The Migration Assistant that is transferring the soul of my old iMac into the new one is incompetent at making a definitive time estimation to completion. It started with a 3 hours estimate. The, later, it said 5 hours. Then, it said 45 minutes. Then, it said 1 hour, 40 minutes. Then it said 24 minutes, then 2 hours. Then it got down to 5 minutes. 4, 3, 2, less than a minute. It stayed there for 10 minutes. Then it started going up! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes remaining!
Can’t it tell I’m waiting to use the new machine!!! ARRRRGH!
it got worse… then the new machine kept claiming that the old machine wasn’t talking to it and that the ethernet must be disconnected…
then it decided to restart the welcome movie arbitrarily
then it refused to acknowledge that any information had been transferred
migration assistant kept restarting… as if it didn’t like how it was going and by restarting it might get me to make different choices. I was getting kind of tired of hearing that “Do-do-da-do-do” diddy in the welcome movie, so I think the new machine’s plans were starting to wear me down.
I like this new machine! it’s got spunk! too bad I had to erase it and reinstall from the factory dvd
migration assistant seems much better behaved this time… too bad, I think I lobotomized the spunk out of it with that erase and install. oh well, nothing that the migration of old machine won’t fix.
this time, the time estimates are steady. the old one was more fun because it would fluctuate with its whim of the moment like Sisyphus evaluating how much longer it will take to get up that hill
We’ve talked about this on other threads.
Migration Assistant gets very mixed grades from users.
I don’t trust it all; worked out my own method that uses a third drive.
It was much faster and gave me an exact “B” clone of the “A” machine.
But Jaysen, I recall, has an even better way to go.
Search on the term “migration” and you should find those posts.
I believe Time Machine is one of the better ways to migrate. Just back up on the old machine, hook the drive up to the new machine, and then pressing Option + the Time Machine menu bar icon, you’ll get the option to browse a backup that doesn’t belong to the new machine. Once you’e got that backup attached, enter the time machine interface and restore your whole home directory to your new machine.
(1) I make sure I have the install disks, serial numbers. I start with the applications I have disks for first then move to ones that are downloadable. I make sure all the apps are installed first, updates applied, etc.
(2) Then I copy over all my files. ( I use landline ethernet NOT wireless since 10/100/1000 is much faster than 10/100) This is a long process but is a great time to weed out files that need to be archived or trashed.
(3) I set all of my preferences and settings first starting with the System, moving to Apple Apps (Mail, iTunes Safari, etc), then moving to 3rd party (Adobe, SCR, utilities, etc)
I do this “long way” process for one simple reason. It is a fresh install of everything and with a fresh install you eliminate a lot of “gremlins” (bad cache files, corrupted files, not properly installed updates, etc) not only with the system itself but all of the actual programs and software you use. This is also a “spring cleaning” time so those old programs you had installed but no longer use are just not installed this time around. Or those old files you haven’t opened in years that have been migrating from computer to computer can finally be archived instead of taking up HD room. It takes some time but in the long run how often do you have to do it at home (once every 3 years or so?).
thanks for the advice guys. I’m hooked on the migration assistant, though.
Turns out that the factory drive had a bad image on it. That’s why it was acting so wonky. The erase and install cured it. Migration assistant was its usual champ self after the erase and install.
For me, migration assistant has always done me well. I like that it gets the uuid and guid for the user accounts identical without me mucking up the netdir. While I can get into and mess around with that and even know about sudo and man pages from way before OS X, I don’t like to. I like writing odd things here instead. Keeping the user accounts aligned helps when I ssh or use file sharing between the comps because they each recognize me without logging in…
I’ve never had trouble with migration assistant itself, but this was the second time I had a mac not want to do it from the factory box – makes me think they get a buggy image into the works now and then.
For me, getting those ghosts out of the machine is better than possible inheriting old ones I lived with in the old machine.
Keeping the user accounts aligned helps when I ssh or use file sharing between the comps because they each recognize me without logging in…