Migration Assistant doesn't see external HDD (NOT a Time Machine)

Mid-2010 MBP running 10.6.8 died... HDD was alright so I put it in an enclosure and USB-'d it to my brand new MBP running Yosemite.
The new MBP sees the "Macintosh HD" within Finder just fine and individual files are transferable.
However Migration Assistant gets stuck forever looking for the drive. How do I fix this?
Thanks in advance!!

Yes, I could, but I gave up and just re-created all of the users and groups and reset folder permissions manually.

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Is their another way like to use my time capsule as an external drive not using time machine?thanks

is their another way like to use my time capsule as an external drive not using time machine?thanks

You do not have to use Time Machine.. but the TC is hardly suitable for a NAS.. it has no means to back itself up and is relatively slow. Still that is up to you..
CCC or Superduper are good backup softwares .. and there are a number of others.

Migration assistant doesn't see my time machine backup

Since upgading to mavericks migration assistant no longer sees my backup on my external drive that I use for my time machine backups. The drive mounts fine and I can access my backups through my finder using "enter time machine", but I can not restore because migration assistant can't see the drive. I don't knoe if it's a time machine issue or a mighration assistant issue. I have tried on several macs and with several different hard drives but migration assistant cannot restore from my time machine backups. I suggest everyone make sure they can restore from their time machine backups because this may be a major problem and result in complete loss of data. I have found no solution yet.

Here are the articles I have on Migration Assistant. None of them had the answer to your problem (or at least I couldn't find it). Check what you did versus the recommendations in the articles is about the best I can offer.
Migration Assistant
Migration Assistant (2)
Migration Assistant – Tips and Tricks

HT4889 Migration assistant doesn't see my 3TB Time machine it just keeps looking for other computers

I just did a clean install of Mountain Lion on my iMac and Migration Assistant doesn't seem to see my 3TB Time Machine. It continuously looks for other computers, and nothing else. I know the files work because I loaded it on my other MBP and it sees them just fine? am I just inpatient or is something wrong?

This happened to me after hard drive replacement under the Seagate Drive Recall at the local Apple Store. Here's what I learned from the process:
I Wagged the Mac home, fired it up (with naked OS installed at the Apple Store), and it wouldn't see my Time Machine drive with Setup Assistant - not on firewire 800 nor USB. Just a grey spinner that lasts forever. When I try just continuing anyway, it offers me something that looks plausible, but then puts up a dialog about duplicate user name, and no matter what I enter, it always says "that user already exists". So I think - maybe Migration Assistant. Complete the setup, create an account, watch the nice welcome movie. BAM - there's my Time Machine drive on the desktop. OK - it has to work . . . but no. Same behavior in Migration Assistant, plus the new OS offers to start making backups on my Time Machine disk - it's not recognizing it at all.
So - back to the Apple Store - let the genius figure it out. It turns out there are multiple problems. First, the "genius" who imaged my new machine picked 10.7.2 but my machine had 10.7.5 - turns out, it's not enough just to have right cat. Even a point release older OS may not recognize a newer Time Machine drive. The guy at the desk said "We have images of everything but the 10.7.2 has free iLife in it, so they like to use that one". What the heck? They don't image what you had originally as a matter of sane process?
Having figured that out, we re-image 10.7.5 at the store thinking we've fixed it. But no - Setup Assistant still won't see the Time Machine drive. Not on USB, not on Firewire. Not in a box, not with a fox.
So here's the second trick - newer machines have a recovery partion. see: http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/ Boot with the option key held down, pick that partition, then you'll get a "system restore" option, to restore your whole system from a Time Machine backup. My drive was recognized by the recovery partition restore process when neither Setup nor Migration Assistant would. Obviously, there's something broken in Setup/Migration Assistant.
Takeaway:
- if you're getting a drive replaced by Apple, make sure they image *exactly* the same OS
- if Setup Assistant fails, use the recovery partition for system restore
- Use Recovery Disk Assistant http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 NOW to make yourself a recovery thumb drive just in case. With Apple's new "no media" approach to the OS, you're hosed without it.

