Migration Assistant Glitch?

Question

As background, in case it plays a part in any of this, I accidentally hard shut down my Macbook Pro Retina (2012) when it was just starting to actually boot up.  This required a visit to the Genius Bar where they erased it and reinstalled Yosemite.  They were unwilling to reload it from my external hard drive which has a bootable clone using Carbon Copy Cloner.  So they created a "temp" user account and password.
When I came home, I decided I did not want the full clone being transferred since that would mean getting the original Yosemite download back (with all of its problems).  CCC said to use the Migration Assistant to get my data over without the previous Yosemite. 
The first time I ran it, it had the option of replacing the "temp" account with my permanent user account on the backup selected, so I kept that vs changing it to keeping both user accounts.  It then showed 3 folders to copy - Applications (40.24GB), Documents & Data (338.24GB; this had my home/user account folder in it at 11.53GB and a "other files & folder" at 293.94GB with no drop down list to review), and Computer & Network Settings (no GB noted).  This made an obvious "There is not enough free space..." error message since I have a 250GB drive.  Noticed the trash bin on my MBP suddenly had files in it, but did not look at it right away.
I deselected the "other files & folders" and the "music" file under the home/user account (since I have a separate partition with iTunes on it), it appropriately showed my selected data at 52.7GB with an anticipated 184.2GB available after transfer message, but then popped up the same "not enough free space" message so it would not finish.
I then additionally unchecked the Applications, since the user account had my applications folder under it.  Again, it accurately reflected this change by showing I had only 12.4GB selected with 224.4GB available after transfer but still would not run do to the "not enough free space" message.
Apple is clueless and implying it must be something about CCC backup.  They had me rerun MA but had me select the "Save both user accounts".  Same issues occurred.  CCC claims it has nothing to do with the backup (noting that the "other files & folders" is probably the safety net data the program maintains and "ok" not to transfer).  The EHD has been working and has been tested as bootable, though not before my unfortunate hard shut down goof.
Anyone know what might be going on here?  Is this Apple's issue, a complication of my goof, CCC's issue, or some other combo of issues?  No one seems to understand why MA appropriately finds and notes data and space allocations, but why it then won't run due to this odd "not enough space" response.
As a side note:  if I found myself trying to drag and drop data back to the MBP from this EHD, is there a way to isolate the old Yosemite so I don't accidentally bring it back over?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Waterhythms wrote:
Apple is clueless and implying it must be something about CCC backup.  They had me rerun MA but had me select the "Save both user accounts".  Same issues occurred.  CCC claims it has nothing to do with the backup.
You are using 3rd party app to create a backup of your files and then you are trying to restore it via Migration Assistant. Migration Assistant was designed to work with Time Machine Backups and with restoring from one mac to another. If CCC claims it should work with Migration Assistant, then they should give you informations how to do it and what is wrong.
Waterhythms wrote:
As a side note:  if I found myself trying to drag and drop data back to the MBP from this EHD, is there a way to isolate the old Yosemite so I don't accidentally bring it back over?
Thanks.
Copy your home folder from CCC backup to /Users folder on your mac and then simply re-create your account by using System Preferences > Users & Groups pane. Remember that your username needs to be exactly the same as your home folder name.