Migration Assistant time out?

I have not been able to migrate from a Powerbook to my MBA. I have read the various threads here and used their suggestions to no avail. Here's what I've done to prepare: loaded the new Migration Assistant program that came on the CD onto the Powerbook, turned off the firewall on both machines, enabled file sharing, purchased the USB ethernet adapter, plugged both machines into a router.
Here's what happens:
I run Migration Assistant on both machines, using the proper "to" and "from" settings.
The Powerbook says it sees the MBA.
I enter the passcode on the Powerbook that the MBA produces.
The MBA Migration Assistant says it is "preparing information."
For some reason, the Powerbook Migration Assistant now says "searching for other computers." (There are no other machines on the network.)
This goes on for about 5 minutes, then the MBA says "network connection failed."
I know that the machines are connected and seeing each other (I can mount each other in the Finder), but for some reason Migration Assistant can't proceed, and I suspect a time out is really causing the "connection failed" notice.
I also tried this wirelessly, with the same results. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Well, it looks like I can answer my own question. There seems to be a particular problem in migrating from a MacBook G4 running Tiger to an MBA (on Leopard, of course). I went to the Genius Bar at the 5th Avenue store here in NYC. The Genius went though the regular migration procedure, and ended up with the same situation as reported above. He tried several different things, including trying to pass the migration through a portable hard drive. (MBA-ethernet cable-hard drive-ethernet cable-MacBook). He talked to other Geniuses. All to no avail. He put the problem into the official Genius database that goes to Apple engineers. He suggested that I upgrade the MacBook to Leopard and see if that made a difference. He acknowledged that Apple says it can migrate from Tiger, but he thought it might work. As it happened, I had an unopened copy of Leopard at home, because I hadn't had the time to upgrade. So I upgraded, then did the 10.5.2 combo update on both machines. I crossed my fingers, plugged in the ethernet cables, and presto, the migration started happening.
Some tips on migrating: before starting, use Energy Saver to set both machines to sleep never. Just for good measure, set the Display to sleep never, and I suggest even setting a Disable Screen Saver corner in Desktop & Screen Saver and move your cursor there after the migration starts. (Not doing this meant my first migration attempt was calculated to take 19 hours, and I would have to babysit the trackpad all that time to avoid either machine sleeping. After force quitting Migration Assistant and resetting those controls, it zipped through in less than 3 hours.)
I hope this can help the other people having the same problem. Bummer if you have to buy Leopard, though...

Similar Messages

Lost list of my wifi networks after using migration assistant / time machine

After using migration assistant / time machine to set up my new Mac I now miss the list of stored preferred Wlan/WiFi networks. So the passwords of wireless networks I. Used in the past are all gone.
Why is time machine not putting those on my new Mac as it does with many other settings?
How can I manually grab this list from my old Mac and out it on the new machine?
Will I find that time machine missed some other lists and settings as well?
Thanks for help.

I've been working through this procedure this week. It's pretty good, and when it works it appears to work quite well, but there's still some bumps in the road:
(1) Once you've migrated, Time Machine itself seems to be a little confused and future backups may fail. You might have to start again by changing to a new Time Machine disk on your new laptop. You may lose your older backups, it's not yet clear to me.
(2) You can't restore from a previous backup during the migration, only the most recent one. (You can restore from an older backup using tools on the install CD if you need to.) I suspect this won't be an issue for you.
(3) Migration Assistant once you've logged in a Migration Assistant while you're starting up a new machine seem to work slightly differently. For example, sometimes the newest copy of the applications in your Applications folder (say, iMovie) is preserved, sometimes it makes an exact restore of the old Applications folder even if it's an older version of the application.
Overall it's been a pretty good experience, and what you want to do does work, but be prepared for the possibility of some issues. I tried this back in 10.5.0 a few months ago and had a lot of problems, things seem better now under 10.5.2.
- Ert

Permission issues after Snow Leopard clean install, Migration Assistant+Time Machine restore.

