Q: Problems With Migration Assistant & Time Capsule
I recently purchased a new Macbook Pro and have been having tons of trouble getting my backups. Let me tell you the order of events.
I plugged in my Time Capsule via Ethernet and turned on the brand new computer. Using Set-Up Assistant I selected "from another Disk" (or whatever it says), and my Time Capsule was listed. I then selected it and clicked continue. It got stuck on the next page saying "looking for other computers" with a spinning wheel. I tried this repeatedly by turning off the computer, reinstalling the OS, with no luck. So I decided to just boot it with a new user.
After booting the computer as a new user, I opened Migration Assistant hoping to get it to work that way. I went through all of the neccesary steps, it again listed my Time Capsule, but when I click continue, the only thing that happens is the "continue" button goes from blue to grey. I let this sit overnight, and...nothing.
I rebooted the computer in Recovery and chose to open from a Time Machine Backup. This was the most promising, I got a list of backups. The problem was that it only shows complete backups, so the most recent was in February. So it is missing 3 months of information. But I decided to boot this one because at least it is something.
I then went back to migration assistant, with no luck.
I then used Disk Utility to repair the Time Machine drive. And it told me that the drive appears to be ok.
So I went back to migration assistant to try again, and of course no luck. I read that some people were able to just click the grey continue and it worked, not for me, I tried that as well.
The other odd thing is that I am able to open the sparsebundle and get to all of the files. So I know that there is nothing wrong with the backups.
Any thoughts on what is going wrong here?
MacBook Pro, iOS 6.1.4
Posted on Jun 2, 2013 3:14 PM
nstarksen88 wrote:
. . .
Wait...actually only the "User" was deleted. I created another user and deleted the old user. And when it asked me, I told it to delete the folder.
Ah, great, at least for filing a bug report. Please don't change anything there yet, and when you get the new one running, don't do any new backups (of either Mac) yet. We'll want to run a diagnostic report and file a Bug Report with Apple, so they can fix it, if they can figure out what caused the problem).
1. Migrate from the old computer.
2. Drag the user folder from the latest backup to the "Users" folder on the new mac.
3. Create a user with the same shortname and have it direct to the newly added user folder.
Not exactly, but I think we can finagle it.
Create a different Admin user account temporarily. Log on to it and delete the one you have now. Restart. Log back on to the temporary account.
Copy the home folder from the backups to the Users folder.
Try to create a new Admin account with the exact same name as the old one. That should give you a prompt about a home folder already existing and let you use it with that account.
If so, that account is cool. Log on to it to make sure (you won't have any 3rd party apps or system settings yet, though). If so, delete the temporary account.
EDIT: actually, there's no need to delete it yet. Might be handy to keep it around for a while.
Run the Migration Assistant app (Applications/Utilities) and transfer Apps, Settings (Computer settings at least), and Other files and folders from the old Mac. That should get your apps and support files for them, internet plug-ins, etc.
When we're ready (not yet!) and you do the first backup, you should get a prompt asking if you want the new Mac to "inherit" the old backups. If so, they'll be changed so they look like they were made from the new one, TM will only back up the changes, and everything will be the way it should.
Message was edited by: Pondini
Posted on Jun 3, 2013 3:06 PM