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?

Similar Messages

  • 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 fails after showing 157 KB or 0 KB to transfer

    I spent 4 days trying to get OS X Migration Assistant to successfully migrate between two desktop machines, both running Mavericks 10.9.3.
    The two machines were connected by an ethernet cable, and all migrations would fail after 16-24 hours, with the progress bar stalling out at "Less than one minute remaining".
    Before every failed transfer, Migration Assistant would inaccurately show "157 KB selected" for transfer if the "Computer & Network Settings" option was checked, or "0 KB selected" for transfer if only the "Applications" or "Documents & Data" options were checked.
    I finally realized that the migrations were failing because I was opening and clicking through Migration Assistant on both the source and target machines at around the same time.
    The eventual solution was to open Migration Assistant on the source machine first, and click through as far as I could until the source machine was actively looking for other machines on the network.
    As long as I waited until then to open Migration Assistant on the target machine, it would correctly calculate the size of the files to be transferred and the migration would succeed.
    So, the order in which you open Migration Assistant seems to make a big difference: source first, then target.
    My problem is solved, but only after several days of hassle, so I wanted to post this in case other people had a similar issue.
    (I tried many suggested fixes that did not work, included reinstalling OS X on the target machine, running disk repair and fixing permissions on both source and target, changing file sharing on the source machine to include the whole drive, trying to migrate Applications and Documents & Data separately, turning off wifi before the transfer, etc.)

    Thanks for posting this.  I was having the same problem.  You saved me hours, maybe days, of frustration!

  • Migration assistant can't find external hard drive

    I bought a Macbook Air and I can't move my files from the Time Machine created by my previous MacBook. Specifically, migration assistant can't find the external disk. I can see the external disc on the desktop, it's just the migration assistant that can't find it. I've done software update, I've attached and detached the external disk and restarted the Air in all imaginable combinations, migration assistant still can't see the external disk. Anyone know how to fix this problem?

    franz1 wrote:
    The top one has icons showing the two partitions from the external drive and the Air's HD.
    That sounds like the Today (Now) display, the one that's show in full when you first Enter Time Machine.  It's not a backup; it's the current contents of your Mac.
    When I clicked on the 2nd window, it seems to be a back up from July 20, which I remember making on the old MacBook. It has one folder on it with my username.
    Yes, that's a backup. 
    When I click on this folder, I find 4 folders inside it titled: Applications, Users, Library and System. I clicked on Applications and it was empty
    That sounds like you'd excluded Applications from backups.   Or else you didn't wait long enough for all the apps to be displayed.
    sometimes the names of programs covered with a see-through "no parking" sign  - a circle with a slash through it
    That's an incompatible app. 
    Is this the Time Machine's records?
    Yup.
    Can I click on the July 20 date and click on restore? Will everything just come back on it's own?
    No.  You can restore individual items that way (if you have permission to them), but not a whole system.  You can restore "simple" apps that way, too, but not "complex" ones -- ones that came with their own installers, because they install other files in other places.  If you don't restore those other things too, the app won't work well, if at all.
    Can you post a screenshot of the Migration Assistant window that should show your backups (something like this):

  • Migration Assistant restore of Time Machine backup

    I have problems using Migration Assistant to restore Time Machine backup after replacing my hard drive (the old hard drive crashed so I replaced one and installed snow leopard). During the migration, I created a new user account for the TM backup because of the same account name with my new system. The migration turned out to be incomplete. I found only the applications are transferred, all other things like preferences and settings, documents etc are not transferred; and I'm not allowed to open my backup files (no permission to view the contents). How can I have a complete migration? And can I restore all my previous personal settings?
    Thanks!

