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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Emergency: How to best get the contents of a dead MBP onto a new iMAC?

Emergency: How to best get the contents of a dead MBP onto a new iMAC?
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forumhound
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Jul 20, 2008, 11:08 AM
 
Hi all, my emergency is all over the boards today : http://discussions.apple.com/message...661172#7661172
but thanks to a home delivery from the Nepali Apple store I may be back in business tonight with your help.

I have a TM backup of the dead mbp on a drive and a CCC clone on another. So the way I see it I have two options and I am wondering which one is best...to
1) during the install of the new imac, choose "from TM backup drive" or whatever that option is, or
2) Use the CCC clone to just clone over the imac system?

I understand, from experience, that many software packages like Adobe need reactivation, but no problems there, I have all my original DVDs and serials for all the apps.

The problems I remember from last time is preserving user settings and even the login account. I want everything to be the same (but they want ice water in **** too I suppose). I also want Entourage to work as well without a hassle, but i expect that one to be...

The emergency is that my biggest client is waiting on the FCP job which is now sitting on the dead mbp and the two backup drives. I am praying that the low -end 20" imac will run FCP/Motion and plugs. If it does I may pull this off by just telling the client I had to go away for the weekend thx...
( Last edited by forumhound; Jul 20, 2008 at 11:16 AM. )

Dead MBP 2.2 4gig / New Aluminum iMacs / "Old" iPhones / 1st Gen Ipod Shuffle
     
seanc
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Jul 20, 2008, 04:36 PM
 
I haven't read the other part yet, but I'm assuming it's related to the nvidia issue. It may be heat related, put it in the fridge for an hour or two and see if you can get it into TDM.

Assuming the MBP was up to date, it should be able to boot on the new iMac. Try cloning it over anyway, what's the worst that can happen? If that works, then I would expect everything to work straight off.

Edit: Can you not nurse it into TDM at all? I'm obviously not sure how much this affects the booting of the MBP.
     
zombie punk
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Jul 20, 2008, 05:16 PM
 
If you have a tm backup, the absolute worst case is that you go in manually and pull it out. You should be in good shape to just use migration assistant though.
     
Simon
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Jul 20, 2008, 05:30 PM
 
Use MA with your TM backup. And then manually re-install apps when necessary.
     
forumhound  (op)
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Jul 20, 2008, 05:52 PM
 
thanks everyone! i could not wait and tried something new:
1.just ran the setup under a new user to get a clean machine
2.did updates, but hardly anything needed to be done...10.5.2 to 5.4, that was about it. This must be a really fresh imac.
3.CCC'ed over app directory from the clone of the mbp, and associated library and preference and application support blabla.
Almost everything is fine, but:
* bookmarks from browsers
* mail accounts
* desktop/dashboard configuration
* little things like that.

But all the apps seem fine but one, and it's always been a problem: Compressor. I think I have to follow that uninstall cleaning procedure AGAIN to get that one right. It's finicky.

But what I would like is to make the cloned old home dir/user the new one. Is that possible? CCC put it on the macintosh hd as a folder...so it may be possible to switch no?

Well, on the MBP, no sweat (or sweat) it's toast and in a box back to Singapore for yet another logic board replacement. I told them to fix the dead pixels and bulging battery and warped lid too - ha! It's got about 22 days left on the warrenty...but I hold no high hopes for it...and after having this "low" end imac for over 2 hours now, I don't think I am ever going back...luv it! Flawless and fast as the MBP ever was. Better graphics and performance overall...my faith in apple is restored.

thanks again!
fh

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Simon
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Jul 21, 2008, 02:47 AM
 
That's why you should have used MA. All your prefs, bookmarks, etc. would have been preserved. You could have copied over your app directory from your CCC backup after using MA.

Now you can of course move over your old ~/ from your CCC backup and fix the permissions. But what sense does that make? It involves the same risks as using MA, but it just takes much more time and effort plus you still haven't gotten everything back. Back to square one.

