Migration Assistant as backup tool to external HD

I was told that Migration Asst (MA) can be used to back up my mac and the data could be sent to an external HD (mine is 3rd party, using firewire). I finally launched MA tonight to do it, but it doesn't look possible.
1) If it can be done, please direct me!
2) If not, any suggestions for open source S/W that painlessly backs up my documents, e-mail, bookmarks, and other crucial stuff.
Ultimately I am looking for a b/u solution that does not involve heavy "picking and choosing" of what's important.
Thanks!!
Elizabeth

1. The Migration Assistant is not a backup tool.
2. Open the Users folder on your hard disk and drag the folder with the house icon to the external drive; this will back up everything you've mentioned. If your home folder is located outside of /Users/, locate it and drag it over; this can be done by selecting the item in the Finder's sidebar with the house icon and pressing the Command and Up arrow keys simultaneously. If you need a bootable backup, use software such as SuperDuper.
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Migration Assistant can't see my external hard drive.

Migration Assistant can't see my external hard drive with my back-up info on it. I need to migrate my user data from an older back-up ( OS X 10.4.11) to a recently installed OS X 10.5.8 system on a Mac Pro. The external drive is not bootable. Any ideas?

Great news, thanks!
On iTunes see this...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Expand the External drive section & it's 6 steps.
More info, especially the Wrong Way part...
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive/

Migration assistent, can't find my external HD, help!

I have reinstalled OSX 10.8.6 on my moms Mac mini2,1, 1,83 GHz, 80 Gb harddisc, 2Gb ram, bus 667MHz, to keep the speed fresh. The time machine copy from her mac is on a Iomega external hardisc 160 Gb, the "disctool/help" detects it as Toshiba MK1652GSX Media, physically it has two USB connections. But when I use Migration Assistant it doesn't appear as a option to choose.
On this external harddisc I have a Timemachine copy that goes back to 2008. I can see the harddick on the screen, I can connect the harddisc to Timemachine and it can start to copy and save, I can even copy back my moms documents, but still Migration Assistant can't find it.
I need to migrate all her applications, iPhoto for instance as the most important as well as her I need to migrate her letters and adresses.
What do I do?

Dear MrHoffmann
Maybe it is because I am foreign, that I don't understand correctly, and for that I am very sorry. I can't imagine what a restore of a Time Machine disk is then. And I tried to find out what a scratch disk is, and the online computer dictionary told me it was an external HD, with a space for not permanent files. Maybe I misunderstood that too. Where do I then perform a restore of the backup? And where am I told if the disk is vail and bootable... sorry for my lack of understanding. As I understand I am not able to boot from a Time Machine backup, at least before Lion, and I am talking about Snowleopard. And I am not able to understand Install logs. This just sounds too difficult and far beyond what I am cabable of with my skills. Sorry.
But on the other hand, I like to learn. And I am returning to my moms house for a few days in the end of september. And with me I can bring all kinds of tools to examin her Time Machine disk, extra hardisks, my macbook with the same system and age as my moms old Mac Mini2,1 (2006) and other things, mayby if I can find out excactly what to do, I can find out what was wrong with her Time Machine disk or Migration Assistent, to prevent that from happening again.
Thank you for taking your time to help me :-)
Bodil

TS1963 Migrating from Time Machine onExternal Disk, Why won't Migration Assistant see my USB Connected external disk drive?

I had to format my internal disk drive on my MacBook Pro, and reload Mountain Lion 10.8.3. The startup assistant could not see my external disk drive with the Time Machine backup files. After many tries I told it to skip restoring the files and let it boot up. I was able to see my 1 TByte external drive and could see the Time Machine files using Finder.
I started the Migration Assistant and told it to migrate from Time Machine Files on an external drive. It also did not see the backup drive. The only drive icon it showed was the Macintosh HD (my internal drive).
Isn't it supposed to show you the drive you are moving the files from? I tried starting it and it looked like it was going to try to migrate the files from the internal drive (to where I don't know, back to itselfl?) Or do I just not understand. Is it seeing the external drive, without identifying it (in the Migration Asst,)?
Really looks like it is going to back up the internal HD with files that are on the internal HD and not from Time Machine.
I need to restore my files and have been told I need to do so using Migration Assistant and not Time Machine.
Help pleae and soon, need to get my taxes finished!
Thanks!

