Migration Assistant from Time Machine not working, Migration Assistant from Time Machine not working

Hello,
A friend of mine recently bought a new Macbook Pro. I believe it is a 2.8 Ghz i7 model.
Anyway, they wanted to transfer all of their stuff from a 5 year old Macbook (running Snow Leopard) to their new Macbook Pro (running Lion) and they asked me for help. I suggested they run Migration Assistant from a Time Machine backup. They did that last night and everything ran fine until the very end, when they got this error message "Superdrive firmware Update 2.1 is not compatible with this version of Mac OS X." Also, it appears that nothing had been transfered.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

Thanks a lot both. The thing was that I couldn't find any DVDs that belonged to my new computer, so I just used my old Leopard DVD thinking that it didn't matter which one I used anyway. When you said it did
matter, however, I looked a little closer and found two DVDs in my new computer's box. I'm doing a clean installation as we speak.
Thank you for your help!

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Mac air with external hard drive - not being found on Finder, Time Machine, Migration Assistant

I have been using an external drive (Imation Apollo) to access only, old files from previous computer (PC) on a new Mac Air. I had not transferred them across to new computer (didn't want to do that) just accessing them from the HD. It had been working fine until recently. Each time the external drive had been connected Time Machine would come up and ask if i wanted to use this drive for back ups, and I always chose 'Decide later'. So, as yetI hadn't as yet configured Time Machine to do back ups.
Recently I noticed that the extrnal HD was no longer showing up on Finder. Slight panic as i have 5 or 6 yrs of work saved on that HD
Further investigations - it's also not showing up either on on Disk Utility, or on Migration Assistant.
I've done the following:
Tried HD in each of different USB ports - made no difference, HD still not showing up
Tested different Hubs in each port with HD attached - no difference HD not showing up
Tried USB flash drives in the USB ports - These are working fine and show up on finder
Tried the HD on other comptuters (a PC though, don't have access to another mac to do this test)- working fine, the HD is showing up and is accessable
Interrogated the Console logs to try to see if the act of attaching the HD creates a log entry - couldn't find anything
Rebooted computer via shut down, power disconnect - no difference
Reset PRAM - no difference still not showing up
Reset SMC - no differnce still not showing up
So I think I have established that all the USB ports are functioning correctly and able to access other external drive devices, using hubs with external powersource is not the issue, identified that the external hard drive is working OK, and it appears that the Mac itself is functioning normally.
What would be the reason the Mac now does not allow this specific external HD to be identified and accessed. The only possible things I can think of are
if I had in fact pressed 'Do not use' when Time Machine asked 'do you want to use this drive for back ups'. Would that mean that the Mac now totally rejects this HD from being a source of accessible files - I hope not!
I also think that my husband may have disconnected the hard drive from my computer to access some stuff and he just yanked it out rather than use the safe eject method. Could this create an issue? The Hard drive works fine on his PC.
Why is my Mac Air now rejecting this HD and what can I do to access my historical files now.
Any assistance anyone can provide would be very greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Anna

I can't answer why it isn't accessing it, but I have a slightly related issue w my back up drive starting to get noisy.
Realizing that redundancy is safety for critical data. I talked to my brother about my situation the other day & he said he has 3 small Western Digital portable HDs that he rotates for backup. He even keeps 1 in the safe deposit box.
I have read for some time that we should have multiple back ups & also have our critical stuff backed up off site. Amazon HD reviews had a woman telling about how she was very backed up on multiple computers & hard drives, but they were robbed or burgeled & all of them were stolen including her thesis that was on the computers.
Hard drives aren't that expensive. I just bought a new Western Digital 1 TB drive for $89.99. I plan to use it to back up the Seagate that is getting noisy & then maybe alternate them.
Also, when I came back to Mac, I moved practially all of my documents to Mac. I think I just dragged & dropped or something. Photos, Office, & pdfs do fine that way. & then you could back them up to a couple of different external drives & remove from your MacBookAir.
Unfortunately I think most of us do not back up until crisis & then it may be too late.
Also use Time Machine. For the 1st time in my computer life, my computer is well backed up--although now realizing the need for redundancy so will start backing up to at least 2 different HDs alternatly.
So, not sure why it isn't working & hopefully you have come up w a solution by now.
I think what I would do in a situation like this, since you can access it on the Windows machine would be to transfer the data to the Windows machine & then transfer it back to a different back up.
I'm looking into backing up what I still have in Windows using a thumb flash drive. I think it should all fit ok now that they have the larger drives & I don't have very much left in Windows format.