If I were you I'd start over.
( Last edited by Simon; Jul 21, 2008 at 03:36 AM. Reason: spelling)
     
forumhound  (op)
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Jul 21, 2008, 03:11 AM
 
Thanks Simon, that's what I get for thinking. But it's actually all Ok. I am not sure about the prefs from the old machine anyway, I had so so many problems with the mbp i want to keep the this new imac as pristine as possible. it's taking a little longer to setup that's ll. i had foxmarks installed before so that saved all my bookmarks, that was a big time save! thanks again!!!

ps. compressor is really the only big problem now, but that would have been anyway, and may not be related... the thing about MA it's all or nothing. Wish it was selective... cheers!
FH

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Simon
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Jul 21, 2008, 03:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by forumhound View Post
the thing about MA it's all or nothing.
Actually it's not. You select what you want migrated (apps, user accounts, documents, prefs, network settings, etc.). And of course you can still manually copy over stuff from your clone if some apps don't work after migration. Apple's own iWork apps for example.
     
forumhound  (op)
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Jul 21, 2008, 04:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by Simon View Post
Actually it's not. You select what you want migrated (apps, user accounts, documents, prefs, network settings, etc.). And of course you can still manually copy over stuff from your clone if some apps don't work after migration. Apple's own iWork apps for example.
Simon, can u select which apps/accouts/prefs/setting to migrate over?
I did not see that granularity before. The thing about the dead mbp is that we used it as a proof of concept box (originally) to convince studio partners to throw out all PCs and go Apple all the way. So we threw everything we could at it for months. No wonder it burned up. In hindsight, I should have cleaned it up first before I put it into production, but I got lazy. Cheers!

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Simon
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Jul 21, 2008, 04:35 AM
 
You can select which user accounts to migrate. And you can select if it should migrate apps (but not which ones), prefs, network settings.
     
forumhound  (op)
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Jul 21, 2008, 08:11 AM
 
gave up on that one, MA said it would take 14+ hours...TM restore is going now, just 1 hour left out of 1.5...cheers!

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Simon
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Jul 21, 2008, 08:16 AM
 
MA's time estimate is wildly off as you can easily see if you just let it do its thing.
     
OreoCookie
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Jul 21, 2008, 09:16 AM
 
The low-end iMac has an integrated graphics card -- which only affects some FCP plugins and Motion (which make use of the GPU). The current version of Final Cut Pro doesn't make use of the GPU, although this might change in future releases. If you use the second-to-lowest iMac already, you have a dedicated graphics card and Motion will run faster.
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Simon
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Jul 21, 2008, 10:02 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
The low-end iMac has an integrated graphics card -- which only affects some FCP plugins and Motion (which make use of the GPU). The current version of Final Cut Pro doesn't make use of the GPU, although this might change in future releases. If you use the second-to-lowest iMac already, you have a dedicated graphics card and Motion will run faster.
Huh? That used to be. The current low-end iMac has a Radeon 2400XT with 128MB dedicated VRAM. The last low-end iMac with integrated graphics was the low-end "Late 2006" model.
     
zombie punk
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Jul 21, 2008, 11:10 AM
 
iWork copies fine with MA, and mine, too, had a 14 hour estimate. It ended up taking 50 minutes.
     
Simon
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Jul 21, 2008, 11:16 AM
 
iWork 2008 will copy over with MA, but you won't be able to launch it. I had to re-install it to be able to actually run it.
     
forumhound  (op)
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Jul 21, 2008, 11:22 AM
 
Simon, u are correct. The chip in this iMac is listed as ok per the FCP Studio requirements. It better work or I am toast, I am almost ready to get back to work, about 90% there in the reconstruction process. So far the Radeon 2400XT performs just as well as the dead burnt gt chip in the mbp did....Poser, c4D, etc. I am saving the FCP testing for last with fingers crossed.