    Then can I transfer my previous settings especially those of Mails, Safari bookmarks, iTunes music... using Migration Assistant anyway?
    You should be able to, but I'm not sure exactly what might have gone wrong in your case.
    I'm afraid I may not be able to restore the entire system b/c the service center replaced my hard drive and installed the Snow Leopard, but I don't have the installation disk, I only have a Leopard I bought months earlier, the Time Machine backup is the leopard version.
    If you don't have a Snow Leopard install disk, you shouldn't try to keep Snow Leopard installed. You shouldn't use a Leopard install disk for troubleshooting problems on a Snow Leopard system, so you have no troubleshooting tools. Just follow the directions at that link I gave you (at step c, you should reformat the hard drive), using your Leopard disk, to get Leopard and all your data restored from your backup.
    If you want Snow Leopard, buy a copy (it's only $29) and install it over Leopard after you've got everything working.
    The hard drive crashed this morning without any precaution. Do do you think I can still do the restore?
    Well, what do you mean when you say "the hard drive crashed"? Seems odd that Apple would have replaced your hard drive and installed a clean system, only to have it fail again shortly after you get it back. Not that that couldn't happen, it's just odd. What exactly happened?

  • 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

  • Migration Assistant fails with MacPro6,1

    I bought a Mac Pro a few months ago and kept getting kernal panic's after running migration assistant from a MacPro1,1 which I have had for about 8 years.  I went back and forth with Apple, and they decided it was defective and sent me a new one which took a while to get through the university bureaucracy. I ran Migration Assistant from a MacPro1,1 running OS 10.7.5, and again got a kernal panic on restarting but was able to do a safe-boot successfully ((previous MacPro even this failed).  I updated the OS X software and tried to turn off stuff that might be interfering but still get kernal panic's on restarting sometimes. Also received alerts that a variety of system extensions "were not installed properly". Clearly, the system IS NOT that stable so I erased the hard disk and will do a manual restore app by app so no preferences or systems-related software gets transferred.
    This problem is very surprising to me since I have never had problems with Migration Assistant before and we have plenty of macs here. I must have tried a dozen times with the first Mac Pro using either the old mac in firewire mode or using the time-machine backup but nothing worked. I wonder if anyone else has seen this and if the new Mac Pro has an issue in this regard.
    On the positive side, Migration Assistant probably moved a bunch of obsolete software/files from the 8-yr old Mac which was migrated from an older Mac (and the older Mac was migrated from a an even earlier Mac).  A clean install at this point may be worth doing but a hassle.

    Your conclusion that Migration assistant fails is not supported by the evidence you presented. You said you got kernel panics AFTER you restarted -- these are not caused by inherent Vice in Migration Assistant, which appears to have completed successfully.
    Kernel panic is not ONE problem, it is one of hundreds to thousands of problems, and if you would like help debugging that, you could post a kernel panic log for readers to help you interpret.
    Mac OS X: How to log a kernel panic
    If you approach Apple for help with this issue, they will check for machine-check reports, run diagnostics, then send you home to erase your drive and re-Install Mac OS X from scratch (which effectively removes third party add-ons in the process).

  • HT4796 Does anybody know why migration assistant fails in windows vista?

    Does anybody know why migration assistant fails in windows vista?

    rank2, welcome to the forum,
    PS: Is Europe/Germany as location ok? The rules don't mention how location should look like
    That's great, thanks.
    "Country Location - Members should denote their country location in their personal profile.  Location is important when offering advice, as sales, service, and product options may not be consistent country to country."
    Andy  ______________________________________
    Please remember to come back and mark the post that you feel solved your question as the solution, it earns the member + points
    Did you find a post helpfull? You can thank the member by clicking on the star to the left awarding them Kudos Please add your type, model number and OS to your signature, it helps to help you. Forum Search Option T430 2347-G7U W8 x64, Yoga 10 HD+, Tablet 1838-2BG, T61p 6460-67G W7 x64, T43p 2668-G2G XP, T23 2647-9LG XP, plus a few more. FYI Unsolicited Personal Messages will be ignored.
      Deutsche Community     Comunidad en Español    English Community Русскоязычное Сообщество
    PepperonI blog 

  • HT4796 Migration assistant failed after 90% of the way; where are the files now and how do I get rid of them?

    Migration assistant failed after 90% of the way; where are the files now and how do I get rid of them?

