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Hanging on startup after cancelling migration assistant

I cancelled the migration assistant when attempting to migrate to new macbook air as it was quoting 110 days until completion. 3 hours later it is now stuck on loading bar, the apple logo appears, the progress bar completes, then the apple logo and progress bar and so on. I have tried to start in recovery mode but the same thing happens again. Can anyone advise?

Posted on Jun 22, 2020 2:44 PM

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Posted on Jun 23, 2020 9:12 AM

the MacOS has to download first. That takes me roughly 3 hours on WiFi with my mediocre cable internet. The actual installation will be another hour or so. After a failed migration I would delete the portions and reformat. Remember, AppleCare is free and middle of the week, middle of the day, the wait shouldn’t be long. Having a tech walk you thru the steps might be worth the wait.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 23, 2020 9:12 AM in response to Grodge

the MacOS has to download first. That takes me roughly 3 hours on WiFi with my mediocre cable internet. The actual installation will be another hour or so. After a failed migration I would delete the portions and reformat. Remember, AppleCare is free and middle of the week, middle of the day, the wait shouldn’t be long. Having a tech walk you thru the steps might be worth the wait.

Jun 22, 2020 5:02 PM in response to Grodge

First, in restarting from recovery you held the shift key until the Apple icon appeared, right? If you released too quickly it might have just started normally. Second, if you have a TimeMachine backup on an external drive it might be bootable. So if you do have a TM backup connect the drive and restart holding the option key. Select the TM drive if it bootable - this will put you in recovery too.

Jun 23, 2020 8:15 AM in response to dwb

Thanks for your response, you were right I hadn't held long enough, I'm new to this! I have no backup as I only got the laptop yesterday, no profiles set up or anything yet. I am now trying to reinstall the OS but it is running almost 3 hours, should it be taking this long? My friend had advised deleting the disk so maybe I should do that.

Jun 23, 2020 9:28 AM in response to dwb

I waited it out and am just back in business! Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I had tried to contact apple but there was no on hold music so wasn't sure if I was actually in a queue. I have a very knowledgable friend who sent on a link, providing much the same advise as you did, so thanks to you both. I am now worried that I didn't reformat, do you think it would be worth doing at this stage, am I risking running up against other issues?

Jun 23, 2020 9:40 AM in response to Grodge

Look at how much free space your computer has. If it feels way off that would indicate a problem. Otherwise, use the computer, try out your apps, play music. See if it’s okay. There really aren’t any hidden gotchas...either your apps work and your data is there or not. The one thing to be sure of is that you aren’t misssing about 25GB of free space.

Hanging on startup after cancelling migration assistant

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