Mac OS account migration - G5 and Mac Pro to iMac
Friday, March 19th, 2010 - 2:02pm
In prep for our relocation, we're migrating our data from a G5 tower and a Mac Pro over to a single iMac. I think the best way to do this is:
* Clone/Time Machine the Mac Pro and G5 separately (2 drives)
* Restore clone/time machine of Mac Pro to the iMac
* Create new account and selective restore the G5 data to that account
This should work, but I'm wondering if I should do a clone or use my time machine backups. Is there an advantage to one or the other?
Other tips and advice welcome!
Malor wrote:
Music should be delicious.
Unless you have copy-protected programs involved, you could probably just do a TM backup of both home directories somewhere, create new users on the IMac, restore the data, and then reinstall your apps. I'd be worried about replacing a newer system file with something older from one of the other two machines.
If you don't want to (or can't) reinstall apps, then your plan will probably work fine. I'm being a bit anal because my grasp of OS X is the weakest of the mainstream operating systems. Reinstalling apps will take longer, but I'm more confident that it will work perfectly the first time, and that you'll end up with a fully-current OS with nothing weird going on with your patch levels.
There's a good chance that's me being excessively cautious, however.
Elewis17 wrote:
Good points, Malor. I do have some copy-protected audio software, so I'm not sure how well that stuff will translate over, but I have a TON of useful little apps that I'd rather not install if I don't have to. I think it is safe to migrate from the Mac Pro to the iMac as far as the OS is concerned. The PPC will require selective home directory restore for sure.
Once I've done all that, I'm going to upgrade to Snow Leopard anyway...
Malor wrote:
Oh, yeah, if you're back on Tiger, I think an OS upgrade would absolutely get you back up to snuff.
Ooh, I just realized... your OS X on the Mac Pro might not have all the drivers it needs to get your iMac running. It may not boot. You can try it, but if it doesn't boot, that's probably why.
Elewis17 wrote:
What about using Migration Assistant? You could connect the Mac Pro to the iMac and use MA to transfer everything over FireWire. Anything similar but a newer version on the iMac, or anything iMac-specific, is left untouched while everything else is copied over verbatim, from files to program settings to system preferences to your desktop picture.
You could the create a second account and then use MA to transfer the G5's data over to that second account as well.
Boom, done.
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"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." - oilypenguin
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Migration Assistant might work - provided we have the iMac before getting rid of the other two machines, which is (unfortunately) not a given in our case. If we do get it before, then yah - will probably do that with the Mac Pro. MA is ill-advised when migrating PPC data over to an Intel machine from what I'm told. A manual copy of appropriate data should suffice there...
Thanks for that reminder.
Malor wrote:
Cloning the hard drives and putting them in FireWire enclosures will still work for Migration Assistant. I have only used MA to transfer from a PPC to an Intel Mac a couple times with no trouble, but if you are uncomfortable about it for important data then definitely do it manually.
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"When Gravey wins an internet argument, it's like the whole internet wins." - oilypenguin
"I love you, Gravey, you taffer." - Clock