Migration Assistant Screw-Up

So I seem to have somehow screwed up with Migration Assistant in trying to transfer data from my old MacBook Pro.
On my MBA, I had two users: my actual, admin account (username = rhenriqu) and a new one I created to use in the migration process (because my MBA admin username was the same as my MBP one). While logged into the temporary account, I ran Migration Assistant which prompted me to either rename the account I was migrating or replace my MBA admin account (rhenriqu) with the migrated one. I selected the latter option.
When Migration Assistant finished, a folder entitled "rhenriqu" was in the "Users" folder as it should be. However, there was no corresponding user in the Accounts preference pane. The only user on my Mac seems to be that temporary account.
Here's the problem: that temporary account isn't an admin. Which means I can't re-run Migration Assistant, can't create a new user, etc. Tried to reinstall everything using the little USB drive and pressing "c" on restart, but it still retained my user info!
What do I do?

If you still want to "reinstall everything", what you first need to do is erase the HDD on the computer, usign Disk Utility on the restore drive. Then reinstall the OS.
Whay you apparently did, is what is called a "Repair Installation", wherein the OS is simply reinstalled over the existing installation, only rewriting the OS files, but leaving all data and users intact.
Once your installation is done, upon the first boot you have the opportunity to use "Setup Assistant", which is far better for your situation than Migration Assitant. You don't have to worry about duplicate or wrong user accounts. Setup Asistant copies all your information over to the computer and essentially duplicates all the users, settings, and applications from the source file (prefereably a Time Machine Backup), and leaves you with the same setup as the source computer.

Similar Messages

Migration assistant screw up, Mac Pro not seeing wifi/TC

Hi
I've been using a MacBookPro (MBP) for almost 5 years now, with a 1TB Time Capsule (TC1) using Time Machine (TM). I am the sole user, HDD is 270Gb used/50Gb free; using Mavericks, v10.9.2. On Friday, I used Sophos anti virus home edition, to scan the MBP. It comes up with no threats identified, and I uninstall Sophos.
Yesterday I took delivery of the Mac Pro (MP) with the 3Tb Time Capsule (TC3).
I booted up the MP, with the TC3. I did not, at this stage, connect the TC3 to the internet. Using TM, I backed up the MP. TC3 flashes the amber light.
Using Migration Assistant (MA) I tried to copy the MBP to the MP, 3 times. This did not work. At the point where the target machine has listed what is available to transfer, I click Continue and MA on the MP closes, on the MBP it says something like connection lost. The screen where this happens, lists 3 items available to transfer Application, Documents/Date and Computer settings; with a content of 128kb indicated, which is clearly wrong! The connection was an Ethernet cable direct from the MBP to the MP.
At this stage, I decide to connect the MP to the internet using TC3, there's some settings to be changed on TC3 using Airport Utility and it connects ok. TC3 has a steady green light.
I run 2 software updates on the MP. I surf the net briefly, to make sure it's ok.
I try again to use MA. This time, the dialgoue box listing what's available to transfer is different. There are 2 or 3 more options, colour is present, the font is different, the box is about the same size. The MP would not let me take any screenshots as all other applications are closed when MA is running. I don't think it gave me the size of what was being transferred, but it looked more hopeful, so I Continue and the transfer starts, with an estimated time of 33 minutes.
The transfer completes.
The MBP, as you would expect, has not changed, the MP has, but not in the way I expected. Applications appear to have all transferred (without checking them), no Documents/data and no Downloads appear to have transferred; I ticked to transfer everything.;I know I can reconnect the Ethernet cable and simply copy the data across.
But the main problem appears to be, the MP does not see the wifi.
Ethernet cable is removed.
The MP asks if I want to give permission to eeEvents manager (I presume calendar related) and say yes. It also asks if I want to install a Java run time, no.
In System preferences/Network it tells me a new Thunderbolt bridge has been found and asks if it's ok, to accept it, yes. It tells me the Ethernet cable is disconnected, rightly so; it says Airport is not connected.
I open Airport utility, no sign of the TC1 or TC3 despite it searching. Apart from TC1, the MP, MBP and TC3 are sat within a couple of feet of each other.
I turn on TC1/TC3 (separately and not at the same time, then at the same time), but the MP does not see them. I've reset TC3, rebooted the MP and still the MP does not see it.
I don't get any errors or warnings coming up.
I think my next option is to try and reset the MP to the factory settings, but this won't work, as I've no internet connection to reinstall OS X. No disc is sent with the MP.
Any suggestions as to what to try? Otherwise, I'll be off to the Apple Store tomorrow for a One to One!! :-(
Thanks for any help and Happy Mother's Day!!

