Re: Joy! Oh, Joy!

[RNKIII]

Yes, I have my shiny new toy up and running (sorta, kinda, almost, maybe)....
Took Apple some time to get everything together and my new iMac shipped, but when they did they shipped "next day air"....  (Thank you, Apple)...

Had the 250gb hdd removed from the G5 by Apple and then I purchased an external case from OWC to mount it in.  When I fired the new iMac up and started down that road.... 'Migration Assistant' took somewhat OVER 24 hours to move the @160gb of data off the G5 drive onto the Intel.....  BUT, IMHO, it did a very pi$$ poor job....  

No address book data, no itunes, no bookmarks, no Widgets, etc., etc..   But there is 170gb +/- of disc space used up....

I've recovered the music and that plays/works fine.  I have been unable to 'find' the bookmarks and/or the address book data on the G5 drive to 'import/export'......

Q #1...  Can you run 'migration assistant more than once and, if so, will it then 'overlay' that which I may have recovered already?

Q # 2 & 3......  Where do the address book and bookmark data files reside?  (and yes I've searched the forums, but, as appears to be my luck, have come up 'dry').

I am not currently backing up as the 2 externals that I will be using, 1 for Time Machine and 1 for Super Duper!, are currently holding my last 'good' backup from the G5 and the G5's actual drive.  I've not changed / added anything new of import, other than the updates from software update to bring my Apple applications up to date.

Q #4....   Other than a visual inspection is there some way to 'validate' that Migration Assistant brought over all the applications/data it should have?

I LOVE the new machine, really a snappy jump from the G5.....  BUT, frustration also runs rampant!!


Bob K.   rnkiii

[Paddy]

Not sure about #1

#2 Address Book - Home->Library->Application Support->Address Book (I'd just drag the whole thing over)

Safari bookmarks - Home->Library->Safari->Bookmarks.plist

But one question - did you create a new user account? That could be the source of the problem - Migration Assistant has copied your old user account info - but it's all under your OLD user account name:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=614911

[Mayo]

The only way to create a new user account prior to running Migration Assistant the first time is to ignore the offer to transfer files from your old Mac after you fire it up the first time and instead run MA after setting up a new account. Did you do that? If you OK Migration Assistant to transfer data the first time you start up a new Mac you are presented with options regarding what you want transferred, including the old user accounts. If you select all the MA check boxes then the new Mac should look just like your old Mac after the transfer, albeit with a new OS and updated applications; Migration Assistant is smart enough to not replace newer data with old data...

It shouldn't take Migration Assistant that long to transfer that amount of data... I would estimate between 1-2 hours, more or less; the amount of time depends on the amount of data to be transferred. 24 hours is way too long...  I have used MA to transfer large amounts of data from a number of G5 Macs to Intel Macs with nary a hiccup; in my experience only a few files out of tens of thousands may fail to transfer, and they are typically preference settings or obscure third-party apps. Then I have to spend a half hour making things right after using Migration Assistant, which sure beats the amount of time it took pre-OS X.

I suspect that there is a problem with the G5 drive. You could try running MA on the external drive and see if you obtain better results. Or you could try running MA again on the G5 drive. But I wouldn't take either step without checking the drive using Disk Utility or, better yet, DiskWarrior...

[RNKIII]

Joy, Oh Joy....

All is well in Owatonna again...   Kudos to Paddy, again.....  logging out of the current user and into one MA asked me to make has lead to the discovery of ALL my old friends and data..... old mail, old bookmarks, old address book, my iChat buddies, etc, etc....

clears up all previous questions, make new ones...

Q #1....   Want to 'get rid' of other new minted user-id that is me... but it is probably of admin strength and I want to keep this one and upgrade it to admin strength... possible??  how??

Q #2....    Don't want 'duplicate data' under current duplicate ids.... only that under migrated id. when / how to remove??

Q #3...   When I start to 'back up'.... do I need to reformat applicable hdd(s) to newer more 'Inter friendly' format by wiping and reformatting with disk utilitiy or something else??  Think Super Duper! disc could stay same but that may present 'booting' problems?!?!?

All is good again and I apologize to MA for thinking it did a bad thing... It was me who got turned around....  


Bob K.   rnkiii

[Paddy]

1. Under the user account that is from your old Mac, make sure that you have "allow user to administer this computer" checked in the Accounts pane of System Prefs. It should be. Then you're safe to delete the other user following these instructions: http://kb.iu.edu/data/akmk.html  Obviously, if there is anything you need to save from that new user home folder, you should do so before deleting it. Of course, if there is nothing much IN the new user account, you can just leave it for those times when you need to find out if switching users solves a problem. It's not like it uses much disk space. I have two accounts on my MacPro - came in handy just the other day when Safari went all pear-shaped on me and refused to start up. It was something in my main user account - the other one worked fine.

2. See above.

3. If you want to be able to boot the new Mac and only the new Mac off the external hard drives then format them using GUID. If you want to be able to boot your old Mac off them too, it should be Apple Partition Map, which is probably the way they are now. However, there may be issues with trying to use Time Machine on an APM drive  - see this discussion: http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=89232

Me? I'd use GUID for the Intel Mac backup. And have another backup for the old Mac, if you're keeping it.