on a new imac i7 that I received. The "old" machine is an i5 ,and it is transferring about 500gb of data. It ran for many hours, and has been stuck on "19 minutes" remaining for about an hour now. What should I do?
Am I going to have to redo the entire transfer? (I hope not - it took HOURS, AND HOURS!)
I'm sure it isn't "good" to simply power off, or unplug one of the machines while the migration assistant is running. What should I do? Need to some asap, as I need to get the machine up and running.
Thanks for your help!
-Rick
twitter.com/Rick_Smith

Thanks for the feedback. I actually just followed the directions on the new i7.
I took it out of the box, powered on, went through a few menus, and then selected the option to transfer settings from another mac. It never asked for updates, or anything.
It simply asked me to hook up a firewire cable (fw 800), and then restart the "old" computer and hold down "t" as it restarted. It did that, the new machine "found" the "old" one, and it started transferring.
I had about 500 gb of data on the old machine. So it's taken a long time, but then it got to 19 min remaining, and has been stuck there every since. I really hate doing a hard restart, but it looks like I have no choice...
I guess I"ll go try that..
**fingers crossed*

Migrating assistant good or bad

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