Take the MP and connect it via ETH to your main router.
Restart the machine holding down command option R, you should see a spinning globe
Open disk utility and reformat the MP HD as Mac journaled
Then install OSX on this drive

Migration Assistant screwed up my brand new iMac

So my brand new iMac (MC812LL/A) was delivered today. Upon opening, I decided to use the Migration Assistant to bring over userids from my older intel iMac. I was shocked to see the time needed to be over 10 hours for a 175kb transfer. Anyway, I let it go and came back after half an hour and seemed like the transfer wasnt successful. Pressed the continue button and now the display is stuck on my wife's userid and its not taking her password. The userid also shows the picture.
I checked the box and there is no recovery discs in it. Called Apple and they are closed. What can I do in this situation?

Do you got the iMac Manual on hand? if not, refer to this link : http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/imac_mid2011_ug.pdf
On page 54, it tells how to reset your OS to factory setting. But you have to re-install all the apps...

File permissions screwed up after using Migration Assistant

Hi All, just got a new iMac and am having some problems... hoping someone here can help... especially since Apple support is closed on this Labor Day holiday!
So, i just got a new iMac, with Snow Leopard. It will be replacing my Mac Mini, with Leopard.
I used migration assistant to successfully move over all my files and docs and applications from the mini to the iMac. Took 7 hours but I was happy to see that everything transferred over safely!
Now, prior to the migration, I had the same username and password on both machines (eg. BVsmurfette). However, when I ran the migration assistant program, it prompted me to change one of them b/c it said I couldn't use the same usernames. So, I made the mac mini username = bvsmurfettemini.
Once the migration was complete, I noticed that instead of putting all my files into the user name on my iMac (ie. BVsmurfette), it created a separate user folder called bvsmurfette mini.
Thinking it would be silly to have to go into a separate user folder each time I wanted to access my files, I thought, ok, i'll just move all those files into the bvsmurfette folder. so, i dragged everything over from bvsmurfettemini, into bvsmurfette.
However - now i've noticed that all the file permissions are screwed up!
bvsmurfette doesn't have read/write access to any of the folders or files. bvsmufettemini does.
so - i clicked on each parent folder (eg. documents, music, pictures, movies, eetc), and clicked on "get info" and changed the permissions/sharing so that bvsmurfette was the owner, and clicked the "apply to all enclosed items" option. I thought this would automatically change the permissions/sharing of every single file and sub-folder within each parent folder.
To my surprise - it didn't work. The sub-folders and files within each parent still have their old permission settings. Argh! Can anyone please help? I refuse to believe that the only way around this is to manually click on every single file (which i have thousands and thousands of) and reset the permission settings...
Thanks so much in advance for any help and advice.

HI and Welcome to Apple Discussions..
Open the Disk Utility application. (Applications/Utilities) and repair disk permissions.
Quit any open applications/programs. Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac. If you see a long list of "messages" in the permissions window, it's ok. That can be ignored. As long as you see, "Permissions Repair Complete" when it's finished... you're done. Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac.
Carolyn

Screwed up the initial start-up with Migration assistant

I just recieved my 27" refub iMac, and was all excited to transfer my files over from my old iMac.
When I started the system up, I followed all the directions, followed the migration assistant, and everything sync'd. Great. Until...
Not only did all of my files transfer over, but all of my old settings, too. It's basically a mirror of my old iMac. The problem with this is that I have some settings that I didn;t want to transfer over. Further, things like Office for Mac 2011 seem to have only migrated as a shell - the actual program content is missin on the new iMac.
I wanted a fresh, clean, original factory setting system with just my files (photos, iTunes, docs, etc). I can re-download Office, and all of the other programs. I just wanted myt files. Files only.
Just. My. Files.
How can I re-start the computer so that it erases the original setup/migration I did, so that I can power it up again, walk through the factory startup process, and then transfer only the FILES, not the bad user settings I had on my old iMac?
Help!
Sadly, I've had the old iMac for 5/6 years, but am very basic with its OS/file system, etc.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR ANY HELP!!!