I'm surprised that no one replied to this. But I learned a few things that may be helpful to some of you with this same question.
When you restore data from an external disk drive with Time Machine files on it. As you move through the dialog (in either System Startup or in the Migration Assistant) it will ask if you want to restore from an external disk with Time Machine files. If you select this option, it will show you only one Icon. You will expect to see your external disk drive listed as the source of the restore. The icon that is shown will look like your ilnternal drive and will be labeled something like Macintosh HD. That is not your internal drive, but is your backup drive. It is labeled the same as your internal disk drive and it is telling you that you have found the backup for your internal disk drive.
Would be nice if Apple would put a note of explanation about this as part of that dialog. I wasted several hours trying to make it work Finally I took a chance and selected the drive shown and it did restore my system. I ended up with two users since I did it from Migration Assistant. Had I done it from the System Startup, there would only be the one user.

Can I do a clean install of 10.5 and use migration assistant from backup ?

I want to install OS 10.5 on to my Macbook. If I do a clean install rather than an archive and install can I then use migration assistant to transfer my accounts and emails from the cloned Superduper backup I have made on an external drive?
Or is Archive and Install better?

I think 99.9% of the people know what you want to do by "clean" (ie, erase or reformat) and that insures there aren't any file or directory problems when you start, that the new OS is all that will be taking up space. Clean has two connotations: Windows or OS 9. There are lots of words that are "no longer used" but everyone knows what "initialize" or reformat means and does.
If you said, "Scratch that" you could mean, "scratch that idea" even though you can't actually scratch anything. And the idea isn't in stone (scratch out) or written with a pencil where you could erase the word or line. Or draw a line through words to "scratch out the line." There can be multiple meanings. Some languages have 5 words for "blue" to denote different shades of blue, and meaning.
Your drive is 60GB which is on the small side so that is one more reason to reformat.
And because installers will create and delete a lot of files, and scatter around, I would do another SD backup (and leave your old backup as is) so you have a copy of Leopard you can boot from and that would be just Apple OS (maybe after applying the 900MB of updates required to get to 10.5.4+).
Migration Assistant has posed some problems for some with how account data is imported into a new group account. Check out http://www.macfixit.com

Migration Assistant can't find mounted external disc

Running Snow Leopard on newer iMac Dual Core. Trying to migrate users of dead G5. The G5 User data is intact, and on an external disc, and was transferred to this external disc from the G5's HD, by techs at The Apple Store. The specs of this external drive are:
30.74 GB
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Partition Map Scheme : Apple Partition Map
Mount Point : /Volumes/Macintosh HD 1
The external disc mounts to the desktop, but Migration Assistant just spins and spins looking for it, without success.
I have tried to boot from the external drive; Restart/Option does not result in the external disc as a startup option.
I'm thinking when the Mac boys wiped the external disc to make room for the G5 User data, they reformatted the disc to non-bootable. In an experiment, Migration Assistant easily found and transferred User data from my laptop (when restarted in target disc mode).
Is there a way to help Migration Assistant find this external disk - or an option that transfers the User files intact from the external drive to the new SL machine?
Thanks,
lex

lexsongs wrote:
+then MA will not work on it, period. you need to migrate manually. Migration assistant does not give a hoot what the partition scheme is on the drive you are migrating from so don't bother with that. the partition scheme on your main drive should be GUID but it's probably that already.+
+P.S. if you still have access to the old drive of the G5 then you can migrate from that drive directly.+
Thanks V.K. I did open Disk Utility and was ready to change the partition scheme (on the external disc) to GUID, but based on your last post I will hold off.
Yes, I have the old G5 HD, and will get some help with connections for migrating - or will build an enclosure (or have one built) and then use MA to move the User folders. In the meantime, I can still access the data in all User folders on the external disk.
if all the data you need is in the user folders you can simply do the following. drag a user folder from Users on your backup drive to the /Users folder at the top level of the main hard drive. make sure you don't have another user by that name already present there. you'll need to authenticate with your admin password. once you copied the user folder to Users on the main drive go to system preferences->accounts. unlock the lock at the bottom, click on + and create an account with the same short user name as the name of the folder you just copied to Users. it will tell you that a home directory by that name already exists and ask if you want to use it. say "yes".
Question: What allows MA to work with the original G5 HD but not with the copied User data on the external disc?
I don't know the exact innerworkings of MA but it clearly checks the drive to see if it recognizes it as something it can possibly migrate from as it needs a lot of stuff present to work. It doesn't just migrate user folders. it migrates applications, some library files etc. so unless it sees a full clone of another system drive or a TM backup of another drive (which both have all that stuff present) it won't even try migrating.