Hello, here's the situation.
I've done a clean install, for various reasons, I've got backups including one done just before the clean install. Following directions somewhere else I set up a user account called "test" just for the purposes of reimporting PART of my old system, since one of the reasons I did the clean install was to clean up my system (get rid of all those little ghosts of old programs, the old programs themselves, files and settings I not longer want etc.) so I didn't want to just import the whole thing. So I imported just the user account and a few folders such as music and photos that I knew I wanted back on. Then I restarted so that it would log back into my old user account that's been restored using Migration assistant. So far so good. I enter time machine and start restoring Applicatons, their associated support files, a few preference panes, some other files and folders I want back on, so and and so forth. Then I enter my old home folder and see that many of the subfolders I don't have access to, I check their permissions with Get Info and see that read/write access has been granted to my test account, which is ridiculous since it didn't exist when they were backed up. Some searching reveals that on the first Time Machine back-up after a restore like this it should as at the start whether I want to inherit he old backups, so I tell Time machine to do a backup, figure that it shouldn't take much, seeing as there's nothing new, and I've put it all in the same place as in the backup. It doen't give me any such prompt, instead just starts indexing/preparing hundreds of thousands of files, and tells me that the backup should take about 135 gb of space. I stop the backup, give up on working this out myself, and come here. Help?
Of note
The "harddrive" (it's a partition, I've got Windows on the other part) is not named the same as it was in the backups, would this affect it?

I'm not familiar with Lightroom.
Where is the "Lightroom 2 catalog" folder in the second message, and what are it's permissions?
Note that +Repair Permissions+ only repairs permissions on files installed by OSX or certain Apple apps, and you should use the version of Disk Utility that's on your OSX volume, not your Install disc. See: [About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452].

MIgration Assistant Stalls out on 'Searching for Disk...'

The main problem here is, I reinstalled Snow Leopard after some acting up by the OS. Backed up ON my main HD and tried to use Migration Assistant to restore the backup. AS of now, every time I load up Migration Assistant, it just stalls on 'Searching for Disk...' and never finds a backup.
I'll try and make a long story short, my optical drive was acting up so I took it in to the Genius Bar. Luckily, they had a new one in stock and replaced it on the spot. Upon getting my MacBook Pro (2009) back, everything was acting crazy. Lagging, freezing, etc. The genius told me it was normal that things start acting up after installing new hardware and that all I had to do was reinstall Snow Leopard and that before installation, it would ask me if I wanted to backup all my data and that once it was re-installed it would automatically come restore to its previous form. Here's where I think things got a little screwy...
I was running Snow Leopard but unfortunately when I installed it, it was from a friend's 'family installation' pack, so I didn't have the installation CD at hand. Anxious to get things fixed, I put in my original installation disc that came with my MBP. Looking back, it should've been obvious that downgrading might cause some problems. Booted to disk and I went on to reinstall. Right before the reinstall it asked me if I wanted to backup all my data to restore once the installation was done. Sure enough, it seemed to have worked so I figured all was going well.
The installation finished and asked me if I wanted to restore from a backup. Of course, hitting yes only gave me an error saying that the backup was created on a newer OS and that I wouldn't be able to restore it on an older OS. I was bummed out but it made sense. Fast forward another day: I call my friend and ask to borrow his Snow Leopard installation disc again. I install it, hoping to see the same, "Restore from Backup" screen at some point, but nothing.
I noticed right away that I only had 16 GB of HD space left (what it was before any of this madness) but everything looked as if it was brand new. After some clicking around through some folders I found the old backup within some folders so I figured that everything worked fine and Migration Assistant would be a quick and easy fix. From here on, Migration Assistant can never seem to get past the loading screen. All I see is, "Searching for Disk" and an eternally spinning circle.
Am I missing something? I've repaired disk partitions and done plenty of searching online. Am I just going to have to setup everything manually again? Thanks.
-Raul

