Migrating data from a dead iMac

My 2006 iMac has died. The display does not work anymore. I have a new mini on order and I have a couple of questions about migrating the data from the HDD on my old iMac to my mini.
I do Have a time machine backup on a separate drive. I could not find anything that spoke about migrating to a new Mac from a time machine backup.
my questions are.
can I migrate from my old iMac to my new mini using a time machine backup?
can I select what data I wish to migrate?
how can I deauthorize the old iMa?
thanks

One of the first screens that will appear when you start up the new Mac will say "do you want to restore from another Mac or Time Machine backup?". Select that and follow the prompts. I could be mistaken, but I don't believe you can select what data is migrated (only what date you restore it from). Older system files will not be migrated (ie, your new Mac will have whatever OS it shipped with, not that of your old iMac).
if the old iMac powers up, you may still be able to migrate from it. Hold down T on its keyboard as you boot it up, and connect a FireWire cable (with Thunderbolt adaptor for the new iMac) across the two computers. You should be able to choose it as a migration source when you start up the new iMac; if you skip the migration at setup, you can try again using Migration ASsistant from the Utilities folder. Doing a migration instead of Time Machine recovery should give you a little more control over what gets migrated. Or you can skip automatic migration altogether if you want to select specific documents and files and do manual copying from one to the other (this won't work with applications).
Your last option would be to physically remove the Mac's hard drive and put it in an external enclosure (probably USB3 is cheapest) if you want to do a migration but can't power up the old iMac.
Unless you can connect an external monitor to the old imac to get it working, you might have to skip iTunes deauthorization until you have 5 computers authorized, at which time you can deauthorize them all from your iTunes account screen (and then re authorize the ones you're using).
Matt

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Note if any of the data came from a PowerPC Mac originally, read this tip first:
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Matthew Palm wrote:
I have had an iMac G5 PPC for about 6 years. The logic board just died about 2 weeks ago.
I am about to purchase a new 27" iMac Quad-core i7 machine, and I am wondering what is the best way to migrate data from the old machine to the new one.
I have a few different questions...
I use SuperDuper! to backup, so I do have a full copy of my hard drive on an external drive. But the data is about 2 weeks older than the hard drive on my G5 (meaning, I backed up about 2 weeks before the machine died, so there is data on there that I'd love to retrieve). I understand that I can pull the hard drive out of the iMac G5 and buy a cable to attach it to the new machine. I also understand that I can attach my external drive (with the SuperDuper! copy of my hard drive) to the new iMac, too, and run Migration Assistant (or Set Up Assistant) to transfer data.
However, I have heard that it is not good to do a straight migration from a Power PC to an Intel machine.
Is that true?
automatic migration works well for most people but problems are possible both because of architecture and system differences.
I would ideally like to transfer all my email (tens of thousands of them), my iPhoto library, my iTunes library, iCal, many many documents, and some other random stuff.
What do you recommend?
you can try automatic migration first. if you are worried about possible problems you can choose to migrate user data only but no applications. this should reduce the likelihood of conflicts. but if you run into problems you can always erase and install and do manual migration. since you have a superduper backup this option is not going away and is always available.
see this link on how to go about that
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0
Should I do an automatic migration using Set Up Assistant and my external hard drive with the SuperDuper copy?
Should I (and can I?) do an automatic migration with the hard drive that I pull from the old machine?
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Best,
Matt

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You are still under warranty. Call Apple Care. Make sure you get a case number as all repairs have an additional 90 days of warranty.
#1 - You have 14 days from the date of purchase to return your computer with no questions asked.
#2 - You have 90 days of FREE phone tech support.
#3 - You have the standard one year Apple warranty.
#4 - If you've purchased an AppleCare Protection Plan, your warranty last for 3 years. You can obtain AppleCare anytime up to the first year of the purchase of your computer.
Take FULL advantage of your warranty. Posting on a message board should be done as a last resort and if you are out of warranty or Apple Care has expired.

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http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1
http://download.cnet.com/VirtualLab-Data-Recovery/3000-2094_4-10298807.html
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Migrating data from a dead iMac

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