Migration assistant not recognizing disc

The Apple genius bar wiped my imac clean and reloaded the OS 10.8.3, etc. In an attempt to retrive my backup files on Time Machine, I opened Applications/utilities/Migration Assitant.app. I selected backup from disc but it will not recognize the disc even though its contents are viewable in the Finder.
What can be done to accomplish the file migration automatically or manually?

I suspect that you should be using Time Machine and not Migration Assistant. See Pondini's TM FAQs, for starters.

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Migration Assistant not recognizing other Mac via FireWire

I am trying to transfer files from my G4 Mirror Doors Power Mac to my new Intel iMac via the instructions that come up on the new iMac. I am running the latest version of 10.4 on the G4.
I have the two machines connected via FireWire. I restarted the G4 holding the "T" key down and sure enough, the floating "FireWire" icon comes up but shortly after that, the new iMac says, "There are no versions of OS X on the older machine" which is obviously not true.
I tried the Ethernet route and loaded the Install Disk from the iMac into the G4 as instructed but that disk did not recognize either of my 2 internal drives as valid for installation.
Any suggestions?

FWIW, I have had no problems using Migration Assistant or understanding its prompts, at least when using the version included in the recent Migration and DVD and CD Sharing Update. In this version or later, every option has both a title & descriptive info below it & there are no places I can see in which everything is called a document. You may want to check your MA version number & make sure it is version 1.2.3 or later, as described in About the Migration and DVD/CD Sharing Update. This may help avoid any confusion you have had.
However, keep in mind that MA is designed to migrate files from one backup or startup disk at a time. It will transfer items from one home folder on a connected drive to the corresponding one on the new drive but these items must be enclosed in a home folder (in /Users/) on that drive. If you have elected to store these items on a non-startup drive lacking that hierarchy, you must import them using some other method & decide where to put them on the new drive. MA cannot make that decision for you.
Moreover, if you tell MA to import only your "Documents" folder, it will not import such items as your Movies, Music, Pictures, or other home folders, so for example your ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library file will not be imported, nor will be your ~/Music/iTunes folder (which contains your iTunes database files, even if the iTunes Music folder containing all your music files is stored elsewhere).
Without knowing exactly how you have 'piecemealed' other files & folders into your new drive, I do not know what to tell you to do to best complete the migration process. If you can supply more info about that, & about where exactly the original files & folders are stored on the older Mac, perhaps I or someone else can give you more useful info about doing that.

Migration Assistant not recognizing old macbook

I am trying to transfer my files from my old MacBook Pro (2006) to my new MacBook Pro (mid-2012) using Time Machine Backup. From Migration Assistant, once I get to where it is "looking for other computers" it is not finding anything. I have my old macbook connected to my external HD using USB and my new macbook connected with firewire. Can anyone help?!

Solution may be found if you search in the "More Like This" section over in the right column.

Tiger migration assistant not finding old mac's OS X Panther Disc

My new Intel G5's Tiger Migration Assistant isn't finding my old Power Mac OS X Panther Disc.
I have several partitions on my old mac, a few for various versions of classic environment, etc., and my firmware is up to date. I just got an Intel G5 and the migration assistant is finding only the V9 partitions. It says wiating for disks to appear but the Mac OS X disc never does.
I haven't used those V9 parts in a long time. I kinda wish I had gotten rid of them.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Henry

Thanks for the response.
I just ran across something that I hadn't seen before. In the forum it said that the user names need to be the same name on both machines. Mine is different because I want to use both on the same network eventually, and I'd since had a son with the same name so I needed to add an ititial...
If they can be different, then...
I did what you suggested, but still the only disks that appeared were the various os 9s. They are on a seperate partitioned disk, so I went in and disconnected that one. Now I start up the computer and the OS X disc is there and seems happy, but after I start the Migration Assistant now, and it leads me to the point where I have to restart the old computer after hooking up the firewire, I restart, hold the T and it starts-up and then turns off. I'm thinking that's bad.
I have a start-up issue that I didn't think was related, but I'm no guru and this is now a start-up issue. Maybe, if you ahve the time, you couls glance at that and let me know if you think so:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4284157#4284157
Thanks very much,
henry

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.