How do I recover backups from Time Machine after using Migration Assistant?

I had to get my Macbok Pro erased (at Apple store) this week. I used Migration Assistant to pull everything back in via Time Machine from my external hard drive (through Airport Extreme).
Annoyingly then accidentally deleted all work Mail folders. Going back in to Time Machine to Restore, all the historic Mail folders now seem to have disappeared.
Can anyone please advise?

Back up all data to at least two different storage devices, if you haven't already done so. The backups can be made with Time Machine or with a mirroring tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner. Preferably both. You must be certain that you can restore everything to the state it's in now.
Boot into Recovery, launch Disk Utility, and erase the startup volume. This operation will destroy all data on the volume, so you had be better be sure of your backups. Install OS X. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.
When you reboot, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process. That’s when you import the data from one of your backups. For details on how this works, see here:
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC Using Setup Assistant on Lion
Don't import the Guest account, if it was enabled on the old system.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with networks that require any kind of authentication other than a WPA or WPA2 Personal password.

I used migration assistant and my ethernet cable to move data and apps from my 5-yr old Intel-based iMac to my brand new Intel-based iMac running OS Lion. The old machine was running OS 10.5.8. Not all my files transferred (or I can't find them). Help

I used migration assistant and my ethernet cable to move data and apps from my 5-yr old Intel-based iMac to my brand new Intel-based iMac running OS Lion. The old machine was running OS 10.5.8. Not all my files transferred (or I can't find them). I've seen recommendations to select the old computer in System Preferences, but that didn't work. Help. Thanks!

IMO, wrong choice. Start over, using a FireWire cable and following the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide.

Migration Assistant: Problems transferring data from PC (XP SP3) to new Mac Pro 2012 - can not get Migration Assistant to work as PC will not display verfify passcode

Migration Assistant: Problems transferring data from PC (XP SP3) to new Mac Pro 2012 - can not get Migration Assistant to work as PC will not display verfify passcode
Hello, I am having problems migrating data from my old PC running XP (SP3) to my new Mac Pro 2012 using the Migration Assistant.
- I downloaded and installed the Windows Migration Assistant from Apple
- My Mac recognized PC and displays passcode
- The sasscode does not show / display on my PC
- My Mac is then stuck in "authenticating" loop and the PC is stuck "waiting for Mac to connect."
- Both computers are connected on same network (have connected PC on WIFI and using ethernet to Reuter)
I have looked on support site and only response I saw says to reinstall Windows Migration Assistant (which I have done)
Any ideas? If cant get this to workare there instructions for manually bring across relevant data eg itunes music and apps, photos, picasa data etc?

Why not turn off the Windows firewall and uninstall any other firewall software you have installed?
If you are using a Norton product uninstall it and discard it. To fully unistall most Norton products you have to go to the Norton website and download a soecial program to completely get rid of it. The normal uninstall feature built into the program will not remove all of it.

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

Dc7700, window7, machine speaker not working. migrating from window xp to 7

dc7700, window7, machine speaker not working. migrating from window xp to 7

Hi:
Just download and install the latest Realtek HD audio driver from the Realtek site.
Accept the agreement. Download and install either the first or second driver on the list depending on whether you installed the 32 or 64 bit version of W7.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownT...
Paul

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?

