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...

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Can't partition HD with Bootcamp Assistant on brand new iMac

I just got a 27" 1TB brand new iMac three days ago. After copying over all my files from my previous computer (PC), installing some software packages and configured the Mac the way I want it, yesterday I wanted to partition 80GB out of remaining 330GB with bootcamp assistant to install Windows 7. After one hour it stopped with an error message that it wasn't able to move some files and I would need to re-format the HD and start again.
Is there really no other way? It took me two days to get to where I am.

It should only take less than a minute.
So just use OS X software to clone what you have to another hard drive, then do an erase and restore.
And backup before starting is at the top of the list of things to do to prepare.
http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp - re-read the pdf guide linked at the top and other tech articles.
And you really do want bootable clone image of Mac OS anyway, in addition to or in place of TimeMachine, so no loss in doing so. It isn't as if you will lose or have to redo.
It needed contiguous free space and no files at the end of the disk. But installers and updates do scatter files and fragment free space a lot and can leave files locked where they can't be moved.
SuperDuper
Carbon Copy Cloner
iDefrag
iPartition
Apple Disk Utility Restore
And you can have OS X on multiple hard drives, plus it really helps for doing the type of maintenance and repairs needed for updates and proper running.

HT201250 I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was?

I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was? I want to make sure I will still have various important files on my new computer, like my songs in iTunes, my photos in iPhoto, etc, etc. Thanks so much in advance!

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
When you turn on the new iMac for the first time, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so connect the external disk and follow steps to restore all your files to your new iMac. Your new Mac will have the same settings and programs as your old computer.
In other cases, I would recommend to restore the whole backup without using Migration Assistant or Setup Assistant, but a Late 2012 iMac uses a special OS X build, so the OS X version that you're using on your old Mac won't work on the new one. For more information, see > http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

How to restore machine using a TM backup on a usb hard drive from older imac to a brand new iMac?

My imac (the one that had a superdrive in it), had a broken superdrive and was sent for repair. Whilst being "repaired" the screen was broken. I now have a brand new imac albeit without a dvd drive. My question is how to I restore my the old TM back up which had been made to an external usb hard drive to the new imac. Help files say that I should not restore from a TM file to a different machine and that I should use migration assistant. Whilst I can see the external usb drive in TM it is not being recognised in Migration assistant when I click on back up from a TM backup on another machine or disk.
Any ideas?
Just noticed that this new machine is running OSX 10.8.4 the broken imac was on mavericks

This is very simple first run Software Update on the new machine and get your machine upgraded to the most recent version of Mountain Lion 10.8.5. Install all other software updates Apple recommends in Software Update. Then care fully read Pondini's guide on using Migration Assistant located at:
http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html
Your migrated data will be in a new account, to access it log into the new account.
Also DO NOT repeat DO NOTuse Wi-Fi to migrate data, if your TM backup drive uses USB, then connect it via USB and follow the on-screen instructions as described in Pondini's guide.

Brand New imac ... dead in the water ... SOS

I just opened up my brand new imac 3.06 duo core yesterday, started it up, all ok. Today I transfered all my settings from my old G4 using firewire and the Migration Assistance in the utilities folder. After transferring data, restarted imac and that's where the problem begins... It will not restart. Every time I restart it stays on the white screen with the grey apple and the clock spinning below it. I tried restarting holding down the D key and then selecting my start up disk, I also tried installing the software disk and reinstalling the software, no luck. What I need to do is do a complete erase and install back to factory settings. Any ideas? When I put in the disk it is not giving me any options.

