Migration Assistant copied everything, even when unchecked.

My Snow Leopard boot disk had 12 years of accumulated crud, and was running slowly.
So I did a nice clean install of Lion on a fresh partition.
Redid some configuring, like sudoers, Flash, Time machine interval to 4 hours, locate.updatedb, etc.
Wanted my old "Location" info (about a dozin networks).
Gave Migration assistant a try.
Unchecked EVERYTHING except Network Settings:
Perfect. Only 24 KB. Probably just a couple of .plist files.
What could go wrong? I'm running from a non-admin account.
It copied all the Users.
It copied all the Applications.
It copied all the root level cruft.
My pristine boot drive is burried deeper in crap that the American Constitution.
My backup is a day old, and I worked all day.
Another half a day to undo this mess.
Next time I will find the config file and copy it myself.
But why did it do this?

I entered Time Machine to restore Lion from yesterday's backup
Selecting Lion in the left column left "Restore" grayed out unless I also selected some folders in the right column.
This wouldn't get rid of all the garbage on the disk.
Selecting MyComputer on the left, and Lion on the right looked better.
Started the Restore.
It first deleted all the files on Lion except:
/Volumes/Lion/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi
Everything seemed to get restored except the System folder.
"You can’t copy “System” because it has the same name as another item on the destination volume, and that volume doesn’t distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames.
So I renamed System to System1 and restored System.
Tried to boot. "Lion" was not offered as a boot volume.
Moved everything from System to System1 except boot.efi which was already there.
Now "Lion" was offered as a boot volume, but wouldn't boot.
Ran Disk Utility repair disk on Lion.
"Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required."
Still won't boot.
Oh!
There is no private. no var. usr. dev. nada.
I have overestimated Time Machine.
This is more difficult than it should be.
Reinstalling, and then Restoring from Time Machine should work.
Will sleep in it first.

Similar Messages

Migration Assistant Copied System Preferences from a Third HD!

I used Migration Assistant to copy files off an iMac and onto a new HD in a MacPro. I purchased a second HD for the MacPro especially for this occasion because I wanted to leave the original MacPro HD intact. At this point, I had two HD's in the MacPro. After installing Snow Leopard, Migration Assistant copied all files and users as expected but something very strange happened:
1. iMac is 10.6.5 but new HD has 10.6
2. System Preferences were taken from the existing HD in the MacPro
I knew there was something wrong because the desktop image was from the original MacPro HD.
What's more annoying is that I completely wiped the new HD using Disk First Aid and removed the original HD from the MacPro so I could start the entire migration process again. Before quitting Disk First Aid, I noticed that it said 800mb had been used even though I had zero'd out everything.
Again, for the second attempt I decided to remove the original HD from the MacPro and just leave the new drive in there, but it did it again.
1. Question - If I had assigned Migration Assistant to copy files from the iMac HD why did I end up with System Preferences from the original MacPro HD?
2. Question - After completely removing the original MacPro HD from the machine, why did Migration Assistant set up the new HD with the System Preferences on an HD that I had completely removed from the machine?
I know all I have to do is use Software Update to bring it back up to 10.6.5 but it's really annoyed me because now I am wondering about of all the 500 gigs and what files may have been affected (hopefully none). I've had a quick look through the contents but I won't be able to tell because there are so many of them. And do I really want to spend time digging around in the Library of the iMac to copy across the System Preferences to the new HD and then remove what shouldn't have been there in the first place? I don't think so, and I shouldn't have to.
I do wish Apple would have their software do what it says and not go digging around on another HD that was lying dormant for this exercise, especially after removing it for the second attempt. It's wasting so much of my time.
Any thoughts, opinions, excuses and remedies would be greatly welcomed.
Thanks in advance.
Message was edited by: inknpaper

