Apple Migration Assistant Workarounds?
July 14, 2015 7:18 AM Subscribe
I'm trying to migrate from an old iMac to a new MacBook Pro, using Migration Assistant over wifi. It stalls out at "Less than a minute remaining." Apparently this is a common problem. Are there any workarounds - for example, backing up to an external disk and connecting that disk to the new computer? I do have Time Machine but it hasn't backed up in about 2 weeks (a different problem I've been dealing with). The old iMac has USB and Firewire ports; the new Pro has USB and Thunderbolt.
You can absolutely back up with Time Machine to an external disk and then migrate that disk to the new machine. But if the new Macbook Pro has an Ethernet port, or you have a Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter, migration with wired Ethernet is your best bet.
posted by eschatfische at 7:56 AM on July 14, 2015
posted by eschatfische at 7:56 AM on July 14, 2015
I agree, do it over a wired connection, not wifi. But also, how long did you wait when it seemed to have stalled out? I had that happen one time over a wired connection, it sat for hours and seemed to be stuck, but I decided to just let it sit overnight and when I woke up it had finished.
posted by primethyme at 8:16 AM on July 14, 2015
posted by primethyme at 8:16 AM on July 14, 2015
1. Use a Firewire cable with Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter.
2. Connect both units
3. Reboot the iMac in "Target Disk Mode" by holding down the "t" key while starting the iMac.
3. Soon the iMac will appear as an "External Drive" in Migration assistant.
posted by Mac-Expert at 8:57 AM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
2. Connect both units
3. Reboot the iMac in "Target Disk Mode" by holding down the "t" key while starting the iMac.
3. Soon the iMac will appear as an "External Drive" in Migration assistant.
posted by Mac-Expert at 8:57 AM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is the operating system on the iMac up to date enough to run the mac pro? If so, you could boot the Mac Pro in FW target disk mode, wipe it & then copy the whole drive from the iMac to the mac pro with Carbon Copy Cloner. You might have to re-enter a few software serial numbers if they're based off the MAC address of the hardware, but this is usually what I do when I get a new machine.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:26 AM on July 14, 2015
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:26 AM on July 14, 2015
Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions - they all seem superior to wifi. Assuming I do end up needing to cancel out of this current attempt, how do I do it? Force quit on the new macbook?
posted by malhouse at 10:48 AM on July 14, 2015
posted by malhouse at 10:48 AM on July 14, 2015
As a total aside, do you have anything in your /usr/local?
If you don't know what this means, you have nothing to worry about. If you do, check: Mavericks and Yosemite both freak out at /usr/local, move everything in there to a recovery area, and copy files back one by one. So installation stalls at "One minute left" while those files are copied - when you have 15,000 files like I did, that's a non-trivial amount of time.
The good news is, the process eventually finishes and works fine. You can try looking at the installation log (Command-L) to see if that's what's going on.
Or, if you have a choice, temporarily moving /usr/local to ~/local (for example) for the duration of the installation works well too. But you'd have to have thought of that before you started.
tl;dr: Consider just waiting for a while. It usually finishes successfully ... eventually.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:06 PM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you don't know what this means, you have nothing to worry about. If you do, check: Mavericks and Yosemite both freak out at /usr/local, move everything in there to a recovery area, and copy files back one by one. So installation stalls at "One minute left" while those files are copied - when you have 15,000 files like I did, that's a non-trivial amount of time.
The good news is, the process eventually finishes and works fine. You can try looking at the installation log (Command-L) to see if that's what's going on.
Or, if you have a choice, temporarily moving /usr/local to ~/local (for example) for the duration of the installation works well too. But you'd have to have thought of that before you started.
tl;dr: Consider just waiting for a while. It usually finishes successfully ... eventually.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:06 PM on July 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Do NOT clone a Mac with the image from an other unless its the EXACT SAME HARDWARE CONFIGURATION. Ever since OSX 10.6 Apple stopped with the universal install. We (Genius Bar) found out the hard way after we started receiving units back that we had installed new drives loaded with an image of a new install.... :-(
The easiest way is Migration assistant. Either via Target disk mode. Or with both units connected with a good quality network cable (no switch or router required!) just make sure the WiFi has been turned of
The best way to migrate to a new Mac is to boot the new Mac, register it and load it with the applications you really want. Then manually copy the user data from the old computer into the new user profile.
You can do this by Target disk mode, or via "sneaker net" by copying the data to and from a drive....
posted by Mac-Expert at 2:14 PM on July 14, 2015
The easiest way is Migration assistant. Either via Target disk mode. Or with both units connected with a good quality network cable (no switch or router required!) just make sure the WiFi has been turned of
The best way to migrate to a new Mac is to boot the new Mac, register it and load it with the applications you really want. Then manually copy the user data from the old computer into the new user profile.
You can do this by Target disk mode, or via "sneaker net" by copying the data to and from a drive....
posted by Mac-Expert at 2:14 PM on July 14, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
1. Do a Time Machine backup of the old iMac to your external disk.
2. Attach said external disk to new MacBook Pro via USB.
3. Start Migration Assistant and tell it to do an import from your iMac backup on the external disk
This should cover it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350
posted by the matching mole at 7:52 AM on July 14, 2015