Migration Assistant not finding my new iMac

I had a VERY slow MA process going from old iMac to new iMac. So I did a little research and apparently it was so slow because by default I was getting a wireless process. So I turned off the Airport on the old iMac and conncected the machines with an ethernet cable. Now the new machine is not getting recognized by the old one. TIA for your help.

I feel the easiest, and most reliable, way of migrating data from an old Mac to a new one is using the Time Machine backup from an external drive.
The best source for help with this process comes from "The Great Pondini". Here's a link to his site that is, by far, the premier source for help with this transfer:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Setup.html
Since you've already booted your Mac up and tried Migration Assistant, Setup Assistant won't be available to you (it's only available upon initial bootup of a new Mac).
I would pay particular attention to user accounts when you look at pondini's site, as Migration Assistant can create some headaches for the unwary.
Enjoy your new iMac!

Why is Migration Assistant not seeing Time Machine backup?

Had year old iMac with Snow Leopard and recently was lucky enough to have it replaced with a brand new model with Lion. Had the previous iMac backed up on external drive with Time Machine.
I know I can't restore from that Time Machine backup since I am now on Lion but shouldn't I be able to migrate my old user account from the Snow Leopard Time Machine backup to the new Lion system? The Lion Migration Assistant will not recogize or show the drive or backup from Time Machine though even though it is mounted in the Finder in Lion.
Any ideas?

I just had a similar problem to this. I have a MacBook Pro (Lion) that has been backed up to an attached USB Time Machine disk that was formatted on this same machine. I had a major crash, and had to reinstall Lion, and my Time Machine backup drive did not show up in the list. I do see several drives on my network, but not the locally attached USB drive. I rebooted and tried several time, no joy.
The backup drive passes all disk tests, and shows up when plugged in to other machines, and even shows up in the boot menu (but will not boot) when the MacBook Pro starts. And it has the secret flag file (if you do not know, the drive MUST have a zero length file titled ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" (note the leading .) at the root of the drive or the drive will not be recognized) and it should just work. It did backup to it just fine, but I cannot restore.
I finally made this work (I think) by actually getting another external USB drive, formatting it, and then using another machine to copy the Time Machine backup from the old drive to the new drive. I added the myster flag file to the new drive (see above) and connected it to the MacBook Pro. This time, it did recognize it.
I am trying to do a restore now, and looks like it should work just fine. What a pain in the butt.
I would love to hear from Apple what causes this. There must be an easier solution than to spend 6 hours copying a full back from one 2 TB drive to another! SIgh!
UPDATE: OK, it showed up as a restore disk in the "restore utility" in the energency partition, but I need to install a new OS (there was some curruption) and after installing a New OS, and getting to the migration screen, once again, this new drive does not show up. ARGHHHHhhhhhhh
Message was edited by: orubin after thinking it was working.

Migration Assistant not transferring

Hello Support Community,
I have just recently updated to Mavericks on my iMac. I had originally tried to do this with the installer app directly downloaded from the app store. However, it didn't work because of an error message (unfortunately I don't remember which one). It also said to repair the disc and try again, etc. When I installed Lion originally, I had to erase my hard disc and use my Time Capsule backup to restore all of the previous settings. At that time, it worked like a charm, so I figured I would try it again.
I made a boot disc for Mavericks and it worked in so far as I could get to the boot disc, repair and erase my hard disc, and install Mavericks.
The first time I installed, it worked out ok but it gave me an error message that the network settings could not be copied. I thought no big deal. So, I went to look for the data after the migration and I couldn't find it anywhere. I tried to logout and login as one of my new copied profiles, but they didn't exist. I also looked in the User settings, no second user. I tried to restart and look in the same areas, nothing.
So, I tried again. This time I re-erased everything and tried the migration assistant again with WiFi, this time, without the network settings. No error messages this time, but the same end result. No new users, no data.
I tried a third time, this time dragging my iMac into the living room (from where I am creating this post) and using the Ethernet cable. This time it worked much faster, and I had the same result.
Then at last, a fourth time. This time with the network settings again via Ethernet. Again, no error messages and also no copied data to be found anywhere.
Has anyone else had this problem or does anyone have a solution?
Thanks!