inknpaper wrote:
I used Migration Assistant to copy files off an iMac and onto a new HD in a MacPro. I purchased a second HD for the MacPro especially for this occasion because I wanted to leave the original MacPro HD intact. At this point, I had two HD's in the MacPro. After installing Snow Leopard, Migration Assistant copied all files and users as expected but something very strange happened:
You mean you installed OSX on the new drive. Apparently you used a 10.6.0 disc.
Then, presumably, your Mac re-started (from the new disk), you set up a user account, then started +Migration Assistant.+
Migration Assistant doesn't install or copy OSX; whatever version of OSX you put on that drive is still there.
2. System Preferences were taken from the existing HD in the MacPro
Extremely doubtful.
You have an extra user account (the one you set up after installing OSX and before doing the Migration). Unless you changed it, that account will have the default desktop picture.
Are you sure the account you transferred has a different desktop picture than it did on the iMac? If so, is it the default?
What's more annoying is that I completely wiped the new HD using Disk First Aid and removed the original HD from the MacPro so I could start the entire migration process again. Before quitting Disk First Aid, I noticed that it said 800mb had been used even though I had zero'd out everything.
Yes; that's the partition map and empty directories.
1. Question - If I had assigned Migration Assistant to copy files from the iMac HD why did I end up with System Preferences from the original MacPro HD?
As above, I don't think you did. Be sure which account you're logged-on to.
For best results, start over, and use +Setup Assistant+ instead of +Migration Assistant,+ so you don't end up with extra accounts. See [Setting up a new Mac from an old one or its backups|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), and note the green box there.

RubyGems problem: Does migration assistant copy across xcode & Rubygems?

Migration assistant has finished copying across my data and I'm now trying to get my Rails apps running again (I was hoping that Migration Assistant would do the biz with RubyGems, etc). At the moment I'm trying to install all required gems, but struggling with hpricot due to the following error;
sudo gem install hpricot
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing hpricot:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb
can't find header files for ruby.
Gem files will remain installed in /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.8.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/hpricot-0.8.1/ext/hpricotscan/gemmake.out
Is this related to xcode or the version of RubyGems? What am I missing?

Pretend you're in charge of writing Migration Assistant for a minute. How are you going to magically know everything about every piece of software everyone could possibly install in various locations on their system? Would you even bother trying, or would you focus on moving the things that most normal people care about and just assume that anyone who knew how to install their own stuff on the command line can probably figure out how to do it again?

Can Migration Assistant copy from a Time Machine volume?

My PowerMac G5 died, and I'm replacing it with a MacBook Pro. Is it possible for the Migration Assistant to copy my files from my old system's Time Machine backup, since the machine itself doesn't work?
Also, any complications running Migration Assistant going from a Power Mac system to an Intel-based system? (Aside from the obvious: that any Power Mac native apps won't work...)
Thanks!

yes, it's possible but it's actually not advisable to use Migration assistant when migrating from PPC to intel. definitely do not migrate the applications.
also, you might consider doing a completely manual migration. see kappy's post in this thread
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1571689&tstart=0

Can Migration Assistant Copy MSIE

My wife has an iMac that has MS Internet Explorer installed on it. She needs it to do account transfers at our bank. If I bought a MacBook Pro, would Migration Assistant be able to import a working version of MSIE from her iMac? I ask the question because Microsoft have stopped making MSIE available for Macs.
Thank in advance,
Bud Cook
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Hi Bud;
I guess that is your call but there is absolute no
reason to write a web site for a business so that it
is browser specific. They should just be written to
the HTML standards. If they do that then there are no
problems. My thinking is that this is especially true
of banks.
I do my banking with a credit union also and i can
use whatever browser I prefer to use. They don't make
any restrictions on what I use.
I am quite confident if you were too complain about
this and present the security problems they are
leaving themselves open to by forcing their user to
access them via MSIE, they would listen.
Allan
I did tell them that everyone including IBM is telling us to use FireFox instead of MSIE but I got no response. I doubt they care much about Macs and if you have a PC, they also support Netscape.
As I pointed out above, there is only one function that won't work with Safari.
I've owned PC's since before IBM made them available to the general public and I've installed and used every version of MSIE including Betas since day one. I've yet to experience a virus on any of my machines.
I currently use MSIE 7.0 Beta 2, FireFox 1.5 and Netscape 8.1. Unfortunately, none of them work on a Mac.
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Why does final cut x copy events even when the copy files to final cuts events folder is unchecked

When I import iMovie (v 9.04) events into Final Cut Pro X (v 10.0.2) it always copies (duplicates) the events even though the "copy files to Final Cut Events folder" import preference is unchecked. I do not want to duplicate 1 TB of data for no reason. Is this a bug or is the feature badly mislabeled? Can I impot iMovie events without duplicating them?

