Migration Assistant-can't find files

Question

Migration Assistant-can't find files

I have used migration assistant. When it was running I was able to see another user account with all the files. The next day, I cannot find any files, and there is no other user account than the main one I have. I know the files are somewhere, because the info on my hardrive says 31 gigs are occupied. It is a brand new computer so I assume that is 31 gigs from my migrated files. I have repaired permissions and still, no other user account and no view of the files. Thanks.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Brand New

Posted on Jul 10, 2009 9:16 AM

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Answer 1

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jul 10, 2009 9:36 AM in response to Xochipala Maes Valdez

open /Users folder at the top level of the hard drive. do you see the migrated user's home directory?

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Answer 2

Jul 10, 2009 9:43 AM in response to V.K.

No I don't see it anymore. When I was migrating, I saw it and maybe right after it was finished. But after rebooting the next day, I don't see the other user file.

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Answer 3

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jul 10, 2009 9:47 AM in response to Xochipala Maes Valdez

this is very strange. please run the following terminal command

ls -laeO /users

and post the results

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Answer 4

Jul 10, 2009 10:17 AM in response to V.K.

Here it is.

xochipala-maes-valdezs-macbook-pro:~ xochi$ ls -laeO /users
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 5 root admin - 170 Jul 9 14:13 .
drwxrwxr-t 33 root admin - 1190 Jul 8 12:43 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 0 May 30 2008 .localized
drwxrwxrwt 5 root wheel - 170 Jul 9 17:05 Shared
drwxr-xr-x+ 17 xochi staff - 578 Jul 9 13:12 xochi
0: group:everyone deny delete

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Answer 5

V.K.

Level 9

56,174 points

Jul 10, 2009 11:13 AM in response to Xochipala Maes Valdez

I take it xochi is the name of the home directory created at the original computer setup and not of the migrated home directory, right?
then the migrated home directory is indeed gone. this is all very strange. I would recommend doing an erase and install and repeating the migration. DO NOT create a temp user first. after doing an erase and install after you first restart you'll get to Setup Assistant. it will offer to migrate your user and applications data from another computer. do it at that point and the only user created will be the migrated user.

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Answer 6

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Jul 11, 2009 3:25 AM in response to Xochipala Maes Valdez

Xochipala Maes Valdez wrote:
I have used migration assistant. When it was running I was able to see another user account with all the files.

By "when it was running" do you mean that:

A. Migration Assistant listed more than one user account from the older Mac in its migration options
B. When the older Mac was attached to the new one in Target Disk Mode, in Finder views on the new Mac you could see the home folders of more than one user account on the old Mac
or
C. Something else?

What categories of items did you tell Migration Assistant to transfer? (For instance, did you check the box for Applications?) Did you transfer all listed user accounts?

Did you manually create a user account using the Setup Assistant that runs the first time you start up the new Mac & then use Migration Assistant later, after doing that?

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Answer 7

Jul 13, 2009 11:54 AM in response to R C-R

1. When I looked in the User folder on my new harddrive the old user name appeared with I think noindex attached to the user name. There were files that I could actually copy into another user folder.

2. There were more than 1 user on the Older Mac, but I was only migrating one user.

C. I checked only to migrate files and folders and network settings. No applications.

I manually did create a main user account when I first booted up the new computer. I also loaded some software that I needed for immediate work. It was a bit later that I migrated. I first started a migration that I then realized was going to take some thirty hours, so I aborted it. When I started migration assistant the second time, it asked if I wanted to resume the interrupted migration. I said no so that it would begin again. The first time I did include applications, and I then decided only to migrate files. So I started what I thought was a clean migrate. There was a messsage at the end that said network settings and some other system info could not be transfered. It said migration was complete.

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