HT201250 After restoring from a time machine backup using migration assistant I can't log in

Hi, I recently bought a Mac Pro and using a Mountain Lion boot disk I made installed a fresh ML install which went fine. During the final part of install it gives you the option of restoring user data etc etc from a time machine backup which I have from my MacBook Pro which again in principal went fine until I went to log in when I got the message 'An error has occurred unable to log into this account a this time'.
Looking on the web I thought at first it was a password issue so restarted with command-r and reset the password, however the same error still occurs. I don't think it is password issue as if you deliberately enter the wrong password it rejects it immediately where as with the correct password it hangs for about 15secs before throwing up the above error.
Can anyone offer any advice?
The only thing I can possibly think of is that on my MBP where the time machine backup is from my home folder is on a 2nd HDD that is not the boot disk and I only have a single HDD on my MacPro.......

You might try to access the desired Time Machine backup from "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" (click Time Machine icon in the Dock).
Also, you might find some help here.

Migration Assistant can't see my USB ext HD for Time Machine!

Here is a question for Pondini!
I've read through many of the threads here, including Pondini's tutorials on how to set-up Time Machine, use Migration Assistant, etc. Alas, I'm not a technical person and have hit a wall.
Here's the scenario:
Last week my iMac running Mountain Lion crashed. The hard drive was initially "repaired" using Recovery, erasing all data then restoring the drive from Time Machine backups stored on a Hitachi 2TB Touro USB3 external HD. But soon after the system froze again and a 2nd restore did not work. I concluded that my almost 5 year old HD was gone.
Where I stand now is that the iMac's HD has been replaced with a new one which came preinstalled with Snow Leopard. I absolutely want (need!) to restored my Mac from Time Machine to get back all my settings and info.
During the iMac first boot Setup Assistant did NOT see the external hard drive even though they are connected properly. (Note: My older iMac is undoubtedly USB2 but the external HD is backwards-compatible USB3. THAT is the connection, from the external HD directly into the back of the Mac. It is mounted on my desktop and files can be accessed through Finder.) So I then proceeded to set-up my "new" computer with basic settings, which is how I came to see my external HD was properly mounted and connected. I also upgraded the OS on this new HD to Mountain Lion so it would be the same as my most recent Time Machine back-ups.
Since then I have tried using Migration Assistant to migrate from Time Machine on my external drive but it still does not recognize any drives - Migration Assistant just searches endlessly for other computers. Argh! I've tried all the tips I've read in these forums and none have helped. I scanned my external drive for errors using disk utility but none were found.
On my external drive there is a folder in the root called Backups.backupdb. Double-clicking it simply opens the folder in Finder, to reveal folders with names familiar to me - the previous HDs computer name, then a bunch of dated folders within that, including a lone file called 2012-08-17-062839.inProgress. I suppose my HD may have died while backing up to Time Machine.
WHAT do I do?
Let's say the worst case scenario is that I cannot use these Time Machine backups. Is there any way to root through them for data I can hand-copy to my iMac's new internal drive? It would be grueling but at least it's something. How can I retrieve years of email? Luckily photos, music, videos, etc were backed up manually into a separate folder (also in the root of my external drive).
THANK YOU!!
Danielle

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 you had
- if Setup Assistant fails, use the recovery partition for system restore
- Use Recovery Disk Assistant http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 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 10.9 - Fails to detect external HD for Time Machine

After deciding to upgrade my trusty late 2007 MBP to a new rMBP late 2013 - I wanted to use the migration assistant in mavericks and restore via Time machine. Both Macs are running 10.9.
However after connecting my WD external hardrive (mac version) which is recommended to use with time machine. The migration assistant doesn't seem to detect the HD? It just sits there looking for the source and after 30minutes of waiting,nothing? However in the finder, the HD appears.
I've been researching this online and can't find anything so far which has worked for me.
There were articles relating to a sparse file in the root of the external HD - mine doesn't have this.
Tried ctrl-r at startup and run a time machine backup - displays the message that backups cannot be restored because the backups were made from a different mac!
Any ideas, the mac seems to be sitting on my desk as a very expensive paper weight!
Any help, much appreciated.