You shouldn't expect the FCP events folder to be twice the iMovie events folder. While the .dv files (or whatever the media are) are duplicated, the iMovie Movie Cache and iMovie Thumbnails folders are not. Instead, FCP creates a Render Files folder and a CurrentVersion.fcpevent file.
To compare one event, iMovie had a Thumbnails folder of 681.3 MB and a cache folder of 587 KB. In contrast, FCP created a Render Files folder of 45 MB and an CurrentVersion.fcpevent file of 2.1 MB. So, the FCP foder is 634 MB smaller than the iMovie folder for the one event. But don't take my word for it, just compare pairs of events yourself. You will see the media in the Original Media folder and it will be exactly the same as the media in the iMovie folder. Since you have the media, there is no reason to worry about deleting the iMovie folder.
Now I have no way of knowing if this is true, but is it possible that FCP duplicated events until it ran out of disk space? While the FCP events folders are a bit smaller than the iMovie events folders, it may not be enough to have made everything fit. And keep in mind that it takes a while for the Render Files folders to be generated. After I imported 50 events (about an hour of video each), it took a few hours for FCP to finish generating the Render Files folders. I watched the entire Final Cut Events folder grow by several GB while that was going on.
In short, just compare pairs of events to reassure yourself that the media are in both places.

Applications always transfer even when unchecked in itunes!

I have 2.2.1 firmware and i've just re-installed itunes hoping this would solve my issue, unfortunately it has not. Even though application sync is turned OFF in itunes applications installed from the iphone not itunes always try and transfer to itunes on sync, even though these applications don't ever show up at all in itunes. I've tried un-authorizing my computer then reauthorizing it after a friend suggested this. Syncing takes forever and is really beginning to bug the **** out of me.
Message was edited by: Zool_375

This is normal - any applications downloaded and installed by your iPhone are transferred (or should be transferred) to your iTunes library on your computer when syncing the first time afterwards. If you ever need to restore your iPhone with iTunes, you will need to re-download all apps again - either with your iPhone or with iTunes unless all apps are available in your iTunes library on your computer.
The same applies to any music purchased from the iTunes store on your iPhone - these songs will be transferred to your iTunes library when syncing the first time afterwards.

Photoshop CC Selects everything, even when its locked.

Hello all,
I have a major issue with selecting any one object inside the new photoshop CC. When I want to select one object on the canvas, it selects everything thats underneath that object. I literarly try to create folders and lock all the content that i dont want to move, and then select that object again, but it still selects and moves all my content under my object.
Is it a new function? Can i turn it off?

This bits a dead give away "it says adobe photoshop cannot run on this computer because this version of photoshop requires windows 7 or later"
What Operating System have you installed it on?

Can't sync my ipod even when uncheck memo

i
i try every tips you've said, but every time i try to uncheck memovoice, the itunes block and windows close itunes.now, i still haven't sync my ipod
Any other tips?
thanks

Try:
- Another cable and USB port
- iOS: Not responding or does not turn on
- Also try DFU mode after try recovery mode
How to put iPod touch / iPhone into DFU mode « Karthik's scribblings
- If not successful and you can't fully turn the iOS device fully off, let the battery fully drain. After charging for an least an hour try the above again.
- Try on another computer
- If still not successful that usually indicates a hardware problem and an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store is in order.
Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar

HT4889 Am I wrong or does Migration Assistant not work in Mountain Lion (10.8.2) when migrating from a PowerPC running Tiger (10.4.11)? Apple really needs to get on the ball or face losing people buying their new desktop products.

