[Ulrich Kinbote]

I've had my G3 ibook for a few years now and it has about 15 GB of personal data on it: music, photos, videos, text files and so on.

My new PowerBook G4 Superdrive arrives tomorrow (Yay!) and all I want to ask is:

What do I need to know about moving all my data to the new computer?

It should be immediately clear I am not an computer buff.

The man at the apple center told me he can move the data, but I am living in South Korea where Macs have not penetrated the market and are still very very uncommon. The apple center guy, for example, doesn't speak English has a Hyundai PC sitting on his desk amidst all the apples on display!!!!!

My concerns are that he'll botch it and the data will be lost, or that I will lose my settings, like, for example, my iTunes preferences, track information, etc, etc (I dread the thought) Or that I'll have files I can't open cos' the new software is incompatible.

I know these are stupid questions, but I'd really appreciate it if someone could take a moment to tell me about any potential risks, and how to avoid them.

Thanx.

[hmccorkle]

Ahhhhhhh no need to be a buff to do this.

I believe there IS a way to transfer files via Firewire.

Otherwise if you have either Airport, a LAN you're connected to, or perhaps a CAT5 cable, you can share your entire Powerbook hard drive and access it using your iBook, thus enabling you to transfer your files thataway.

View Screenshot:
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/958/picture23ga.jpg

That is my insight and advice, I'm sure there will be many more responses that are much more precise on how to do this.

Hope this helps!

[brettcamp]

I believe all new Macs come with a migration assistant that will move everything you need from your G3 to your new baby. The easiest way I know to connect them is via a firewire cable, and then you use firewire disk mode, which will make the hard drive of your new mac appear on the desktop of your old one (or vice versa). You can search apple's help or support sites for more info on firewire disk mode and migration assistant. It's a piece of cake now, really.

[Randman]

If you have firewire on both, you can connect and the computer's Migration Assistant will move over everything for you.

[Ulrich Kinbote]

Originally Posted by Randman

If you have firewire on both, you can connect and the computer's Migration Assistant will move over everything for you.

Migration Assistant... Firewire... got it.

Thanks for the info.

Great Mac forum by the way. First to reply of all those I posted the question on.

Can Migration Assistant transfer bookmarks from Safari?

[fisherKing]

Originally Posted by Ulrich Kinbote

Migration Assistant... Firewire... got it.

Thanks for the info.

Great Mac forum by the way. First to reply of all those I posted the question on.

Can Migration Assistant transfer bookmarks from Safari?

you'll have some options with migration assistant. you can definitely migrate your "personal" stuff (mail, bookmarks, music, etc)

if anything didnt copy over, there's always target disk mode
target disk mode
(which is basically what you're doing anyway!)

have fun

[chabig]

The migration assistant will transfer everything, including Safari bookmarks. When you first turn your new Mac on, it will ask if you want to transfer from an old machine. When you say yes, it will lead through all of the steps.

Chris

[El Magnificante]

Sorry to resurrect this but rather than start a new thread I thought I'd ask here ...

Will the migration assistant transfer complete programs as well? If not, what do I need to copy to the new machine, the .dmg file?

Thanks, I'm new to Macs (~2 years) and haven't does this before ...

[chabig]

The migration assistant will copy everything if you ask it to...couldn't be easier.

Chris

[El Magnificante]

Thanks!