Migration Assistant doesn't see SuperDuper backup

Anyone out there know why Migration Assistant won't see a SuperDuper bootable backup on an external HD? I just get a completely blank box in the Migration Assistant window.
I don't want to do a full restore/copy back as there may be problems on the backup and I want to choose what to migrate back to a clean internal HD.

Unless you can test your Migration Assistant.app by connecting a different "good" external volume, I can't think of anything else to try.
I'd suggest also asking at the [SuperDuper forum|http://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=b4871cfda0b9d4f1fba ed6a37dd88b06&f=6] - questions posted there are answered directly by the SD developer, Dave Nanian.
Message was edited by: jsd2
Just to be sure - you are booted from the internal HD, correct? Migration Assistant won't show the startup volume.

Migration assistant doesn't "see" Time Machine disk

Just got a new logic board, and they wiped the hard drive. My Time Machine disk mounts, and I can see the files. However, migration assistant doesn't list it as a source. (Yes it's formatted Mac OS Extended [Journaled])
Time Machine recognizes it and wants to use it as a new backup disk, but it doesn't want to show me anything from the old back up. I didn't do a new backup of the "new" computer. I don't back up applications just users.
2.2 i7 MbP 8GB 10.7.4
thanks
DLS

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.

IMac with external HDD backup to Time Machine

I have an iMac with a 1TB internal HDD and have run out of space due to the number of photos in my library. I want to move the photos to a 1TB external HDD, then add a new 2TB external HDD to serve as the new Time Machine backup drive. So my setup will include the iMac and two connected external HDDs. What is the best way to set this up so the new Time Machine backup drive captures both the internal iMac HDD and the external photos HDD? Any tips or tricks would be appreciated. Thanks!

First of all, note that Time Machine can only make backups of drives formatted in HFS+ (known as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"), so your 1 TB external drive has to use that format before moving your photos to it. As you are using it to make Time Machine backups, it is already using that format.
There are two possibilities in order to start using a different external drive for Time Machine:
Move your old Time Machine backups made in your 1 TB external drive to your 2 TB external drive.
Start a completely new backup, deleting the old ones.
In the first possibility, you only have to follow these steps -> Time Machine: How to transfer backups from a current backup drive to a new backup drive - Soporte técnico de Apple After moving your Time Machine backups to the 2 TB external drive, remember to format the 1 TB drive with Disk Utility in order to store your photos there.
In the second possibility, just go to System Preferences -> Time Machine, and choose your 2 TB external drive as your Time Machine drive. Then, format the 1 TB external drive.
In both cases, Time Machine does not make backups of external drives by default, so after moving your photos to the 1 TB external drive, you have to go to System Preferences -> Time Machine -> Options, and remove the 1 TB external drive from the excluded items list. By doing that, the next backup will also include your 1 TB drive.

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?

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Migration assistant doesn't detect my HDD.

There were some problems on my Dad's MacBook. After trying to solve the problems (including, going to the support service of the shop he bought the Mac), I decided to get lost of all the data and to reinstall the Leopard on the computer.
So first I made a Time Machine backup on a external HDD, before I reinstalled Leopard on it.
Then I connected my HDD (LaCie 320GB) to the MacBook. I saw the symbol on my desktop.
He asked if I wanted to use this HDD for Time Machine Backups, I canceled.
Than I opened Migration Assistant, but when he wanted me to choose from which HD I wanted to copy all my stuff, there was only MacIntosh HD, the internal HD of the MacBook.
For some reason he didn't detect my HDD, although it was on my Desktop.
Does anyone know how comes? What to do?
Are there other possilities to copy the old stuff from the HDD to the MacBook?
Thanks in advance!
PS: MacBook, 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, Mac OS X 10.5.4

Hello
Migration Assistant looks for an installed Operating System. Your TM backup on the external drive is just an archive that Migration Assistant cannot access, and so it does not see it.
You could have made a clone using SuperDuper and migration assistant would see that and be able to work with it, but alas, not the TM archive.
Another thing you could have done and could still do is reinstall the TM backup using the Install DVD and selecting Restore from the TM Backup. Much like you did, but use the Time Machine backup as the source of the files, and that would have put everything back as it was.