Setup Assistant would probably have been the better route, but you need to do that at first boot of the Mac. All is not lost though, courtesy of Pondini's invaluable resource:
http://pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html

How do I use a backup of my previous system in migration assistant from an external hard drive?

I had to redo my system completely because Snow Leopard broke my Parallels and then when I went back to Leopard my entire system got all screwed up. So I archived and reinstalled Leopard. Transferred the entire Previous System file to my external hard drive then erased and installed a fresh install of Leopard then upgraded to Snow Leopard. Now I'm trying to restore my Previous System on my computer and I can get the Macbook Pro to recognize the external hd in Migration Assistant and in Disk Utility it appears I would have to transfer section by section. I'm trying to prevent that. I don't have money to buy Super Duper or anything else at the moment so Migration and Disk U. seem to be my only options unless you know of anything else.

Carbon Copy Cloner or SilverKeeper - CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.

Time Machine Migration Assistant HELP!

My MacBook Air has a whole lot of storage that is being used for who knows what.
I am going to back up my mac, erase it, and reinstall the backup because that seems to work. But, I have no idea what the differences and similarities in Time Machine and Migration Assistant is. Can I use migration assistant to back it up and reinstall on the same computer? If not, how do I install a time machine backup on a compeletely erased mac? (I'm on OS X Mavericks)

Before you do anything else, I strongly suggest you figure out what's taking up the space.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take a few minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Migration Assistant. extra User, double the files - only 10 GB left on HD

I restored my system after a login "freeze", following an upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Apple help advised to use Migration Assistant to back up everything from Time Machine. Now I have an extra user ID (as they said I would) but the file structure doubled! This leaves me only 10GB on a 500GB drive - which I read is not good. Do I wipe the drive and start over but instead restore files one by one, or do I delete all the files in the new user ID, or is there some other idea I should consider? It appears there are dups of all the files from user to user, but I fear they are linked and deleting one will delete the other. Help.

Studio B player wrote:
Apple told me to go back to the originally supplied OS X (Leopard 10.5.x), then use the Snow L upgrade disc - is this really required ?
Yes, because your machine came with 10.5, there is a free iLife suit on the 10.5 disks that is not on the 10.6.3 retail disks.
BTW the 10.6.3 disks have the full 10.6 on it too, just no iLife. So you could have installed 10.6.3, Software Updated and installed another iLife if you needed it. A option to keep in mind for the future if the 10.5 disk no longer boots.
Last question ( for now;), what about apps I've downloaded (no disks)?
You need to download new copies from original sources. Your basically rebuilding your machine from the ground up to be reliable. If you have licenses, just email the developer and tell them your TM drive got screwed up, you had to rebuild your machine from scratch and need a new license code.
Programs need to be installed in most cases with the developers installer as they can place files in certain locations on your computer, including copy protection methods etc.
Once you have your brand new pristine system, then clone that to a couple of new blank external drives, date them, leave one as original, the other you set to update by tweaking CCC's settings to clone/backup according to your preferences.
Good Luck.

Migration Assistant created account without a Drop Box

I migrated a friend's account from old Pismo running Tiger to my Mac Pro running Leopard. The last time I had seen the Migration Assistant was years ago under Tiger, & it was crystal clear and idiot proof. The Leopard Migration Assistant has more stages to the operation, and a lot more choices, some of which weren't immediately clear to me. The end result was the account was created without a Drop Box! I thought I was telling it not to copy his Drop Box, and never realized I was telling it not to create it. Now, the question is, after this ridiculous Human Interface Failure, how can I create a Drop Box for this account? I need to move stuff across the User account barrier sometimes, and it is presently not possible.