HI Dale,
I transfered all my settings from my old G4 using firewire and the Migration Assistance
If you transferred files from a previous PowerPC Mac to your newer Intel based iMac using the Migration Assistant, that could account for these problems To see if you have apps that require Rosetta, go here; Intel-based Mac: How to tell if an application is Universal
I tried restarting holding down the D key
Booting while holding down the D key will run the Apple Hardware Test. To prompt the Startup Manager window, boot while holding down the Option key.
What I need to do is do a complete erase and install back to factory settings. Any ideas? When I put in the disk it is not giving me any options.
Insert your install disc while holding down the C key.
If you cannot boot from your install disc, try booting in Safe Mode
You can run Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities) to check the startup disk for errors. Restart by going to the Apple Menu/Restart.
Carolyn

How can I transfer data (iTunes/iPhoto) MacBook Pro (Late 2011) to my brand new iMac 27" - Apple Support couldn't help me and did not make the promised call-back

I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro 13" and bought a brand new iMac 27" last week.
I tried to transfer data (musdic & photos) via Thunderbolt, but i did not run, my system always
tries to transfer data via WLAN, but that would last more than 80 hours.
I tried to get some help from the Apple Support, but unfortunately they couldn't help me.
A promised call-back from the next higher support-level has not been done.
Does anybody know what the problem might be.
The Thunderbolt-cable is brand new.

Instead of using Migration Assistant, the best way is to use the Target Disk Mode, so you will save headaches (Migration Assistant creates a new user with the transferred data).
To do this, just connect both Macs with the Thunderbolt cable, and then, start the MacBook Pro holding the T key, so a Thunderbolt or FireWire icon should appear on the display. After that, go to the iMac, open Finder, and the hard drive of the MacBook Pro will appear on the Finder sidebar as an external drive, under "Devices". Just access to it, go to the folders with your iTunes and iPhoto libraries, and copy them to the iMac

I'm trying to transfer data (docs, emails) from G4 iMac running os 10.3.9 to brand new iMac on 10.8.1 I'm stuck, any help greatly appreciated. (Ethernet or wifi networking are both options if I can figure out how to get the machines to communicate.)

I'm trying to transfer data (docs, emails) from an old G4 iMac running OS 10.3.9 to brand new iMac on 10.8.1 I'm stuck, any help greatly appreciated. (Ethernet or wifi networking are both options if I can figure out how to get the machines to communicate.)

AMoriyama wrote:
I have the old machine backed up onto an external firewire disk but can't hook that up to the new imac as I'm waiting for delivery of a firewire 400/800 adaptor - therefore starting the old machine up as a slave is also subject to the same delay.
I was hoping there might be some way to create a network between the 2 machines (and 2 different versions of the OS) to be able to transfer data across immediately but perhaps I'll just have to wait for my firewire adaptor to arrive.
I don't understand why you're buying a Firewire adaptor, since AFAIK both of your computers have Firewire already built in.
All you need is a firewire cable. Connect the Firewire socket on the old machine to the Firewire socket on your new iMac.
Then start the old machine in Target Mode (i.e. by holding down the T key on its keyboard, while it's starting up, until you see the three-legged T icon hopping around the screen of the old machine.)
At that point you will also see a new icon on the screen of your new iMac. This is the hard drive of your old machine. By clicking on it you can navigate through it any way you like, just as you would normally.
Just drag across whatever you want from the old computer to the new one. This will leave everything on the old computer untouched.
- or use Migration Assistant but in my experience, Migration Assistant isn't very reliable and fails to migrate large amounts of stuff.

HELP! brand new iMac froze during firewire transfer and won't start!!!

During my setup for my brand new iMac I follwed the directions and connected my iBook via firewire to transfer my files. I noticed after a while that my iMac was frozen on "45 minutes remaining" and the blue line wasn't wavering a bit, and after over half an hour it hadn't moved. I powered off the iBook, and still nothing happened to the iMac screen--it remained frozen. I went to the guidebook and nothing seemed to work, so I powered off and on again, only to get a flashing question mark. All this and I just bought the darn thing tonight!
Help! Anyone know what happened and more importantly how to fix it?
Thanks.
Lindsay