Migration Assistant doesn't see Time Machine volume

I'm moving from a MacBook Pro running 10.6.8 to a MBP running 10.7.5. I thought this would be pretty simple ... just attach my Snow Leopard Time Machine external drive to the Lion MBP and run Migration Assistant.
But when I go through the MA steps, MA does not see my TM drive. I've made sure I have the latest upgrades and have run Disk Utility's First Aid on the TM drive.
Ideas? I know I can try MA with other interfaces but using TM allows me to work on my old computer until my new one is ready.
The TM drive is a 500GB Iomega eGo drive.
Thanks.

jtfey wrote:
I've done Migration Assistant installs before and when MA asks if you're restoring from another computer or a TM drive, and I select TM, the name of the TM drive shows up.
Not if it's directly-connected. It shows the Computer name and the name of the HD that were backed-up, per the sample posted earlier.
If it's on a network, the name of the volume it's on is shown, like the 4th item in the sample.
Plus, the first time I tried doing a restore I saw the source as "Macintosh HD" and went ahead and ran MA. About 85 minutes later it was done and no data had been transferred from the 10.6 MBP to 10.7 MBP. Nothing.
The data would be in the transferred accounts, not the one you ran the Migration from.
This is the first 10.7 MA I've done. I would not have imagined that Apple would design software that asks you for your TM drive and then, when you make that selection, you never the name of the TM drive show up.
I couldn't agree more. I've submitted requests to change that several times, including during beta testing of both Lion and Mountain Lion. Please add your voice here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html Maybe if enough of us do so, they'll listen.

Migration Assistant can't see external Time Machine

I appreciate Macs and all they can do but I am not great with the technical side. I apologise if this is an stupid question. Probably all my technical questions seem stupid to people who can find their way around the mac.
Shiny new iMac. Yah!
Hmm there's a problem.
External drive with Time Machine backups on it shows on the desktop, however when I use Migration Assistant to transfer info it can't find it.
The external drive is plugged directly into the iMac.
I can open the external drive and see there are Time Machine backups.
The Time Machine App is currently set to off on my new iMac. Is it as simply as switching it to "on"? I was concerned about overwriting the old backups and losing them.
Thanks for assistance.

Most likely, some folders were excluded from your backups as the result of a failed or aborted software installation.
Starting from a clean installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Enter Time Machine and press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible.* Select the one you want and navigate to your home folder (in the Users folder at the top level of the old startup volume.)
You should now be able to restore your user data. I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of your home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of your home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You'll have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, or restore them from another kind of backup, if you have one.
You'll have another problem if this is a new computer, or if you erased the startup volume: The next time you back up, Time Machine won't recognize any files as being the same as they were before, and will make a full copy of all files. There might not be enough space on one or more of your backup volumes for that. There are different ways of dealing with that situation, depending on your needs. The easiest way is to set your backup drives aside, if possible, until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on them, then erase them and start over. Meanwhile start a new backup on one or more empty storage devices. If that solution isn't workable for you, ask for instructions.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of your computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Migration Assistant doesn't recognise external disk where my TM back up is.

I have made a clean instalation on my Imac, In order to instal Mountain Lion. Mi machine its working now on OS 10.8.2. The problem is that when i run the Migration Assistant it only show the actual HD disk and doesn´t show the external drive where mi back up are. So i can´t migrate ALL my information to the new enviroment.
I want to recover all my stuff, aplications, paswords, files, etc. created originaly on Snow Leopard and use it in Mountain Lion.
Thanks.