OK, I noticed the Drop Box doesn't look right, so I will try your terminal commands, thanks.
Ooops - Looks like I have more problems. The Migration Assistant really screwed me up. When I opened the Terminal, it was displaying "Last login...." and it says my computer is now called my friend's computer. Also, I am not sure how to use your commands, because how does the computer know what folder it applies to, if I am in my account, and the drop box is in my friend's account? Did you mean for me to run the commands from within my friend's account?
Message was edited by: Gary P

Migration Assistant password woes w/ Mountain Lion

Having a bag of hurt trying to migrate from an old iMac to a new Retina Display MacBook Pro.
Using Carbon Copy CLoner, I cloned my iMac's drive to a USB external, to simplify/automate migrating the data to the MBP. The transfer went normally, but the MBP is refusing to recognize my password when I try to login.
Steps I've taken so far:
- Booting the MBP from the USB external connected to the MBP. Works fine, with no password problem.
- Booting to the Recovery partition, erasing the main drive, and reinstalling the OS, then running Migration Assitant over again. Long process, same password trouble.
- Erasing main partition again, then running Migration Assistant directly from the source iMac via wireless. Slow, but it worked. And I got the same result: pasword not accepted.
- Creating a Test User account with no data migration, then loggin in at the App Store to download the previously purchsed Mountain Lion installer. (The MBP is brand new, but shipped with Lion instead of Mountain Lion). At the end, I got some cockamamie "can't download" error.
Aaaaargh!!
Could it be related to the iMac haivng been upgraded to Mountain Lion before the process bega, while the newly-arrived MBP had Lion installed? I wouldn't think that would screw up a simple data migration, but...
Anyone?

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.

Mavericks Migration Assistant - Migrate user data to a separate user drive?

I have a question about upgrading to Mavericks with a separate user drive that I haven't been able to find an answer to, so I thought I'd ask for some guidance before actually trying to attempt it.
I have a late-model Macbook Pro (A1260) running 10.8.5 happily with 2 hard drives inside - a smaller SSD boot drive let's call BOOT 1 DRIVE, and a larger drive I use for my user folder which I'll call USER DRIVE. Now it's time to upgrade to a little larger SSD let's call BOOT 2 DRIVE. I have Mavericks already freshly installed on it (10.9.1) with a temporary blank user account. The MBP boots fine into the drive connected externally so I know it's all ready to go - all I have to do is swap out the drives and I'm good on the OS.
Now the tricky part: I want to transfer my user data from my old system 10.8.5 to the new 10.9.1 and ultimately have it reside in the same fashion - on the larger USER DRIVE. How do I do this? A few scenarios I ponder:
A) I'm assuming because this is migrating from an older system to newer system, you can't just create a new user in 10.9.1 with the same user name and point it to the existing home folder in USER DRIVE, but instead have to use Migration Assistant to transfer and update 10.8 user data to 10.9 user data?
B) Locially, you would boot into BOOT 2 DRIVE (10.9.1), and use Migration Assistant to transfer user data from the old 10.8 system (the system knows that the user data resides on USER DRIVE) to the new one but there's not enough space on the new BOOT 2 DRIVE to house all the data and even if it could, then what ? - transfer the user folder directly to a clean USER DRIVE and then point to it?
C) I have both BOOT 1 DRIVE and USER DRIVE cloned on separate volumes, so I could boot into BOOT 2 DRIVE, wipe clean USER DRIVE, and then migrate from the cloned drives - except in Migration Assistant, it says to transfer from "another Mac or Time Machine, or a startup disk". Would I be able to pull from the USER DRIVE CLONE and then have Migration Assistant write to the freshly wiped USER DRIVE?
Perhaps I'm overthinking this? Google pointed me to this post which seems to have some of this information covered even though it feels dated. Reading through it makes me believe that Senario A is actually my closest bet with some user account name swapping or something? Is it that User data doesn't need to be "updated" for the newer OS and you can just create a new user account with the same name and point it to the older USER DRIVE?
Any advice from the mac smarts out there would be appreciated.
Thanks!

SOLVED!
In case anyone stumbles upon this and is wondering what I did:
My hypothesis was correct - waaayyyy over thinking it.
I installed BOOT 2 DRIVE, swapping out the old BOOT 1 DRIVE. Then I renamed the new account to the same name as my previous account, users -> advanced options -> and pointed to the same home folder on USER DRIVE.
DONE
Initially, I made a new account and screwed things up a bit - after reading the post of the above, understood that the new user account should have the same UID as the previous one....
Anyway, all good now - happy camper.