it sounds like the iBook went to sleep during the transfer or at least it's hard drive spun down.
what you need to know is hope that simply booting from your install DVD will let you repair the iMac's hard drive. You could also try booting holding down the Command S keys on startup and when you get to the Single User Mode command line prompt follow the directions there for running fsck to repair your hard drive.
Do you have a FW hard drive? Can you copy files from iBook to FW and then from there to iMac?
And, it is always nice to have a FW emergency/backup hard drive. The iMac needs a different partition scheme to be bootable from FW than the iBook does, but you can create the proper partition type etc from a Tiger Installer and put OS X on FireWire, then see if you can backup and repair your iMac's hard drive.
MicroMat's TechTool Pro 4.5.1 is now shipping and is compatible, Universal Binary and bootable. Always good to have some 3rd party utility handy.
If you are just starting out, you probably don't have much if anything installed yet, so you may want to just erase your iMac drive and restore to what it was. That would be the easiest if Disk Utility won't repair it.
Instead of powering off the iBook, I would have tried to force quit whatever was running, like Migration Assistant.

My brand new iMac track pad reverted to a system preference option that doesn't allow gestures to work or be restored, any suggestions?

I purchased a brand new IMac 21 inch a few weeks ago and restored it to my macbook pro. A few days later the gestures on the track pad stopped working. After listening to the advice of apple support and wasting a number of hours without success, I decided to restore the computer to new and start fresh. The outcome was the track pad worked just fine. I noticed the system preferences track pad choice provided options that I didn't have before. All worked fine and of course from their I migrated apps and documents from my time machine. a few days later I plugged my ipod in and noticed the track pad was not working.
Having spent another two hours with apple support, they concluded they would call me back as they agreed that the system preferences setup for the trackpad had reverted to an older version.
I am not certain if migrating the apps folder had anything to do with this and am waiting to hear back. I am tempted to restore the machine to new again and see if that restores the track pad system preferences. If it does I will avoid migrating any files to see how long the track pad works. I have my docs, photos, and other critical folders backed up individually on a separate drive. Let me know if anyone has experienced a similar problem. Thanks!

Have you tried all of these?
1. Pressing the Eject key while opening the iMac.
2. Pressing the Eject key while closing down the iMac.
3. Holding down the Option key while restarting the iMac.
4. Using Disk Utility to try to Mount, Repair and Eject the disk.
5. Holding down the Mouse while restarting the iMac.
6. Pressing the O and F keys while closing down the iMac.
7. Opened Applications > Utilities >Terminal and typed in 'drutil tray eject'.

Brand new iMac 27" i3 is flashing blue screen

My brand new Imac (one-day old) is acting very odd as it slowly flashes a pulsating light blue screen when I try to access Apple Menu (restart/sleep/shutdown) features. No matter what I do it will not turn off. I have since had to do a hard shutdown but now it stops at an error screen upon start-up that tells me to restart!
I am Mac savvy and this has never happened to me. Prior to this happening, I called Apple Tech Support because I could not use their Mac Migration feature to move my info off of a G4 running 10.4.11. Tech support could not help either as wireless, ethernet and direct Firewire attempts yielded no Migration results. I finally had to pull the hard drive out of the G4 and hooked it up to the new iMac. Everything seemed to transfer except when it was done the contents of what I just copied thru Migration was nowhere to be found. That is when I started experiencing the slow-flash blue screen phenom and is where I am stuck today.
I am ready to take this thing back. In all my years I have never had a problem like this with an Apple product. Any help or insight will be appreciated.

ONE
Paul has given you good advice in that I would reinstall the OS from the supplied disks to get your computer working properly.
TWO
Then re-install your old programs (only those you really need since they are likely PowerPC, not “universal” Intel programs) from their original disks.
THREE
If you have the user data from the old drive backed up, then hopefully you can restore your user data to the new drive or buy an enclosure and access the old data as needed (which is what I did when originally migrating from a Power Mac G5 to the iMac (late 2009).
Alternatively, if step ONE is problematic and your machine is defective, you can likely return it to Apple within 14 days (or whatever the law is in your country) for a replacement or refund and purchase a new iMac just released today. Steps TWO and THREE still apply in this case.