But with you all's help, I have answered my own question:
The best way to get the contents of a dead MBP to an imac is to use the TM backup and restore from that. That's for sure!!! thank buddha for TM. See ya.

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forumhound  (op)
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Jul 21, 2008, 11:35 AM
 
Even with the TM backup, there is cleanup to do...
* Parallels needed a reinstall to work with the new win partition, which was resurrected with winclone (highly recommended).
* Adobe CS3 suite needed new license activation. as did some other apps - but not all, about 20 percent maybe.
* 10.5.4 Combo update had to be reapplied...seems TM was not backing up the OS?
* lots more little things, like plug-ins for Photoshop and FCP/Motion needed a reinstall.
* FCP Studio did not like being moved and put on another OS/platform. Had to reinstall that too.

So what i learned from this is to make TM and WinClone a religion, and have all the serials and whatnot in a safe place. Then when the new breed of apple hardware goes belly up, just replace it and in a few hours later u are good to go.
( Last edited by forumhound; Jul 21, 2008 at 04:42 PM. )

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forumhound  (op)
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Jul 21, 2008, 07:39 PM
 
Only one problem left, and my imac is PERFECT - ha! Apple Qmaster prefpane blows up with this, but FCP apps work grand...I guess if I ever want distributed rendering, I should get this fixed

Process: System Preferences [6340]
Path: /Applications/System Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System Preferences
Identifier: com.apple.systempreferences
Version: 5.0 (5.0)
Build Info: SystemPrefsApp-1510000~21
Code Type: X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [138]

Date/Time: 2008-07-22 05:22:43.969 +0545
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.4 (9E17)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x00000000c0000003
Crashed Thread: 0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x96ee8aa7 CFStringGetLength + 39
1 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x96ef37cf CFStringCompareWithOptionsAndLocale + 47
2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x96ef5495 CFStringCompareWithOptions + 53
3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x96ef54e0 CFStringCompare + 64
4 com.apple.preference.swamp 0x0da632c6 swamp::CPropertyListFile<swamp::CServiceCacheEntry >:ut(swamp::CServiceCacheEntry const&) + 66
5 com.apple.qmaster.SwampCore 0x10e55476 swamp::CPropertyListFile<swamp::CServiceCacheEntry >::fromPropertyList(void const*) + 170
6 com.apple.qmaster.SwampCore 0x10e556e8 swamp::CPropertyListFile<swamp::CServiceCacheEntry >::refresh() + 498
7 com.apple.qmaster.SwampCore 0x10e2d122 swamp::CServiceCacheFile::refresh() + 346
8 com.apple.qmaster.SwampCore 0x10e2d29d swamp::CServiceCacheFile::CServiceCacheFile() + 103
9 com.apple.preference.swamp 0x0da5d7d3 Swamp_CPP::Swamp_CPP() + 47
10 com.apple.preference.swamp 0x0da5d8fc Swamp_CPP::Swamp_CPP() + 344
11 ....frameworks.preferencepanes 0x000371dd -[NSPrefPaneBundle instantiatePrefPaneObject] + 335
12 com.apple.systempreferences 0x0000b246 0x1000 + 41542
13 com.apple.systempreferences 0x0000c700 0x1000 + 46848
14 com.apple.systempreferences 0x000060b0 0x1000 + 20656
15 com.apple.Foundation 0x93d9695e __NSFireDelayedPerform + 382
16 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x96ed1b45 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 4469
17 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x96ed1cf8 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 88
18 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x95c83da4 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 283
19 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x95c83af6 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 175
20 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x95c83a31 BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 106
21 com.apple.AppKit 0x91c58505 _DPSNextEvent + 657
22 com.apple.AppKit 0x91c57db8 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 128
23 com.apple.AppKit 0x91c50df3 -[NSApplication run] + 795
24 com.apple.AppKit 0x91c1e030 NSApplicationMain + 574
25 com.apple.systempreferences 0x00008bea 0x1000 + 31722

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