Migration Assistant can´t find correct external drive

Hi,
I have an iMac that I replaced an harddrive through Apple´s Seagate program. Now I am trying to get use the Migration Assistant to get my backup onto the new harddrive and I am having the most frustrating problem. I am running OS X 10.6.8 and have an external (Synology NAS) mounted by ethernet to the iMac and I can´t get Migration Assistant to select the correct disk.
I can see that my share is mounted correcly in the Finder and I can see the backup file (.sparsebundle) but Migration Assistant go to another share. I have of course chosen the Migration Method "From a Time Machine backup or other disk". The only disk I can select is the wrong one and I can´t for the life of me see how I can force the Migration Assistant to look for the other share. In Time Machine it can find the disk correct disk. In the Finder my drive also appears with <name of drive>(Time Machine) which might be the source of confusion but I don´t know how to solve this. This also of course appears in the Time Machine setup when selecting what disk to use....
I have used a lot of time crawling through webpages about this and I thought connecting directly through ethernet would solve this but no luck. I have called Apple support with no luck...I just want my "old" iMac back..help!
Regards,
Ann

Hi Ann, was the old drive & hence the backup of a later OSX version?
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3193144?start=15&tstart=0

Migration Assistant can't find my external hard drive

I'm trying to set up my Mac Mini and it isn't working. Three steps into the process and already I'm locked up. I'm trying to migrate data from an external FireWire 400 drive. I have to use an adapter because the Mini only has a Firewire 800 port. That's not a problem because I've used the adapter several times and it works fine. The external drive is connected directly to the Mini and turned on. It's been turned on before I went into this mode. Now the Migration Assistant is hung up on Select The Source with a spinning circle and the Continue button is greyed out. I don't want to bypass this step and do everything manually because that's a nightmare and with my schedule it will likely drag out for months.
Can anyone help?

Personally I have always used the manual method for moving my files over to a new iMac and never use Migration Assistant.
Go to the Apple drop down menu and select Force Quit.. and if Migration Assistant has failed, force quit it and try re-launching it again from your Applications Utility folder.

Can I use Migration Assistant as a tool to move my iphoto library back and forth from my imac to my MacBook Pro?

I purchased a macbook pro so I can work on my iphoto projects when out of the house. Instead of buying an external and having my iphoto library on that, would I be able to use Migration Assistant to update the iphoto library from macbook pro to imac and imac to macbook pro -- depending on which machine i am using at the time?

Do this:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

HT2518 Migration assistant can't find my external drive - I ran the disk utility on it and it checked out. What can I do - I am trying to transfer PC files to my new MacBook Pro. Thanks

Hi,
Wonder if someone has a suggestion for getting Migration assistant to recognize my external drive so that I can transfer some PC files from it to my MacBook Pro? I have been opening files in the drive with the Mac without a problem and I ran the diagnostics utility and the drive verified. Still, migration assistant spins and spins without finding anything. There's a lot of files and doing it manually with take days.
Thanks!

Personally I have always used the manual method for moving my files over to a new iMac and never use Migration Assistant.
Go to the Apple drop down menu and select Force Quit.. and if Migration Assistant has failed, force quit it and try re-launching it again from your Applications Utility folder.

Migration Assistant Does Not See Attached External Disk

I just purchased a MacBook Air to replace an aging MacBook Pro. Both are running the latest Mountain Lion (10.8.3). I want to move my files from the MBP to the MBA using Migration Assistant. I first tried doing this over wi-fi, but when I learned it would take more than 99 hours, I chose to cancel the operation.
So I connected a new Seagate HD to the MBP and configured Time Machine to back up to it. I let Time Machine run all day, creating hourly updates after the initial backup. I then disconnected the drive, attached it to the MBA and rebooted. I ran Migration Assistant and chose to migrate from a Time Machine backup. However, Migration Assistant does not see the disk. Yet the disk is mounted on the desktop, I can read and write to it, and I can see the Time Machine backups. Only Migration Assistant seems unable to recognize the disk.
This isn't the first time I've had problems with MA (see my posting history). When it works, it's terrific - my new computer has all the settings and preferences as the old. My applications are all registered and operational. So I'm very frustrated that I can't get it to work with my new MBA. It really does diminish the experience of getting a new computer. That, plus I don't want to spend days and weeks moving things over manually, re-installing, etc.
C'mon, Apple. Why is Migration Assistant so difficult? I'd chalk it up to user error, but this many times?