it wasn't necessary to upgrade the Powermac to 10.5 to use migration assistant.
Migration assistant in 10.5 offers 3 choices: migrate from another mac, migrate from a TM backup and migrate to another mac. that option is the last of the 3 and should be there already. you'll need an ethernet cable to use it.

Using migration assistant with firewire disc

I am trying to transfer my settings and applications etc. from a firewire disc that was previously connected to my old but good G4. The iMac and the external volume have the same OS and there is no problem booting from either volume. When I first tried using Migration Assistant, I selected the transfer from another volume on this computer option and the process started and then the drive stopped transferring; I had to Force Quit Migration Assistant. I repaired permissions on both volumes and tried again. This time the process got as far as listing the accounts, which I selected only to get a message that there was a name duplication and to alter the account name for transfer; the result was to flip back to the same message. Since then I have been unable to get even that far. Any ideas?

Perhaps you could give me some assistance?
My HD was just replaced by Apple. I decided now was the time to upgrade to 10.4. This I did and used software update to bring everything up to date.
I had cloned by defective drive to an external FW and would like to use Migration Assistant to move as much as possible back to the new PB drive. I realize I could run into some trouble since I don't know what info was lost on the defective sector(s).
When I try MA, it recognizes the external drive but the user accounts will not show up in the next screen--the "rotating bars" (I don't know what it's actually called) just goes on and on. I left it running for over 6 hours with no result.
Should I just do a straight copy of the user folders? Can I do that with the applications folder?
Al PB 1.5GHZ Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Migration Assistant Not Enough Space

Hey all,
I'm having a problem with Migration Assistant that's driving me crazy. I just bought a new Macbook Pro with a 256GB internal drive, and I have a backup of my old computer from last year that is about 350GB in size. What I am trying to do is individually take over some items from the Time Machine so that I don't fill up the HD. Here is what I have done so far:
I took over 100GB of an iTunes library as well as other system settings and documents. I had left something like 50GB on my internal hard drive. Not enough for my 109GB photo library.
So, I purchased a large SD card (128GB) to be the permanent home for my photo library. However, I had to maneuver some things around to get this to work, which has been a HUGE pain.
What I ended up doing was copying my whole iTunes library, which was about 98GB to the SD card. I juggled some other things around beforehand, and even though my photo file on the backup is only 109GB, it kept telling me I didn't have space. So I did the whole iTunes library instead of parts of it...
I now have 150GB free. Migration Assistant still tells me I don't have enough space for the transfer. How is that possible!? That's an extra 41GB of data.
Anyone have any suggestions? I've already verified the HD on the macbook is fine via Disk Utility, not sure what else to do.

Well yeah, I could always buy a bigger external. I was thinking about exchanging the 128GB SD card for a 256GB, but I've been able to make it work in the meantime. I freed up another 10GB of data on the hard drive, and that allowed the photo library to come off the time machine back up. Then I cut down my iPhoto to 97GB instead of 111GB, and am in the process of transferring that to the SD card. I put the iTunes off on a 2nd computer in the meantime, and once I have iPhoto off this computer, I can make sure all my documents are on here, then erase the old time machine backup, and re-partition the drive to have half time machine back and half storage space for another iPhoto back up and miscellaneous items.
Thanks for the advice!

Migration Assistant - not migrating...

