Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

ghporter · Apr 12, 2009, 11:55 AM

Yesterday we bought my wife a new 2.4GHz MacBook. Today she's at work and it's my job to transfer all her files and apps from her old 800MHz iBook G4.

Is it really as simple as putting files from the iBook in the same folder structure on the MacBook? What about her iPhoto library-she has iLife '06 on the iBook and I know iPhoto has been changed pretty substantially since then.

Any particular issues to worry about, such as "this app needs you to reinstall it and customize it, THEN move data files..."?

While I'm very happy to do this for her, I don't want to let her down and wind up giving her MORE work by goofing this up. Any advice and assistance would be very muhc appreciated.

cwkmacuser · Apr 12, 2009, 12:44 PM

No, I don't think you will run into any problems. iPhoto may have been upgraded to iLife 09 (assuming that's what's on the MacBook) but the photos are just .jpeg, .jpg, or .gif files, so that makes no difference.

There may be some things (Such as iMovie projects, Keynote files, Pages files, Numbers files, GarageBand files, etc.) which may need to be changed to a new format (done automatically by the program) on the MacBook. BUT, this means you will no longer be able to use those same files on the iBook.

^Don't let this worry you. Transferring files is very simple and should not be a painful thing to do. If you have problems, go ahead and post here. I will be watching this thread.

ghporter · Apr 12, 2009, 12:49 PM

Should I just use the Migration Assistant and then see if there are any problems? I've been considering how much work might be involved in this and would like to reduce the time it takes to get "everything" moved.

Simon · 03:26 PM

1) Use MA. Your old Mac will be a backup in case something goes wrong.
2) On the new Mac, check apps, pref settings, documents, audio/video, etc.
3) Manually copy over or re-install anything that didn't survive MA (typical candidates are iWork, Adobe CS, MS Office).
4) Only format the old Mac if another backup (like a clone of the old Mac) is available or you are 100% sure the migration has worked.

If you use TM it's even easier. When setting up the new Mac, select to restore from a TM backup. Done.

ghporter · Apr 12, 2009, 02:13 PM

Thanks Simon. I'm about 1/2 way through using MA right now, and while it's slow (no Firewire on the new MacBook), I feel that it's going to be thorough. We didn't have a TM backup of the iBook because we never got it upgraded to Leopard-it's officially too slow for Leopard. On the other hand, I have a new desktop hard drive and enclosure sitting next to me that will be my wife's TM backup device.

cwkmacuser · Apr 12, 2009, 02:49 PM

That's good ghporter!

I'm glad it's working out OK!

Simon · Apr 12, 2009, 03:25 PM

Sounds good, Glenn. MA is no speed daemon but in the end you will have saved so much time compared to doing everything by hand that it will more than make up for slow transfer speeds.

ghporter · 04:17 PM

Well it's finished and the MB's desktop isn't full of the stuff my wife had on her iBook, so I guess she'll have to pull that stuff from the profile MA moved. It took about 3 hours, but that was wireless, so I can't complain too much.

Ok, it's not that simple. The imported profile has many/most folders locked. I renamed it because the name was the same as the profile on the new computer, so only the "old name" user has access. Changing many of the folders' rights was a pain, so is there a way to just select the whole user folder and change ALL the rights at once? There are a bazillion folders in that thing!

cwkmacuser · Apr 12, 2009, 04:17 PM

Yeah, just imagine how long it would have taken if you were using CD's to transfer files. However you could have cloned (made a copy of) the entire iBook hard drive. But, it looks like you managed all right!

seanc · Apr 12, 2009, 07:30 PM

You couldn't clone an iBook onto a MacBook - the different architectures aren't compatible.

As for having the issue of missing profile, I'd create a fresh profile and copy everything manually. This is what I did recently - I had to replace my HDD so used an image of a fully updated OS X install and copied everything manually from the TM volume.
Things will be wonky until you repair permissions though (yes, it genuinely has a use).

I'm so used to doing Windows profile transfers, it was a breeze in comparison.

Edit: It's only now that I realize Migration Assistant has a Time Machine option built in... DOH!

cwkmacuser · Apr 12, 2009, 07:42 PM

Hmm! I thought you could clone any hard drive to another. That's what my dad has told me and he has been doing this stuff for years.

seanc · Apr 12, 2009, 07:46 PM

Examples where it doesn't work:
Changing architectures
Windows and proprietary drivers - reset them all to defaults and you're usually OK.

cwkmacuser · Apr 12, 2009, 08:18 PM

More complicated than I know anything about.

Art Vandelay · Apr 12, 2009, 08:32 PM

You can clone from a PPC Mac to an Intel Mac and vice versa if you're using Leopard.

ghporter · Apr 12, 2009, 08:34 PM

Well my wife is home from work and using her new MacBook. And loving it. It seems that Migration Assistant did a fairly good job of moving what she needed, except that it didn't migrate her Firefox bookmarks (which I handled manually), and her iCal data (which I will handle manually later). This was MUCH easier than I thought it would be. Thanks for the advice.

seanc · Apr 12, 2009, 08:40 PM

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay

You can clone from a PPC Mac to an Intel Mac and vice versa if you're using Leopard.