You do realize that by doing that you restored your OS X 10.6 installation as it was before you upgraded, in essence undoing your operating system upgrade. You originallly requested to "migrate" your data and applications to your new clean installation of OS X Mountain Lion which wasnt working, so restoring from a backup defeats the purpose of having upgraded.
However, at this point you can download and install the Mountain Lion upgrade again over your restored system to get Mountain Lion running, but by doing this you will not have done a "clean" install.

Migration Assistant Doesn't see the Source Mac

Hello there,
I'm trying to transfer an application from my powerbook (10.5.5) to my desktop Mac (MDD, 10.4.11) using Migration Assistant. I'm very familiar with the use of Target Disk mode and Migration Assistant (MA). However, MA gets stuck in the window that says in the bottom ... " waiting for your old Mac to restart." The FireWire symbol is on the powerbook's screen and its icon shows on the MDD's desktop. I can open the "mounted" FW powerbook, etc. but MA doesn't see it.
Any thoughts?
Thanks a lot,
Jacobo

Not sure that Migration Assistant in Tiger could handle Leopard's way of doing things. Will try to check tomorrow.
Is there no other way to install it?
Sometimes, connecting the FW cable after it's booted into Target mode helps, I've seen this a couple of times.

Migration Assistant doesn't see the startup disk from the old G4

Hi,
I just got my new iMac and was about to transfer stuff from my old G4 which have two internal disks. But I stumbled into serius problems right away. Migration Assistant is not able to see the startup disk from the G4. It sees only the other disk.
I have tried to disconnect the extra disk and checked that the startup disk is forced with the jumper to be the master disk. With this configuration it won't start the G4 at all. Having he jumper in the cable select slot results to shut-up with the T-button (firewire) startup and normal startup without the T-way.
What should I do? I can't figure out what the problem is.
I enclose some System Profiler data of the problematic disk if this helps to find the solution.
Model: MAXTOR 6L060J3
BSD Name: disk0
Protocol: ATA
Unit Number: 1
OS9 Drivers: Yes
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD NAme: disk0s10

Ok. This is really simple to do.
The idea of the dual drive iMac is that the System and Apps reside on the fast SSD and that the user directories reside on the HD.
You first need to create the same accounts on your SSD as on your old iMac.
The next step is to change the path of the user accounts from the SSD to the internal HD. Duplicate or copy the Users directories on the SSD to the HD.
Change the path in System Preferences > User & Groups > Unlock to make changes > Select User account in sidebar > Right-click > Choose Advanced Options > Home Directory > Choose the Volumes/your_hd/Users/user_name.
Restart your iMac and restore from Migration Assistant.
Remember to keep the empty directories on the SSD, in case you ever have a HD failure or replacement, you will have to change the path back to the SSD.

Migration Assistant doesn't see USB Time Machine drive

My dad recently got a new MacBook Pro and wants to restore from his Time Machine backup, stored on a USB drive. He didn't use the Setup Assistant at the start - I'm really not sure why, but anyway...
Now we're looking at Migration Assistant, and it can't find the Time Machine drive. On the 'Select your disk' screen, the wheel just spins and spins. The backup drive is plugged in and mounted. We've checked the drive for errors using Disk Util, and it's fine. Moreover, I tested this with my own MBP and it's backup drive and the same problem occurs.
He also tried booting from the install DVD and using the 'restore' option from the Utilities menu, without success.
Is this because he has started to set up the machine using a user (as admin) with the same account name as the Time Machine backups? This website suggested that maybe that's what happening: http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html. Before I take him through a reinstall, etc, I'm hoping to confirm that this is really the problem!

Just create a new user account with a different name. Logout of the current account and log into the new one. Be sure the new account has admin status. You can then try migrating and see if it now works. Also see OS X 10.5- Migration Assistant keeps "looking for other computers".
See User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.

Migration Assistant doesn't see external HDD (NOT a Time Machine)

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