Wow. Sorry, but you've made a major mess.
I was running Snow Leopard but unfortunately when I installed it, it was from a friend's 'family installation' pack,
That's a violation of the license. The +*family pack+* may be installed on up to 5 Macs in the same household. You need to buy your own copy of Snow Leopard.
It sounds like the prompt you got form the Leopard disc was to +Preserve Users and settings.+ That's an +Archive and Install+ of Leopard. If so, there should be a +Previous System ...+ folder at the top level of your HD. If so, that's where you found your backed-up stuff.
The +Restore System From Backup+ option on the DVD is to restore from Time Machine backups, and it doesn't sound like you've ever made any.
And you cannot use +Migration Assistant+ on that folder. It works to transfer from one Mac (or Time Machine or "clone" backups of one), to a different one.
If that's what you did, you'll have to install Snow Leopard over Leopard (that won't disturb anything else). When you start up, you'll have Snow Leopard and little else. You'll have to copy what you need from the +Previous System+ folder.
|
Once this is sorted out, in addition to buying Snow Leopard, you really should start making regular backups of your system. See the [Time Machine Tutorial|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics] and perhaps browse [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), and/or Kappy's post on [Basic Backup|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12366915#12366915].

HT4889 Apple Store changed hard disc - created user account ("User"). I ran migration assistant / time machine. All files migrated but on "User" I can't open them. Help!

I changed my Seagate 1 Tb hard disc under the Apple Exchange Program.I received the iMac and the Apple Store created a new account on my iMac ("User"). I connected the Time Machine and ran the migration assistant. All files etc. have migrated. I can see the Macintosh HD and my old user account but am not allowed to open them. How can I get back to my old settings etc.?

what is the message that you get when you try to open a file?
1. You can try to change the permissions to see if they will allow you to write to the file(s).
2. Naviagte to your Home folder Macintosh HD-->Users-->Username and press command+i to get info and on the bottom of the screen click on the lock and unlock the security check, remove your current username and then re-add it and next to the minus symbol click and select apply to enclosed folders

Migration assistant back out

I attempted to use migration assistant to migrate a user from one mac to another newer one. After sitting on less than one minute remaining for several hours I forced quit on the migration. Based on the amount of hard drive now used on the new computer it looks like the migration moved all the data over but did not complete the process. I would like to know if there is a way to back the migration out so that the new computer does not have it's harddrive quite so filled up.

At this point I would most like to simply remove the data from the new computer and use another method to migrate what data she really wants onto her new computer. After discussing with her there is a minimum of stuff she would like and I think it would be easier and minimize impact on the new computers performance simply to remove the data.
New computer is PowerBook G4
old computer is Power Mac G4
I am not sure what version of OS they are running.

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; Time Machine; extra external HD

Hello all!!!
I just got a new MacBP and I would like to migrate all my files/settings to my new one from my old one via Time machine back up.
My set up as of now is this: I have a external HD that I include in my TM backup and a HD exclusivly for TM backup (total of 2 external HD's).
Should I connect the exteral HD and the Time machine HD to the new MBP when I use Migration assitant or just my TM backup?
It makes sence not to connect my HD since I'm not messing with my external HD to migrate; all i'm moving is are my settings, apps, and files (all) that are in my TM backup.
Thanks
Eric

Good. In that case you can do the following:
Start up the new computer which will boot to the Setup Assistant.
Connect your Time Machine backup drive to the computer. Use Firewire if possible because it will be faster than USB.
Complete the registration in Setup Assistant.
You will get a screen in which you can opt to restore from a TM backup. Select that option.
Follow instructions for migrating your Home folder, third-party applications and support files, and system preferences.
Upon completion of the migration process you should be logged into your migrated account.
Also, see:
How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac
Migration Assistant tips and tricks
OS X Lion- How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

Can I get data back that Migration Assistant wiped out?

I am using a borrowed iMac since my PowerBook crashed. To gain access to my PB data, I unwittingly used Migration Assistant to migrate its contents to the borrowed iMac. Before I did this I upgraded the iMac to Snow Leopard--so it did not have Time Machine before and its data was not backed up. I realize now this was really not smart on my part.
Unfortunately, Migration Assistant seems to have wiped away the pre-existing data on the iMac. What I had wanted was to keep that data, but to add my PB data.
Here are my two key questions:
1) Is there anything I can now do to restore the previous unbacked-up iMac data?
2) To make matters even worse, I have two more hard drives with earlier backed up data from my PowerBook using BackUp from .Mac. How can I move that data into Snow Leopard?
I now realize I went at this all wrong; lesson learned. But if you can help me I will be forever grateful. Thanks.