    Hello.  It looks like I recovered all my keywords attached to photos.  What I did:
    First I located all photos without keywords using a metadata search.
    I found that it seemed to be certain groups of photos that had no keywords.  I decided to at least get the main keyword on all of those in a particular group, like Canyonlands. 
    Once I added one of the keywords, the others all showed up magically!  I then went to each group of photos and added the main keyword, and the others came along and attached to the photos.
    Don't understand why this occurred or why it got fixed, since it was so random.  But, I'm glad to have my keywords restored (I had divided flowers by color, etc. so it was a lot of work!)
    Thanks for the discussion and help.

  • Migration Assistant Fails during X.4 to X.5 Upgrade

    I'm trying to upgrade from X.4 to X.5.
    I did an Archive and Install, and Migration Assistant fails.
    It firstly fails with some Address Book backup files.
    These are located in: david/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Address Book Backup
    With filenames such as: Address Book - 01/02/2008
    The error is "File name too long (63)"
    I removed the whole folder and tried again, and it failed with 'Invalid Argument'
    I ended up restoring X.4 from a disk image.
    I then tried installing X.5 on a bootable external FireWire drive with GUID partition map, migrating from the internal hard drive.
    This also fails at the same point.
    Any suggestions?
    Many TIA
    David

    It would appear that the Address Book backup file was corrupt. The size indicated was around 180MB, rather than around 10MB! The visible file name looked OK.
    Ironically, X.5 was able to copy the file to a new location. It complained about file name length, but copied it and reduced the file size to 9MB. Rather a shame that Migration Assistant doesn't use the same copy facilities.
    What has this taught me?
    1. BACKUP! Create a disc image of the full hard disc. OK, it's said elsewhere, but it really can't be said too often!
    2. Set up an Administrator/admin account. One that's essentially not used, but can access all Applications, networks and settings. If I had done this, I could have migrated this account as part of the installation process, and worried about migrating the main User account separately, using Migration Assistant.
    However, I now have a new problem!
    For some reason, I can't access the wireless network I've been using. I can see the neighbour's network(!), but not my own. I'm using WEP security.
    Any ideas?
    Many thanks,
    David

  • Migration assistant can't find backups on Time Machine drive that contains backups from multiple computers

    My Retina Macbook Pro died due to a hardware error. During the diagnosis I was asked by Apple support personnel to format and reinstall OSX, which I did but did not fix the issue. The mainboard has since been replaced and I am trying to restore the TimeMachine backup I have.
    The USB disk containing the TimeMachine backup contains TimeMachine backups for two different computers, my last Mac and the one I owned before that, which died earlier this year.
    When I plug the drive in, I am able to browse the backups from both machines, as shown in the screenshot below.
    The problem comes in when I attempt to run the migration assistant. I select the first option (restore from USB drive, etc). The migration assistant finds the USB volume and in the list underneath shows backups from a single computer - which it calls Unknown. The date of the last back is shown as 10 December 2012, the same date as the last backup from my old Mac (doolittle). There is no trace of the backups from my new mac.
    Any ideas of how to get around this?
    Thanks
    Andrew

    http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrationProblems.html

  • The Migration Assistant can not find my Time Machine Backup

    Hello,
    I had to reinstall Mountain Lion on my iMac. So I made a fresh backup with TM on friday, everything was fine with it.
    Then I formated my HD and installed 10.8.2 from the AppStore. After setting up the Admin-Account I opended the Migration Assistant
    to migrate my User Account from the TM-Backup, but it is not showing up. There are 4 backups on the Time Capsule, but only 3 are
    showing up. And for sure it is mine, which is missing.  :-(
    When I start in Revorery-Mode and choose to set up the iMac from a Time Machine Backup, the latest Backup is from the 1. of November,
    which I really don't want to use right now.
    Would be very nice to get some help in here.
    Thank you

    No, both the backup and the new system are OSX10.6.
    I'm afraid your solution doesn't work.  If I go through finder and open up the folders on the backup, and try, for example, to open my "Movies" folder (which is one I dearly hope to recover), I get a message that:
    "The folder "Movies" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents."
    I have tried Repair Permissions, but this doesn't help.  All of the important folders have a little red stop sign on them.
    Thanks though.

