[bbales]

I am in the midst of transferring from a gigabit ethernet G4 tower to a new Intel (obviously) iMac. I've had difficulties, which I won't even bother to go into now, but in trying to solve those, I ran across info on the Apple discussion boards about NOT using the migration assistant to transfer everything from a Power PC machine to an Intel one, b/c it might screw stuff up.

Now obviously, the reasons for using the migration assistant is because it transfers everything and you g et your same machine back, so to speak.

Has anyone run into difficulties doing this?

[rehoot]

I think the problem with the migration assistant is that it is designed to move from one computer to an identical (or highly similar) second computer. The worst errors would be going from machines that have different monitors and different versions of OS X, not to mention different chips. There was a post on this about a month ago.

I avoid the migration assistant. I know where my files are, and I just copy the Documents folders and other folders as needed. This might be a problem for things like Safari bookmarks, iCal files, and other things hidden in files that you normally do not access direclty.

For other people who read this, safests way to copy between OS X volumes is to use either the ditto command or Disk Utility so that you are sure to get all of the metadata, file colors and such. I generally reinstall program on the new computer to be sure that all the random files are correct on the new computer.

If you copy the Documents folder instead of using the assistant, you might want to try copying a few specific folders from ~/Library/Preferences and /Library/Preferences--only if you have a strong emotional attachment to the settings in those programs and you don't want to manually set your options on the new computer. You will also need to reinstall any servers that were set to start automatically (via settnigs in the /Library/StartupItems folder). If you have a backup of your original library files, and then test each application after you copy the preferences, you can tell what is working an what isn't (you should shut done each application before copying the files). If the program breaks after copying the files, restore them from your backup copy--one program at a time.

I think iCal completely changed the format of its calendar files from 10.3 to 10.4, so the assistant might choke on that (I'm not sure how smart it is--obviously not too smart if people keep complaining about it in this forum). In cases like this, you might have to export from the old program and import the file into the new computer.

[bbales]

Well, I'd be going from very nearly identical operating systems -- the new machine probably is SLIGHTLY updated. But therte's obviously a big difference between a mid-2007 machine and one I bought in late 2000.

This all just sounds like a lot of work. But I bet I'd be better off in the long run...

[Sherman Homan]

I have migrated dozens of G4s and G5s to Intel chipped Macs. The Migration Assistant has worked perfectly with one exception, a hard drive that had a SMART status failure. I don't know why you think it is going to cause problems. Even in the case of different operating system versions, the new application (like iCal and Mail) is going to convert the datafiles anyway.

[Randman]

Nope, just repair permissions before and after. Only thing I had problem with was my Shapeshifter settings.

[mduell]

Lots of people having trouble with it.

[bbales]

Thanks, everyone. I'm really undecided as to what to do. I prefer easy, which is Migration Assistant. (That assumes I can do that off an external hard drive.) But I'm a little concerned.

So -- right now I'm just delaying.

[OreoCookie]

I have used Migration Assistant more often than I can count and have never once run into trouble. My user account can be traced back to a 10.0.3 machine (iBook Dual USB 500) and I've migrated it to my current machine via several others, a first-gen ProBook. However, I've also migrated countless other computers, among others, my professor's TiBook (which ran 10.3) to his second-gen ProBook.

In my experience, the only source of trouble are some drivers which work on one version of OS X, but not on another as well as hacks.

[Cadaver]

Third party drivers, preference panes and haxies that are PPC-only will cause some trouble. Remove these before using Migration Assistant.

I also had a problem with the Intel version of the Safari Flash plugin being overwritten by a PPC-only version, but fixable by just downloading and installing the latest version of Flash from Adobe.

[Brass]

Why don't you just use Migration Assistant, and then try it out for a while before doing anything with your old computer? If it fails, you haven't lost anything apart from a bit of time, and you can then try again using a more tedious technique.

(Migration Assistant worked fine for me, G4 to Intel)

[Peter]

be wary that Apple Remote Desktop often dies and is a serious pain to recover.

[bbales]

Well, I ended up using the assistant -- although, in the long run, I had toattach my backup (on an external FW drive) to my laptop to get the job done. It works!!!

The only problem, that I know of so far, is that -- prior to migration, but after I'd registered, etc. (per someone from Apple tech support) I could go online without any cables; I'm assuming the machine saw theAirport Extreme network and connected automatically. Well, the old machine didn't have a card, it had cables. And once I'd switched everything over, it insisted on the cable. I'm wondering if I can go back and have it somehow connect wirelessly.

But so far, so good. My daughter is having a fine time playing with the camera.

And it was just amazing to see my desktop recreated, especially since my existing G4 is right next to the new one.Just amazing.

[Brass]

I found the Migration Assistant to be so good that I despised it afterwards. Apart from the performance increase, my new computer was just like the old computer. No system preferences to go through, nothing to configure and nothing to install at all. It was almost like I didn't even have a new computer. No fun!!!

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by Cadaver 

Third party drivers, preference panes and haxies that are PPC-only will cause some trouble. Remove these before using Migration Assistant.

I also had a problem with the Intel version of the Safari Flash plugin being overwritten by a PPC-only version, but fixable by just downloading and installing the latest version of Flash from Adobe.

So this causes the problems some people have with the migration assistant?

1. Third party drivers for printers, for example, should be erased?

2. Third party preference panes to be erased? That would mean to erase all third party software like Lightroom. (with all the settings, the whole Lightroom database without having to re-import thousands of photos).

That sounds crippling: I was hoping to just push the whole software, including settings and databases, from one machine to the other.

3. A "haxy"? What rare animal of the hard drive jungle is that?

What are the alternatives to using the migration assistant?

How about using SuperDuper, creating a bootable drive image from the old machine on the hard drive of the new one?

How do you make sure you don't have two copies of the operating system then?

[awaspaas]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

So this causes the problems some people have with the migration assistant?

1. Third party drivers for printers, for example, should be erased?

2. Third party preference panes to be erased? That would mean to erase all third party software like Lightroom. (with all the settings, the whole Lightroom database without having to re-import thousands of photos).

That sounds crippling: I was hoping to just push the whole software, including settings and databases, from one machine to the other.

3. A "haxy"? What rare animal of the hard drive jungle is that?

What are the alternatives to using the migration assistant?

How about using SuperDuper, creating a bootable drive image from the old machine on the hard drive of the new one?

How do you make sure you don't have two copies of the operating system then?

You missed the "that are PPC only" clause in your quoted message.

[Brass]

You don't have to worry about preference files (.plist), just 3rd party preference panes that appear in System Preferences application (and that are PPC only).