After Migration Assistant, Time Machine refuses to use old backups

I've got to say I'm pretty disappointed with Time Machine.
I just dropped $2,000 on my second-ever Mac, a 15" MBP (Core i7 2GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB 5200rpm hard drive, the stock low-end 15" config). From what I'd heard about Migration Assistant, I believed it would easily move my stuff over to my new Mac. For the most part it did, but a few things didn't transfer. Other posts on the topic detail them accurately - Desktop icon layouts, some settings, Growl, etc.
I told Migration Assistant to use my Time Machine backups, which have been happening without incident for a long time. My oldest backup is December 2010.
Now that my new MBP is about 99% set up like my old MBP, I am having a problem with Time Machine.
I get the error "Time Machine could not complete the backup. This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 355.61 GB but only 176.44 GB are available."
Looking at the Time Machine drive in Finder, I found that Time Machine is trying to create a new folder for backups and do a full backup. Where there was once one folder, "[My Name]'s MacBook Pro," there is now an additional folder, "[My Name]'s MacBook Pro 2." Time Machine is trying to back up into that second directory.
Now, I get it that this is a different computer. But really, if I use Migration Assistant to restore my Time Machine backup, I think it would be safe for OSX to assume that I want to continue using those backups. What is especially disappointing for me is, there were things that Migration Assistant did not restore properly. I probably haven't found them all. That makes it CRUCIAL that I have my Time Machine backups, but it seems that Apple thinks it's perfectly normal for me to want to FORMAT my Time Machine drive after Migration Assistant did a half-*** job of migrating my data. I need those backups now more than ever.
I do also have an online backup, but I still don't feel very comfortable destroying six months of local backups just to make Time Machine work again. Both MBPs were running the same (latest) version of Snow Leopard, so it stands to reason all that needs to happen is a very small incremental backup.
I have been Googling for hours. All I've found is a procedure for 10.5 that doesn't work in 10.6 where I get down into the Terminal and change a MAC address in a file on the Time Machine volume. But that's it. In fact it seems like there's no answer.
Come on Apple, you do everything else better than the competition. Why do I have to nuke six months of backups or buy a new 2TB external drive to make Time Machine work again? I assure you I want to continue making incremental backups against my old Time Machine backups, and promise to hold you not responsible should I screw something up by grabbing an old system file or something from February.
Would appreciate any help anyone could offer.

Did you use Setup Assistant when your new Mac first started up, or skip that, create a user account, then use the Migration Assistant app in your Applications/Utilties folder?
If you used Setup Assistant, when you started your first backup you should have gotten the message in #B5 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It sounds like you didn't (or chose Start New Backup). And no, the Leopard procedure doesn't work on Snow Leopard. That's what #B5 is for.
Usually, if you use Setup Assistant, Time Machine will still say it's going to do a full backup, and make room for it, but actually do an incremental backup (very, very slowly).
Either way, it usually deletes a lot of old backups. We're hoping that will be fixed in Lion.
Once it's decide to make a new backup, there's no known way to prevent it.

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.

Migration Assistant seems unstable under Mavericks

Anybody know why Migration Assistant woudl be so unstable under Mavericks. The app craoks on one of the two macbooks I'm trying to work with.

SOLVED!
In case anyone stumbles upon this and is wondering what I did:
My hypothesis was correct - waaayyyy over thinking it.
I installed BOOT 2 DRIVE, swapping out the old BOOT 1 DRIVE. Then I renamed the new account to the same name as my previous account, users -> advanced options -> and pointed to the same home folder on USER DRIVE.
DONE
Initially, I made a new account and screwed things up a bit - after reading the post of the above, understood that the new user account should have the same UID as the previous one....
Anyway, all good now - happy camper.

Migration Assistant - Good Times (Help!)

finally have two current model iMacs in the house. both machines with the latest updates to mavericks. trying to set up my wife's new machine using migration assistant. the machines ignored my thunderbolt cable and used the wireless system. it's been seven hours for about 600 GB, and it's been stuck for the last hour with a dialogue that says, "less than a minute remaining."
should i interrupt the process and force-quit the machines?
will that completely screw up the migration?
if necessary, will i be able to start over?
lordy, lordy, lordy, why does this sort of thing keeps happening to me?
(using Apple continuously since 1979)
deep thanks for all responses, opinions, and suggestions.

Since it's a new machine, contact Apple's Support and let them deal with the issue. For more on migrating, see Pondini's Setup New Mac guide.
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/Leopard, 9.2.2

Migration Assistant Screw-Up

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