So, finally after fourten hours of unattended "migration," I let it continue overnight and in the morning found that the time remaining had not moved a minute. I canceled MA and found that not one iota of data had transferred.
As far as I'm concerned, Migration Assistant ranks lower on the Apple success list than Open Doc, Newton, Pink and Taligent.
Now I have to manually install software I want to use on the MBA, apply licenses, and all the other stuff I would expect from Windows.
NOT happy.

Can I use Migration Assistant to backup to an older machine?

I have a 2008 MBP and a 2011 MBP both running snow leaopard. I originally used migration assistant to transfer everything from the older machine to the newer one when I bought it. Now I have a faulty hard drive [that causes a lot of pinwheeling] that needs to be replaced by apple.
Although I have all my non-OSX data backed up I'd rather not have to go in and backup each application before I get the laptop serviced. I was wondering if I could use migration assistant to transfer everything from the 2011 machine back to the 2008 machine and then when I get the new hard drive I can do it again from the 2008 machine to the 2011 machince.
Basically use migration assistant to do a backup that I can then restore later.

Interesting question! May work if the files are compatible with the os on the older machine. See if there is a solution in the How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac and Migration Assistant tips and tricks articles.

HT201250 Migration assistant doesn't see my external disk although it's connected and turned on. What should I do?

I had to reformat my HD. Now I'm trying to restore from my Time Machine, back up external disk using Migration Assistant. The M.Assitant doesn't see my external disk though it's connected and turned on. What should I do?

See Here for > Frozen or unresponsive iPhone
Try this First...
Press and Hold the Sleep/Wake Button and the Home Button at the Same Time...
Wait for the Apple logo to Appear...
Usually takes about 15 - 20 Seconds... ( But can take Longer...)
Release the Buttons...
More Info here > https://discussions.apple.com/message/19521062

HT4413 What if migration assistant isn't recognizing my external hard drive with my time machine backup on it.

Tech department updated my computer to Lion and wiped it clean. I'm trying to restore my documents/photos/etc from a Snow Leopard time machine backup. When trying to use Migration Manager, when it asks for me to "Select my system," my hard drive with the time machine backup doesn't appear.

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

Migration Assistant can't find External HD on MacBook Pro Mid-2012

Hi, I have a MacBook Pro Mid-2012 running OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and I am trying to use Migration Assistant to transfer Time Machine backups that are on my external hard drive, that I backed up from my old MacBook Mid-2010. The problem I am having is that Migration Assistant can't find my external hard drive. My MacBook Pro can find it when I plug it in (I see it in Finder), but Migration Assistant can't. Can anyone help or should I go to the Apple Store? I need help with this problem as soon as possible.
Thanks in advance,
- Daniel 

Since no one replied I figured out how to do it myself.
1.) First I plugged in my external hard drive with my Time Machine backups on them, then I opened Finder and click on my external hard drive under devices.
2.) Next I clicked on and opened the folder named "Backups.backupdb"
3.) Once inside that folder I could see folders with the backups from Time Machine and all of the folders names were the date I backed up that backup. I clicked and opended the lastest backup folder.
4.) Inside that folder, I clicked and opened the folder named "Macintosh HD"
5.) Inside that folder, I clicked and opended the folder named "Users"
6.) Inside that folder, I clicked and opended the folder named "Daniel" which was my Username on my previous Mac.
7.) Finally I could see and access all my folders from my Time Machine backups from my previous Mac.
Keep in mind this is only helpful if you are trying to access old backups (backed up from another Mac) on a new or different Mac. (Sorry for the blurry images)
Hope this somehow helps someone else,
- Daniel 

Migration Assistant as backup tool to external HD

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