Vicki Porter wrote:
Unfortunately, Migration Assistant seems to have wiped away the pre-existing data on the iMac. What I had wanted was to keep that data, but to add my PB data.
Here are my two key questions:
1) Is there anything I can now do to restore the previous unbacked-up iMac data?
When you ran Migration Assistant, did you have it copy its data into the existing account on the iMac or create a new account? If you had it create a new account, the old data should still be there in the old account.
2) To make matters even worse, I have two more hard drives with earlier backed up data from my PowerBook using BackUp from .Mac. How can I move that data into Snow Leopard?
I'll have to let someone else answer that question.

Migration from iMac to Macbook Pro using Migration Assistant / Time Machine

Dear all:
I have an iMac, Intel Core 2 Duo, with the latest Leopard version running. I have made a complete backup of my data on an external hard drive using Time Machine (only approx. 90 GB). I will be in New York next week and would like to buy a Macbook Pro. On the Apple website I found the following information regarding Time Machine:
"Migration with style.
To make setting up a new Mac even simpler, Time Machine shares its data with other Mac utilities. Use Migration Assistant to copy portions of any Time Machine backup to a new Mac, or select “Restore System from Time Machine” in the Leopard DVD Utilities menu. Choose any date recorded in Time Machine to set up your new Mac exactly as your previous Mac was on that date."
Is it really so easy? I only have to make a Time Machine backup of my iMac to the external HD, buy a Macbook Pro, plugin the external HD the Macbook Pro, start the Migration Assistant, choose the latest Time Machine backup from the external HD and set up the new Macbook Pro with all settings and applications? Really? If yes, that would be awesome!
Has anyone of you guys done this procedure in the past?
Suggestions and comments are welcome!
Regards,
Tobias

I've been working through this procedure this week. It's pretty good, and when it works it appears to work quite well, but there's still some bumps in the road:
(1) Once you've migrated, Time Machine itself seems to be a little confused and future backups may fail. You might have to start again by changing to a new Time Machine disk on your new laptop. You may lose your older backups, it's not yet clear to me.
(2) You can't restore from a previous backup during the migration, only the most recent one. (You can restore from an older backup using tools on the install CD if you need to.) I suspect this won't be an issue for you.
(3) Migration Assistant once you've logged in a Migration Assistant while you're starting up a new machine seem to work slightly differently. For example, sometimes the newest copy of the applications in your Applications folder (say, iMovie) is preserved, sometimes it makes an exact restore of the old Applications folder even if it's an older version of the application.
Overall it's been a pretty good experience, and what you want to do does work, but be prepared for the possibility of some issues. I tried this back in 10.5.0 a few months ago and had a lot of problems, things seem better now under 10.5.2.
- Ert

Migration assistant + time machine error

Hi,
I just bought a new iMac 24" and was trying to migrate my data over. Upon starting the iMac, I chose the option of restoring using "time machine" backup. Migration assistant found my backup and I chose that and after a "calculation space" screen it started transferring the data over but it never ends. At the end of the whole process, the "progress" screen (with the progress bar) and the statement saying "Less than 1 minute to completion" (or something to that extant), it just stays there. Nothing happens, it says it is "moving files to link applications". I've done this 3 times, and the last was with a clean install of Leopard using the restore disc. All of them gave the same problem, at first I thought it was a time calculation error but after leaving the 3rd installation alone for 3 hours and it was still stuck on that screen, I think the system hung.
What is wrong?
The backup is on a partitioned 1TB firewire 800 HDD.
Any help would be appreciated.
Desmond

The exact error message when I select the Time Machine backup (which is displayed with yellow triangle on the hard disk) is 'Volume contains an OS X installation which may be damaged.'
The older iMac has the system on the built-in SSD and the applications and files on the internal hard disk whereas the new iMac is a fusion drive. I wonder if this is what the problem is, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that someone in a similar situation was able to use the migration assistant without any problem (can't find it now, though).