The title alone speaks to my frustration about this issue.
Used the process that was recommended by Apple to migrate from my "Lampshade" iMac (PPC running 10.4.11) to the new iMac (Intel running 10.8.2) and I got bupkiss...
Just a spinning wheel (not beachball) and no drive recognized using Migration Assistant for both nor when using Target Mode on the iMac running 10.4.11 and Migration Assistant on the iMac running 10.8.2. Which is ironic, or more accurately oxymoronic, since the iMac in Target Mode (10.4.11) is recognized on the desktop of the iMac running 10.8.2 but not in the Migration Assistant. And before you can misdiagnose..it is not the Thunderbolt connection since I have the Apple recommended Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter and also used the Firewire 400 to 800 cable to expedite the transfer.
On a personal note...
I'm not bashing Apple for this...they are "head and shoulders" above the competition in what they do but I've been burned a few times so I feel I can share a small bit of loyal customer advice...I understand your iOS and mobile products hold huge sway in company focus and market-share but I find it a tad unwise to slack on the desktop applications. I don't recall any app for the iPhone/iPad family being made on the iPhone/iPad...only from desktop applications if I recall correctly. And how can I clearly "Move my Mac even further ahead" as your marketing states when I can't even migrate my files from my old Mac to my new one in a simple fashion as per your instructions?
I thank anyone in advance with an answer or even a workaround for this issue and please have a great day.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4889
Migration from Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger to OS X Lion
Migration from Mac OS X v10.4 computers to OS X Lion over your Wi-Fi or a wired network is not supported. However, if both Macs are equipped with a FireWire port, you can use Target Disk Mode to transfer your data:
Verify that both Macs are equipped with a FireWire port. Note that different model Macs may have different FireWire connectors, which will require an appropriate cable, such as FireWire 400 to FireWire 800.
On the Mac you want to transfer data from, Restart, and immediately hold the T key.
Wait for the FireWire logo to appear on the screen. If it does not, restart and try again.
Connect both Macs via the FireWire cable.
On the Mac you want to transfer data to, Open the Migration Assistant application.
Select the option "From another Mac, PC, Time Machine backup, or other disk" and click Continue.
Select the option "From a Time Machine backup or other disk" and click Continue.
Select your other Mac's volume, such as "Macintosh HD", from the list, and click Cont
EDIT: Actually I realize you did follow these directions and if your drive is seen on the new Mac it should work. You're entitled to free Apple support with the new purchase, I'd give them a call.

HT4796 Migration Assistant: do I want everything?

Do I let Migration Assistant move everything it shows (user accounts, applications, ect.)?

There are NO apps on a windows computer that will work on a Mac. There is NO reason to import any user accounts. Why you have one on your Mac already.
IMHO Migration Assistant is a POS and Should Not Be used. Just copy over your personal Files.

Migration Assistant & Ext. HD

Migration Assistant won't recognized my cloned HD as another computer/drive.
I've had this problem ever since I got this iMac G5 that if I turn it off (though leaving it plugged in) for several days, the system crashes and can't find the HD when I turn it on again. After the first time I ended up getting an external LaCie HD and would just reformat and migrate everything from the cloned HD.
However, this time.... Migration Assistant won't even recognized my external HD as a drive and, thus, I can't use Migration Assistant to restore it. I also haven't been able to use "restore" in the Utilities. An "error" won't let me do that either.
Any suggestions on how I can restore my system of my external HD?
Thanks!

Hi Prometheus,
You can just drag the subfolders from your backup Desktop, Documents, Library, Movies, Pictures, etc. to your internal and overwrite or replace them.
But do not replace the parent folders themselves.
Or, if you prefer you can just replace the items you need.
Here is a list of where your important data is stored ("~" stands for "Home"):
Your data in ~/Documents
~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Application Support/iCal(copy the whole folder)
Also in ~/Library/Application Support (copy whatever else you need)
~ /Library/Keychains (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Mail (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist *This is a very important file which contains all email account settings and general mail preferences.
~ /Library/iTunes (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Application Support/Safari (copy the whole folder)
~/Library/Application Support/iMovie (copy the whole folder)
~/Pictures/iPhoto library
~/Music/iTunes
~/Movies/iMovie
If you want cookies:
~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist
~/Library/Application Support/Webfoundation/HTTPcookies.plist
For Entourage users:
Entourage is in Documents/Microsoft user data
Also in ~ /Library/Preferences/Microsoft
internet explorer favorites are in ~/Library/Preferences/Explorer/favorites.html
-mj
[email protected]