  • Migration assistant does not find external HD hosting Time Machine

    I have a brand new 15" retina Macbook Pro, provided for me at my new job (lucky me!). Until now, I have been using a mid-2010 model 13" standard Macbook, running Snow Leapord (10.6.x). I have been making backups using Time Machine for years. What I would like to do, is migrate a Time Machine backup to my new machine, as if nothing had changed except for the hardware. Of course, this is what Setup Assistant is designed to do. But, there is a snag.
    The IT dept. at my new employement have set up accounts on the machine already, meaning Setup Assistant cannot be used. I must use Migration Assistant. When I run Migration Assistant (through spotlight, if it matters) and follow the instructions, with my external HD containing my Time Machine backups already plugged in, the Migration Assistant cannot find the external HD. It only finds the local Macintosh HD.
    I have read many, many pages of this forum. Nothing appears to directly handle this issue AND have an accepted answer that actually answers this question. Please forgive repetition if you disagree!
    One potential solution is to ensure the backups contain EVERYTHING on my existing machine. Previously there were one or two folders of data that I excluded because I made a separate backup of these (they are on the order 10-100 GB, and I don't want them on the Time Machine backups). However, I am in the process of generating a new TM backup that includes these folders, just in case it is a fix. I have tried pretty much everything else I could think of or stumbled across in these fora.
    Big thanks in advance for any assistance. +2 Karma for a direct solution, +1 Karma for an answer that indirectly leads to a solution. Happy Karma hunting.

    In the sidebar of a Finder window, select the icon representing your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) At the top level of the volume are folders with these names, among others:
    Applications
    Library
    System
    Enter Time Machine and select the most recent snapshot, which is behind the frontmost window. Are those folders present in the snapshot?

  • Migration assistant can't find my time machine backups?

    Here's the situation: I just bought a new 13" Macbook Pro 2.53 GHz last night to replace my current 13" white Macbook. I've kept Time Machine backups on the white MB for well over a year on an external 500GB USB drive, so I figured I'd use migration assistant to move all my data over. Well, I plugged in my external HD to my new computer, it recognized the disk, and asked if I wanted to use it as my time machine backup disk for the computer: I said no, for the time being. Then I went to migration assistant, opted to restore from my backups.... but when I got to selecting from where, it gave me no options, just a totally blank selection screen. I figured I must have screwed up, so I tried rebooting, then making the external HD my backup location, all to no avail. The only thing I can think of that's messing it up is the fact that I have probably 50GB of virtual machines and other things on the HD in a separate folder from my backups.
    What am I doing wrong?

    mily_pl wrote:
    I've found the solution!
    You have to simply delete from TM disk all backup folders made by Snow Leopard. Then migration assistant will see your backups made from 10.5 Leopard.
    Do that only as a last resort, and only via TM, not the Finder, as that can hopelessly corrupt your backups. See item #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

  • HT4889 Using USB time machine drive to move to new rMBP and Migration assistant can't find my drive

    I have a time machine backup on my USB drive.  I can see it clearly in finder, then when I run migration assistant, it can't be found.
    I've tried repairing the disk, it's fine, it just can't find it.  Any ideas?
    Both machines are on the same rev of Mt. Lion, 2010 MBP and 2013 rMBP. . . .
    Please advise.
    --Andrew

    No, both the backup and the new system are OSX10.6.
    I'm afraid your solution doesn't work.  If I go through finder and open up the folders on the backup, and try, for example, to open my "Movies" folder (which is one I dearly hope to recover), I get a message that:
    "The folder "Movies" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents."
    I have tried Repair Permissions, but this doesn't help.  All of the important folders have a little red stop sign on them.
    Thanks though.

Maybe you are looking for