I'm trying to move my user account from my desktop computer (G5 Dual) to a Powerbook G4 laptop. Laptop is set up and running 10.4.8 with an admin account installed. G5 is running 10.4.8 too.
Put G5 into target mode. Run Migration Assistant on Powerbook. All goes smoothly - pick the right HD from G5 to migrate from. Then... nothing. Migration assistant simply hangs at next screen (where you choose which user to migrate) - spinning grey dial thing for hours. No obvious progress.
Only one account on G5 - the one I'm trying to migrate.
Any idea what is going on? Any suggestions about what I could / should do to fix this problem?
I'm off travelling in a few days - so I would very much like to get some fix in place such that I can take my 'world' with me...

Hi Gavin,
I'm not sure why you are experiencing problems with Migration Assistant.
We could troubleshoot it, but given your time constraints try this:
If all you want is one user, you can just create a new admin user on your PowerBook, then copy the folders within the home directory on your G5 to your PB. In other words copy the contents of Desktop, Documents, Library, Movies, Music, Pictures, etc to your new user's corresponding directories.
Good luck and have a nice trip!
-mj
[email protected]

Migration Assistant not connecting

I am setting up a new Mac Mini (running Lion, I presume) and trying to migrate files from an older Mini (running OS 10.5.8) during set up. I have them connected with an ethernet cable, but the old Mini doesn't "see" the new one and I can't get them to connect. I've tried it with the airport off (on the old one) and with the airport on, with cable and without. No luck. I'm fully updated on all software. Suggestions?
Let me give another piece of background that might be helpful. I tried this setup/migration on Friday and I got the computers connected, no problem. Migration ran for about half an hour, no problem, until it got the to the place where it was "transferring applications". Then, instead of the time remaining deminishing, it started increasing, going from 4 minutes remaining to about 2.5 hours remaining, before I decided to abort the migration and try again. I tried again, everything went exactly the same way, though I aborted shortly after the time remaining started to increase again. I shut everything down. Returned today and am having this new problem.
Would appreciate any advice you've got.
Thanks.

Thanks. I ended up just setting up the new machine and then migrating the files manually. Not ideal, but it worked fine. I appreciate the advice and will certainly keep it in mind should I run into this problem in future.
FWIW: I don't think the problem in the original migration problem was with the timer - it only took 40 minutes to migrate all the files from a similarly configured and loaded mini to a new mini that same day (with no time adding to the estimated time remaining). I waited over 3 hours for the second migration to complete and it never did finish up. Judging from other posts out there, the estimated time addition seems to be a symptom of the larger failure of the migration assistant.

Migration Assistant not working with OS X Lion via Wireless Network?

Anybody know how to assist me here?
Basically, I have two iMacs on seperate floors of my home. They are newer models (both purchased last year) and I have upgraded both of them to Lion and just ran a system update on both of them to ensure they are both running the exact same OS with updates and all.
When I attempt to use the migration assistant over my network, it just says its attempting to find the other computer but never moves past that step, as if they aren't connecting or even finding each other at all.
I'm relatively new to the mac family and am very happy I've finally made the switch last year and am still learning the in's and outs and am simply stuck here and not sure what to do to get this to work.
Thank You

Try running software update to install 10.7.1. This update reportedly fixes your issue. Check out http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1437 for more information.
Good luck

Migration Assistant not transferring files in Mac OS X 10.5

I was trying to use Migration Assistant to move files from a PowerPC G4 running 10.4 to a Powerbook G4 running 10.5. They didn't get along, so I did some research and found that they both need to be running 10.5 to work correctly. I upgraded the PPC to 10.5. Now the "Transfer to another Mac" option in Migration Assistant has been replaced with the "Time Machine" option. The PPC will not boot in Target mode, I think because of a dead PRAM battery. I do not have a Firewire hard drive big enough for the migration. How can I get the "To another Mac" option back in Migration Assistant?

it wasn't necessary to upgrade the Powermac to 10.5 to use migration assistant.
Migration assistant in 10.5 offers 3 choices: migrate from another mac, migrate from a TM backup and migrate to another mac. that option is the last of the 3 and should be there already. you'll need an ethernet cable to use it.

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 not recognizing disc

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