Migration Assistant is broken in 10.9.1

I've just tried setting up my new rMBP using Migration Assistant. Migration Assistant said the new Mac needs to be updated to 10.9.1, which I do. rMBP restarts. Run Migration Assistant on both Macs again. Migration Assistant crashes on both Macs. I then try using a Time Machine backup for the migration. This time, Migration Assistant doesn't see the Time Machine disk. I'm intrigued because Time Machine worked on 10.9, but with the 10.9.1 update appears that the update has broken Migration Assistant.
I rerun the process on my Mac mini and same thing happens.
This is rather frustrating, but seems to be part of a continuing trend of software companies releasing software and updates that are obviously unfinished.
Has anyone else had this issue?

Just back home from a follow-up visit to the Genius Bar on this migration issue (from MacBook Air to new MacBook Pro).
Previous efforts to migrate had taken endless hours and seemed to hang at the 20-mins-remaining mark.
At the store, even after we manually turned off WiFi before connecting the Thunderbolt cable, Migration Assistant seemed to turn WiFi back on and start the migration over WiFi.
In the end, we used the Air (source) in Target Disk mode, which forced the computers to use the Thunderbolt cable. Migration took a little over half an hour, as opposed to 12 hours or more that Migration Assistant was saying earlier when apparently trying to use WiFi.

Migration Assistant failure - intriguing behavior

I'm now on my third attempt to run Migration Assistant to reinstall my user account files. On the second attempt, I watched as Migration Assistant copied the files (from Desktop down to Pictures), and then sat horrified as the files quickly disappeared from the screen (in reverse order of how they appeared).
A little background. This is on a PowerMac G5 running 10.4.10 (the 10.4.10 update may be the reason for this reinstall and restore, btw). A clean install was required b/c the Volume Bitmap could not be repaired. I used Disk Utility to image the hard drive to a external firewire, which I'm using w/ the Migration Assistant.
The Applications and the Networking Settings were migrated w/o incident, but the user folder was no where to be found after the migration. Observation revealed the mysterious deletion of files.
Any ideas why this may have occured? I know I can copy the files manually at this point, but I'm truly intrigued by this behavior.
Many thanks for any ideas you may be able to provide.
-Val
PowerMac G5 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.10)

I used Disk Utility to image the hard drive to a external firewire
Did you create an image or did you use the restore option? Can you boot with the FWHD? If so, then I suggest that you do another erase & install, but after booting with the install disk, entering your language, select Utilities->Disk Utility and repair the FWHD and repair permissions, quit DU, select Window->Show Log->Show everything, continue the installation, and watch the log while the installation progresses to see what's going on.

Screwed up the initial start-up with Migration assistant

I just recieved my 27" refub iMac, and was all excited to transfer my files over from my old iMac.
When I started the system up, I followed all the directions, followed the migration assistant, and everything sync'd. Great. Until...
Not only did all of my files transfer over, but all of my old settings, too. It's basically a mirror of my old iMac. The problem with this is that I have some settings that I didn;t want to transfer over. Further, things like Office for Mac 2011 seem to have only migrated as a shell - the actual program content is missin on the new iMac.
I wanted a fresh, clean, original factory setting system with just my files (photos, iTunes, docs, etc). I can re-download Office, and all of the other programs. I just wanted myt files. Files only.
Just. My. Files.
How can I re-start the computer so that it erases the original setup/migration I did, so that I can power it up again, walk through the factory startup process, and then transfer only the FILES, not the bad user settings I had on my old iMac?
Help!
Sadly, I've had the old iMac for 5/6 years, but am very basic with its OS/file system, etc.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR ANY HELP!!!

Setup Assistant would probably have been the better route, but you need to do that at first boot of the Mac. All is not lost though, courtesy of Pondini's invaluable resource:
http://pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html

Migration Assistant copied everything, even when unchecked.

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