Migration assistant/Time Capsule-TM/ Superduper transfer

What would be easier: I am getting a new replacement iMac from Apple after I send back the iMac being replaced. Presently I use Superduper (back up software) to back up my system from my present imac to a FW 800 external hard drive. I also have a new Time Capsule that I have not set up for TM transfers yet since I'm getting the new iMac soon as was waiting for that to arrive to set up the Time Capsule: Would the Time Capsule be a superior way to transfer everything If I hooked it up to the Imac about to be replaced and backed everything up or can I transfer from the Maxtor to the new iMac after arrival. In the past I did Mac-Mac transfers but Apple requires me to send out the faulty (LCD screen) iMac before they send the new replacement. Sorry about the verbose query! It's late here in NYC. dennis

Afaik you could do either. Obviously it would be quicker to use your superduper backup not just because you already have it backed up, but also because the transfer back from your external drive will be MUCH quicker than from a timecapsule.
Your other option would be to setup the time capsule now, take your first back up then return the machine. When the new one arrives, during the initial setup you can chose to restore from a time machine backup there. I guess it comes down to when you want to do the waiting? Before you get your new machine or after =)

Migration assistant + time capsule

Hello,
I'm having the following problem: I'm trying to run migration assitant to tranfer data from a Time Capsule backup to a new Macbook Pro (Mountain Lion).
As soon as I reach the "select system" screen, I select the backup disk, press continue, and then nothing happens.
Continue button becomes deactivated and migration assitant gets stuck.
Does anyone have an idea why this happens? Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

Can you mount the actual disk in Finder..
When you use a different Mac to the one that is used to make the backup you might need to use a different method.
See our expert pondini's comments about using a different Mac.
Q17 http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
But read through 14-17.. restoring backups to a different OS from what was used to produce the backup can be tricky as well.

Migration assistent/Time capsule/mail

I just bought a Macbook Pro and wanted to migrate all my data from my iMac to the new Macbook Pro. First time I tried to migrate all my data from a time capsule backup everything went well, but Mail didn't respond. I thought it was because I had Snow Leopard on my iMac. Then I bought OS X Lion to the iMac, made a new backup with time capsule and then tried to migrate everything again. I got the message that the migration went well. I migrated 2 accounts but on one of them mail doesn't respond at all. Does anyone can help me on that?!

I just realised that the problem started on my iMac. I was so sure that mail was working properly before I did the backup. Now I can't access Time Machine to get back to when mail was working.

Boot Camp assistant times out when supposed to download BC files

Hello,
I am helping a friend that need a Boot Camp (BC for short) partition on his DualCore iMac. But as we run BC assistant, it never finds the localized BC installation-files to use after we have installed win7 x64 on it.
1. Note that he has his original install-CD´s "somewhere" (read: nowhere to be found).
2. Due to compatibility-issues with some of the installed software - he has chosen to continue to run on 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
3. The internet works 100% with no restrictions and all other downloads and update works while BC assistant does not.
Even though we never got the BC-package - we managed to download a heapfull of updates (that all aquire previous version to be installed).
We still installed the Win7 x64 and even though most of it still works off the shelf (network, graphics etc.) - I would prefer to have the proper BC-package installed.
Is there no way to download a BC 3.3 full install - or is it possible to run 4.0 on a 10.6-system?
I boils down to:
* Where can I get/download a Win7 x64 BC 3.3 full install? (or at least a full 3.0, since I got the 3.2 and 3.3 updates)
* Or can someone verify that I can use BC 4.0 on a Snow Leopard 10.6-system (and where do I get that one then)?
It would be nice for me to have in any case, since I help a lot of people with their computers (both Apple, Windows and Linux) - and sometimes offline.
Thank you in advance for your time and effort!
Best regards,
/Fredrik

Thank you for your feedback!
Choice 1 - After trying 12 times over the course of 2hrs, I gave up...
Choice 2 - This will be a choice even if I get this settled
Choice 3 - Will try and find my own (also in a box somewhere) or ask other contacts with simular configuration and borrow their disks (which sort of voids choice 4)
Now I just need to continue the search on choice 2...
Cheers

Migration Assistant time out?

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