After deciding to upgrade my trusty late 2007 MBP to a new rMBP late 2013 - I wanted to use the migration assistant in mavericks and restore via Time machine. Both Macs are running 10.9.
However after connecting my WD external hardrive (mac version) which is recommended to use with time machine. The migration assistant doesn't seem to detect the HD? It just sits there looking for the source and after 30minutes of waiting,nothing? However in the finder, the HD appears.
I've been researching this online and can't find anything so far which has worked for me.
There were articles relating to a sparse file in the root of the external HD - mine doesn't have this.
Tried ctrl-r at startup and run a time machine backup - displays the message that backups cannot be restored because the backups were made from a different mac!
Any ideas, the mac seems to be sitting on my desk as a very expensive paper weight!
Any help, much appreciated.

Migration Assistant not completing over wireless from PC

I have a new Macbook Air and am trying to complete the Migration Assistant from a Dell XPS PC (laptop). The process will begin just fine, but says it will take 9, then10, even up to 11 hrs., etc. then doesn't wind up working even after those time frames have passed.
I have a very fast internet connection, so I am not sure why this would be happening. Is there a way to use an ethernet cable instead of wifi? I tried connecting the two computers with an ethernet on a whim but my Mac didn't reconginze the PC, and vicea versa.
I'd like to avoid manually bringing over my PC files if at all possible.... Any suggestions will be much appreciated!!

Did you read through this knowledge base article on migration assistant for PC to Mac transfer? You can use a wired network in addition to wireless.

Migration Assistant can not find my backups on Time Capsule

Yesterday I installed a fresh copy of OS X leopard and wanted to recover data from time capsule using migration assistant,the first time that I connected to TC using migration assistant it found everything on my TC and was calculation the size of that account there but suddenly it went away and now when I connect to time capsule it says (migration assistant) that there is 0 backup found. I can myself recover some data from time capsule which I stored just as a disk drive which means that the hard drive of TC is working , the sparsebundle is even there . but no result.
Even when I want to go to time machine with the icon in menu bar it takes too much time says; connecting to server but nothing happens !
Please help all the data from years ago are there !!
null

For backups on a Time Capsule, you may have to mount the sparsebundle first.
Open Finder. Click on Time Capsule -> Time Capsule Disk -> yourbackup.sparsebundle. Double-click on it and press Skip when prompted. Your sparsebundle should now be mounted on your Desktop.
Try to +Browse Other Time Machine disks+ via the ctrl-click on the TM icon.

Migration Assistant does not see Home Directories from AD Users

We use AD as authentication domain but home directories are stored local at the client computer. Hence they are backed up via Time Machine. AD Users can use Time Machine like any local user. But now one machine crashed and we wanted to restore the full computer via Migration Assistent. Unfortunally AD Users home directories are not restored to the computer although the home directories are on the backup set. Is there a way to restore the whole Computer from the Backup Set inclusive all Users directories (including these from the AD Users, which had been stored locally)?

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.

I have chosen to fil migrate from old ibook to new MacBook Pro using Time Machine after establishing admin account. I now have two admin. accounts and wish to delete the later one and transfer files manually. I am worried I will loose both accounts. ??

I have chosen to fil migrate from old ibook to new MacBook Pro using Time Machine after establishing admin account. I now have two admin. accounts and wish to delete the later one and transfer files manually. I am worried I will loose both accounts. ??

Use the Office for Mac and ignore using Parallels for that. If you have PC only apps you have to run that are MS Windows only then consider Parallels. Just transfer your main PC, using Migration Assistant. If you don't know how then simply read over Pondini's article called Lion or Mountain Lion Setup Assistant tips and look for the section on migrating from a PC. Millions have done what you are about to, it's far from leading edge these days, if you go to an Apple Store to purchase they will offer this as a service, something you might be interested in.

Transferring from one mac to another not using migration assistant I wish to use a EHD and only select what is transferred - in particular my settings etc. How do I go about it. thanks

Hi,
I have bought a new iMac but want to select specific data to transfer to the new one. I believe Migration assistant does all or nothing. I have an EHD and have done iTunes and iPhoto.
I also would wish to have a similar setup (all the passwords, screen savers, and users etc the same) but not mail and some others. Some, on my old machine like Time Machine and Mail were corrupted? and apple not been able to fix.
How do I go about it.
Thanks
Pat

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4413?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1963
Troubleshooting Firewire target disk mode:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

Migration Assistant from Time Machine not working, Migration Assistant from Time Machine not working

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