longtimemacuser666

Q: Migration Assistant from 10.6.8 to 10.10.5

Now that I've got Yosemite 10.10.5 working correctly on one of my internal drives, I'd like to migrate most of my stuff from another internal drive (what has been my primary drive) running 10.6.8.

 

It's been years since I used Migration Assistant.  I skipped the option to use it during the Yosemite installation (it did say I could use it later...) but now I'm ready.  I note that the documentation for Migration Assistant all seems to make the assumption that you're migrating from one (old) computer to another (new) computer.  In my case, I'm just looking to migrate stuff from one internal HD running an older OS (10.6.8) - which I plan to continue using - to another internal HD with a newer OS (10.10.5) on it.  I assume this is trivial and Migration Assistant should do the trick.  I assume I want to run Migration Assistant from the newer drive/OS and just point it to the older drive/OS to pull stuff from.  Does Migration Assistant allow you to be selective, or does it just try to grab everything?

 

I *do* need to preserve the contents of the old 10.6.8 drive and leave that in a bootable/usable condition - I assume that Migration Assistant won't mess with anything on the source drive - all it's operations are Copy operations rather than Move (or Delete) - right?  Just checking before I fire it up.

 

Any gotchas I need to watch out for during that process?

 

Thanks for the help!

Posted on Sep 18, 2016 12:14 AM

Close

Q: Migration Assistant from 10.6.8 to 10.10.5

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Massimo Lombardo,

    Massimo Lombardo Massimo Lombardo Sep 18, 2016 1:13 AM in response to longtimemacuser666
    Level 2 (267 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 18, 2016 1:13 AM in response to longtimemacuser666

    If you have a backup (Time Machine or other) of your user folder on an external disc you can make the migration from there and preserve the original old drive with 10.6.8 MacOsX

  • by cbaz,

    cbaz cbaz Sep 27, 2016 2:16 AM in response to Massimo Lombardo
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 27, 2016 2:16 AM in response to Massimo Lombardo

    According to the Apple website, you cannot transfer by Time Machine for older OS such as 10.6 and 10.7.  Also there is no indication that you can use Thunderbolt, though other people say you can.  I am using wifi and still waiting after 20 hours... and  waiting ... and waiting ....and waiting.

     

    Wish I had started with Thunderbolt.

     

    Now I can't find anything to tell me what to do if I break the connection.  Yes i have discovered I can use Target Mode (why doesn't the Apple instructions tell you this?) and a Thunderbolt cable.  But what will happen to the stuff transferred so far?

     

    As usual this is so frustrating.

  • by cbaz,

    cbaz cbaz Sep 28, 2016 4:41 AM in response to cbaz
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 28, 2016 4:41 AM in response to cbaz

    So I've tried Thunderbolt and Target Disk mode.

     

    Still won't transfer.

     

    Anyone want a Macbook cheap?

  • by Massimo Lombardo,

    Massimo Lombardo Massimo Lombardo Sep 29, 2016 3:49 PM in response to cbaz
    Level 2 (267 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 29, 2016 3:49 PM in response to cbaz

    Hallo cbaz, are you the same person as longtimemacuser666?

     

    I cannot explain why the use of Target mode don't works for you. I used this often with the firewire connection with very good speed results.

    The instruction for the correct use of target mode are here:

    OS X El Capitan: Transfer files between two computers using target disk mode

    But perhaps you can check before, if your Permissions are ok. I suppose that all files are closed and you have full permission on the user folder you want to transfer.

  • by cbaz,

    cbaz cbaz Sep 30, 2016 1:12 AM in response to Massimo Lombardo
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 30, 2016 1:12 AM in response to Massimo Lombardo

    No I'm not longtimemacuser666!

     

    Target Mode in itself is not a problem... that works OK for me, but Migration Assistant didn't.

     

    My other point is that Apple's own advice does not suggest using Thunderbolt in the part that dealt with 10.7 to 10.11, MBAir to MBPro - had it done so I'd have probably saved 1 day.

     

    I have finally sorted my problems with the help of Apple guys direct.  Interestingly, neither of them suggested Migration Assistant - my feeling was they understood the problems its can cause.  So the transfer was done 'manually' which I probably could have done myself and saved huge amounts of time.  (And of course, I had to get out a hard drive and load other software - not sure I've loaded everything yet...)

     

    Mail as usual caused all sorts of problems.  The advice on the Mac support site did not always give full instructions - vital steps are missing - so it was back to the Apple guys to sort things out.  BT (British Telecom) were of no help as usual - blamed everything on Apple.  Yet BT's 'instructions' for changing passwords are wrong - they do not work.  And they are trying to get everyone to do it as a result of the Yahoo security breach...

     

    Lesson to be learned for next:  don't rely on Migration Assistant and be ready for a long haul to get Mail working properly.