oneeyeddeer
Premium
join:2004-01-27
Columbus, OH
| Migration Assistant Questions
My wife recently got a MacBook to replace her G3 iBook and I have been working to transfer everything over. I hooked them up via firewire and ran the migration assistant, but everything did not go seamlessly. A few issues:
It seems like I transferred over the entire user from the ibook. Are there now two users on the macbook? Can I combine them? In order to import photos into iphoto I had to look in the ibook user folder, not in her new macbook user.
As far as documents go, it seems that only the photos transferred. I can't find her itunes library and the music folder, as well as some other folders, have these little error or "do not enter" icons next to them. Any idea what that is all about?
I've heard that I first need to deauthorize her itunes before transferring it? What is that and is it necessary?
Applications seemed to all transfer over just fine. That was impressive and saved a lot of extra work, especially since we don't know where all the CDs are.
My apologies for these incredibly newbie-ish questions. It's a steep learning curve for me, but I'll admit...I am liking Apple more and more  Thanks in advance! |
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Johnny
Premium
join:2001-06-27
Atlanta, GA
 ·Comcast
| When you take the MacBook out of the box, it will go into the Setup Assistant. If you transfer over an account from another Mac, it will use that account as the main account.
If you skip that, and go ahead and enter long and short names, then that name is taken and if you subsequently run the Migration Assistant, the names will clash.
So which way did you do it, and did it make you assign a different user name to the new Home folder on the new MacBook?
I'm not sure I understand what accounts you have there. You said it made 2 - it should not do that unless you did the prenaming thing I mentioned above. Screen shots or a more detailed info would help. |
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oneeyeddeer
Premium
join:2004-01-27
Columbus, OH
| I didn't do the transfer right out of the box. My wife started it up and set up a username, password, etc. However, when I did run migration assistant, a second user (the one from the old ibook) has now appeared, at least when I go searching for documents. Maybe it's not a second user, but there are two username folders that contain documents. All of her documents are in the folder named after her old user account. Needless to say, I'm confused and not even sure how to describe everything correctly.
I did find her photos and imported them into iphoto, but it seems that it didn't transfer music and other documents. I can try to get some screen shots when I get home from work this evening. |
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leXicon5
Pelosi, SHUT YOUR Fing Pie Hole
Premium
join:2000-12-27
Saint Louis, MO
| What I'd do at this point is set up an "Admin" account...go delete all the others...the one she created and the one MA created.
Then run MA again and let it do it's thing.
Just make sure that you get any NEW documents and such off of the account she created....
--
Honor the memory of the troops that served selflessly and without selfishness.
You have the freedoms today because of what they did yesterday. |
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Johnny
Premium
join:2001-06-27
Atlanta, GA
·Comcast
| reply to oneeyeddeer
I agree. Once you set up a username and account, then if the one you are trying to transfer over has the same username, it will barf at that. You have to pick a new name, which you are then stuck with.
The way to fix this is to make a new Admin account, log into it, delete the account that Migration Assistant made, and then hookup the cable and run the Migration Assistant again.
I did have to go into NetInfo Manager and delete the group that had the same name as the user I deleted. Otherwise MA kept complaining about the username. |
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oneeyeddeer
Premium
join:2004-01-27
Columbus, OH
| I need to go home and look at it again, because now I'm really confused. The username on the old ibook was different to begin with than the username on the new macbook. I did just let MA do it's thing and apparently it didn't do it correctly, I don't know. Maybe it didn't create a new user, but it transferred the docs over to a folder named after the old username. Also, I still don't get why music and other docs didn't transfer, but have little error icons next to them. I'll look at it at home and post again when I have everything in front of me. Thanks for the help! |
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Johnny
Premium
join:2001-06-27
Atlanta, GA | OK, just post back when you can see what's on there and we'll get it fixed. |
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oneeyeddeer
Premium
join:2004-01-27
Columbus, OH
| Ok, here's the deal. Easy for me, my wife only wants her docs, music and photos transferred. Turns out that MA did indeed add her iBook's user account to the MacBook. When I try to access the music folder on the old account it won't let me and says I don't have permission. I tried copying her old music folder to the shared folder, but even then I wasn't able to access it from the new account. I was able to transfer the documents and photos, but the music is still giving me trouble. Is there a way to set a permission so that the new user account can access the old user music folder? |
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Johnny
Premium
join:2001-06-27
Atlanta, GA
·Comcast
| said by oneeyeddeer  :Ok, here's the deal. Easy for me, my wife only wants her docs, music and photos transferred. Turns out that MA did indeed add her iBook's user account to the MacBook. When I try to access the music folder on the old account Sorry, which account do you mean by "the old account?"
What folders are in the Users folder on the MacBook? What is in each one (you have to log into the account to see what is in it)? |
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oneeyeddeer
Premium
join:2004-01-27
Columbus, OH
| Sorry I haven't been very clear. I'm just starting to figure out this mac stuff
The old acct. is the one from the iBook.
I think I just figured it out. I found where to set permissions, and set the music folder on the old acct. to read and write by all other users. (I always figure things out right after I post) Now I am copying it from the old user acct folder to the new one. After transferring over all docs, photos and music I should be able to just delete the old acct. That should work, right?
Thanks for the help! |
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Johnny
Premium
join:2001-06-27
Atlanta, GA
·Comcast
| Well, as long as you are deleting it, it shouldn't matter what you set the folder's permissions to, unless you also set all the included files' permissions, which may be a problem.
I still don't understand why, if the account that was transferred from the iBook has music, photos, movies, and documents in it, you don't just log into it and use it.. |
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oneeyeddeer
Premium
join:2004-01-27
Columbus, OH
| Fair enough...good point. I guess that's the catch in the whole process here. My wife wants to "start over" with a new account and only transfer docs, photos and music, without all the other crap the old computer had. I think I got it figured out now... |
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macaholic
Premium
join:2003-08-31
Jackson Heights, NY | I smell unix ....sniff sniff.
nice. |
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