True, because Leopard was built to be Universal - the exception to the rule

steve626 · Apr 12, 2009, 10:58 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Well my wife is home from work and using her new MacBook. And loving it. It seems that Migration Assistant did a fairly good job of moving what she needed, except that it didn't migrate her Firefox bookmarks (which I handled manually), and her iCal data (which I will handle manually later). This was MUCH easier than I thought it would be. Thanks for the advice.

It's interesting to see what your experience was, because mine was somewhat different. We used the Setup Assistant to migrate from my daughter's PPC iMac G5 (10.4) to a new iMac Intel C2D (10.5). It successfully migrated Adobe Photoshop Elements (two versions even, version 3 and version 6), MS Office, bookmarks for Firefox, Safari, Opera, Camino; emails; and other assorted chat tools including MS Messenger as well as AIM; and a very large iPhoto library and very large iTunes library; and her WACOM tablet (no issues) . This all went flawlessly. I did make sure to install the newest printer, scanner, and tablet drivers (important for moving from PPC to Intel platforms and from 10.4 to 10.5). The ONLY things that did not migrate totally were: her desktop background picture (easily fixed), screen saver pattern preference and energy saver preference. These were easy to fix.

I think one thing that makes this go smoothly is to run the Setup Assistant as soon as the computer is booted up for the very first time. When done this way, it creates the same users and permissions and seems to copy EVERYTHING. It was shocking to see everything laid out (albeit without the desktop background picture as mentioned above) exactly as before when the transfer was completed (which took a few hours).

If you don't use Setup Assistant on that first boot up, you do need to run Migration Assistant but if you have done some things in the interim, it might not work as smoothly.

FYI -- I have also done such transfers completely manually, such as from an iMac G3 (10.3) to that iMac G5 (10.4). I copied all files manually over a wireless network by logging into the other computer. I moved over Preferences and Application Support files as I thought were needed, and then over the next day or so, was called in to "fix" little things that hadn't been fully migrated. Things were quickly up and running there too, but using the Setup Assistant was by far the smoothest and easiest.

Simon · Apr 13, 2009, 03:02 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Changing many of the folders' rights was a pain, so is there a way to just select the whole user folder and change ALL the rights at once? There are a bazillion folders in that thing!

sudo chown -R foo:bar /whatever

should recursively change everything in /whatever to user foo and group bar.

Simon · Apr 13, 2009, 03:05 AM

Originally Posted by seanc

You couldn't clone an iBook onto a MacBook - the different architectures aren't compatible.

But there's a workaround.

Clone the iBook to the MB, boot the MB off of the install DVD (because it won't boot with the iBook system), and select an upgrade install. That should install an Intel Leopard over the PPC Tiger installation and preserve apps, user homes, user files, prefs, etc.

But my guess is MA is faster. And it's certainly easier. I don't quite know which method will be more complete/robust though. I've used both, but never compared them side to side.

Simon · Apr 13, 2009, 03:08 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Well my wife is home from work and using her new MacBook. And loving it. It seems that Migration Assistant did a fairly good job of moving what she needed, except that it didn't migrate her Firefox bookmarks (which I handled manually), and her iCal data (which I will handle manually later). This was MUCH easier than I thought it would be. Thanks for the advice.

That sounds like a very smooth migration. I don't quite understand why MA didn't pick up the iCal data, but since you caught it and fixed it you'll be fine.

Glad to hear it went so well!

ghporter · Apr 13, 2009, 05:30 PM

The hardest part was moving her calendars. I couldn't just back up her iCal database and move that-tried it and it didn't work. So I had to export each separate calendar (she's really good at keeping things orderly-there were 12 different calendars) and import them individually. Then I had to match the color she used for each, which was actually the hardest part of the whole thing.

I'm about 90% ready to just use CarbonCopy Cloner to make an image of her iMac's drive "just in case" there's something we haven't realized I missed, and then use the Tiger disc to wipe the machine before we give it to our son.

Simon · Apr 14, 2009, 03:36 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

I'm about 90% ready to just use CarbonCopy Cloner to make an image of her iMac's drive "just in case" there's something we haven't realized I missed, and then use the Tiger disc to wipe the machine before we give it to our son.

You should definitely make a backup of the original partition before you format it in any case. You never know what might come up later on.

But when you clone the disk, why rely on a third-party app ("donation-ware") that has caused others trouble in the past? Instead I suggest you use OS X's built-in cloning tool. It's rock solid, it's very fast and it's of course free. You'll find it on every OS X installer DVD and on every OS X installation.

/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility > Restore.

Select erase backup to get a bootable clone in block-copy mode (fast!).

ghporter · Apr 14, 2009, 06:36 AM

Considering the speed of the iBook in question, I think using Disk Utility is the better option. Now I just have to find the little screws that came with my enclosure so I can put the backup drive together, and I'll be done!

Simon · Apr 14, 2009, 06:44 AM

Good luck with that!

cwkmacuser · Apr 15, 2009, 11:33 PM

Hope it all works OK.