Brand new iMac, can't partition using Bootcamp

I just got a 27" 1TB brand new iMac three days ago. After copying over all my files from my previous computer (PC), installing some software packages and configured the Mac the way I want it, yesterday I wanted to partition 80GB out of remaining 330GB with bootcamp to install Windows 7. After one hour it stopped with an error message that it wasn't able to move some files and I would need to re-format the HD and start again.
Is there really no other way? It took me two days to get to where I am.

Did you use the Boot Camp Assistant to partition the drive?
BTW you should be posting in Boot Camp forum located at:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=237
Roger

Brand new iMac, Can I restore from Time machine or start new?

My Mac Pro died a month ago so I am replacing it with a 27 Inch iMac. I had a time machine back up on my Mac Pro. When I get my iMac can I restore from the time machine so that I don't have to go through installing all of my programs again or should I start fresh and install everything fr

It's probably "better" to put a fresh install of everything but it certainly isn't the easiest or fastest. I'd say if everythg was running fine at the time of your last TM backup I'd restore from the TM probably using Migration Assistant. Installing and registering a bunch of software can be a pain. I've always used Migration Assistant when I get a new Mac. What happened to the Mac Pro? Is the hard drive still available? You could stick it into an external enclosure and migrate from that.

I have a brand new iMac (late 2012) that keeps losing its internet connection

I have a brand new iMac (late 2012) that keeps losing its internet connection - like every five minutes. I have had it for three weeks. During the first two weeks, it worked flawlessly. However, just as the refund period ended - it became desktop dead weight. Suggestions?

did u ever get a solution to this? I have the same 2012 mines 27". It drops after sleep sometimes and can't find anything. Wifi. Connection to the Internet. I pull up network assistant it just gives me blank stares and restart everything. It doesn't even see the time machines and they are still there. I have it right now in full error and my iphones allowing me to see everything as connected and I'm posting here in the forum while my iMac cannot. Doesn't happen all the time. Not sure why it happens or what's goinng on with It. Works great and then sudden wifi failure to recognize.

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.

Brand new iMac freezes constantly! Updates aren't helping!

Hello everyone,
This past Sunday I bought a brand new iMac intel Core 2 Duo with a 250 GB HDD and 1 GB of RAM. At home I set it up with my SAMSUNG 1080p 22" monitor, Apple bluetooth Keyboard and mightymouse, and a Western Digital 350 GB HDD hooked up via USB. I was excited to finally jump on the intel-based Mac bandwagon, as well as experience dual monitors for the first time.
That was Sunday. Tuesday evening I was watching "Rome" on itunes on my Samsung monitor while surfing the web with Omniweb on the iMac monitor. All of sudden, everything locked up. I was able to move my cursor, but nothing responeded to my clicking. I hard booted the system and loaded everything I had going again, and sure enough, it locked up a few moments later. I ran system update, updated everything, then restarted. Time went by and although not immediatly, later that night it froze up on me again.
Fast forward to last nite, and the freezing reached and all time high. 5 times. Each time was when I had a browser open in my iMac window and I had Quicktime playing in my Samsung monitor. I was watching a sports program, with the player fit to the screen.
I have read many posts about intel iMacs freezing late last year, but there was a firmware update that evidently fixed that. I have this update installed, and I have had no luck. I have even contacted Apple Care via phone where I got instructed to unplug everything, plug it back in, start in safe mode, and delete cache. That didn't help me out at all. Am I right insuspecting I have a faulty Video card? I just ordered 4GB of RAM, could this be a RAM issue?

When diagnostics are run on a freezing computer and nothing shows, I'll put the program into a testing loop because this means one of two things: the issue is heat related so running the diagnostics several more times will bring on the heat so that the issue shows up or the installed RAM is marginal, just flaky enough to show up now and again but not so far off that a run through of the memory test catches it on the first run.
As I said in my original post, memory is always a suspect in a freezing or kernel panicking computer. And it does tend to top my list. But from what you describe I'm not quite willing to say, "Why don't you just wait until the RAM upgrade arrives?"

Migration Assistant screwed up my brand new iMac

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