Migration Assistant message “This user's home is relocated and will not be copied”

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Migration Assistant message “This user's home is relocated and will not be copied”

My problem is that using the Migration Assistant to transfer data from an older iMac, running High Sierra, to a newer one, running Catalina, I get the message “This user's home is relocated and will not be copied“ against the sole user account. The result is that Migration Assistant does not migrate exactly the data that I need it to migrate, making it useless. What is one supposed to do in this situation? What is the purpose of this message? I can find nothing about this in the documentation for Migration Assistant.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jun 30, 2020 10:40 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,120 points

Jun 30, 2020 11:50 AM in response to darditti

This can’t be an uncommon issue, as these older iMacs often had two internal volumes, an SSD and a hard disk, many people would have found the need to move their Home folder to the larger disk.

That should have been set up as a Fusion Drive. If you broke the Fusion drive in two, then you might have to do what you did, but that would be uncommon.

Copy the home folder into /Users/, reset the location in Users & Groups, then run migration assistant again.

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Answer 2

Jun 30, 2020 11:55 AM in response to darditti

Move the user directory back, and try the migration again.

Here’s a related discussion:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/343601/move-macos-user-home-folders-on-external-drive

Why this relocation might derail Migration Assistant? We’re not Apple, so we don’t know the reasoning.

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jun 30, 2020 1:58 PM in response to darditti

Then use Time Machine to manually restore the Home folder using the Time Machine application.

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Answer 4

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jun 30, 2020 11:03 AM in response to darditti

Have you moved your user folder out of the /HDD/Users/ folder? Or, did you relocate the user account to another volume via Users & Groups preferences? If one or the other is true, then that is the reason for the error message.

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Answer 5

darditti Author

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Jul 6, 2020 10:06 AM in response to Barney-15E

I imagine that if Time Machine backed up a user folder on a non-startup drive, there is no way to use Migration Assistant to migrate that user.

So it appears. But no-one said at the time (circa 2016) that having a user folder on a non-startup drive would be such a headache in the future.

So, there isn't a way to do what you want. Best you can do is "Browse other Backup Disks" in Time Machine (option-click menu) and restore individual files from the backup.

Does this have any different effect to just dragging and dropping files from the Time Machine folder using Finder?

If they appear as two separate drives then you broke the Fusion drive apart, somehow. With them joined as a Fusion drive, there is no need to separate you home folder onto the HDD. The OS does that for you within the Fusion drive automatically.

No, Fusion drives are a recent invention. The Mac in question was made in 2011 and always had two separate drives.

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

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122,120 points

Jul 6, 2020 9:34 AM in response to darditti

All attempts I have made to use migration assistant to move the old account from Time Machine have failed, even when I have created an account of the same name as the old account on a partition with the same name as the failed hard disk. It seems like the refusal to copy the long-ago moved account is written into the Time Machine backup, and there is no way to trick it into doing so by the way you set up the new machine.

Again, you cannot migrate a user account over the top of an existing account of the same name. Not possible. Won't work. Do not attempt.

Either run the migration from Setup Assistant or create a brand new user account when you set up the Mac, then use Migration assistant later.

I imagine that if Time Machine backed up a user folder on a non-startup drive, there is no way to use Migration Assistant to migrate that user.

I thought you had moved the account on the current setup and wanted to migrate it. Again, to migrate you would have to move the home folder back into the startup drive /Users folder. There is no way to do that in the TM backup. It must be done on the actual account before backing up.

So, there isn't a way to do what you want. Best you can do is "Browse other Backup Disks" in Time Machine (option-click menu) and restore individual files from the backup.

I don’t understand what he is saying about ‘broke the fusion drive in two’.

If you have a Mac with an SSD and an HDD, then it was supposed to be a Fusion drive where the two are joined and appear as one.

If they appear as two separate drives then you broke the Fusion drive apart, somehow. With them joined as a Fusion drive, there is no need to separate you home folder onto the HDD. The OS does that for you within the Fusion drive automatically.

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Answer 7

darditti Author

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Jul 6, 2020 6:19 PM in response to Barney-15E

So is this incorrect?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

You could get a Mac configured with an SSD in 2011 via special order, but I couldn't find one that could be configured with both. The Fusion drive debuted with 2012 Macs.

Yes, that's's incorrect. The specifications are given here: https://support.apple.com/kb/sp623?locale=en_GB

2.7 GHz
1TB (7200 rpm) hard drive
Configurable to 2TB hard drive or 256GB solid-state second drive, only at the Apple Online Store.

I've now been able to copy from Time Machine by drag-and-drop all my files from that old machine into a new account on the new iMac, though I had two big problems:

1) The file permissions were often wrong (but I found that duplicating the files on the new machine made the permissions right)

2) Mail couldn't read the mailboxes imported from Time Machine correctly, except when the account they were importing into had the same name as on the original machine. I couldn't make that account work properly in other ways (it seemed to have no system preferences), but I was able to re-export those mailboxes to another backup location, and re-import them into a correctly-configured account under a different name – very complicated.

I've now got another problem, that I have described in a different post: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251552720

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Answer 8

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jun 30, 2020 1:07 PM in response to darditti

Then you need to point MA to the real location of your Home folder. Otherwise, you will have to do it manually. I would use Carbon Copy Cloner for that task.

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Answer 9

darditti Author

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Jul 6, 2020 8:33 AM in response to Barney-15E

Sorry, I didn’t see Barney’s reply before. However, I don’t understand what he is saying about ‘broke the fusion drive in two’. This is a case of an attempt to migrate an account that was on a normal, old, hard disk, that failed, but was backed up using Time Machine to a another hard disk, to a new Mac with a fusion drive.

I’ve seen several people asking about this problem in various forums, and no convincing answers. Some of these posts go back years, so it’s not a new problem. All attempts I have made to use migration assistant to move the old account from Time Machine have failed, even when I have created an account of the same name as the old account on a partition with the same name as the failed hard disk. It seems like the refusal to copy the long-ago moved account is written into the Time Machine backup, and there is no way to trick it into doing so by the way you set up the new machine.

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Answer 10

darditti Author

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5 points

Jun 30, 2020 11:43 AM in response to Kappy

Yes, the account was relocated to a larger internal volume (Macintosh HD 2 as opposed to Macintosh HD 1) in the same machine. However, this does not answer the question of what you are supposed to do in this situation. This can’t be an uncommon issue, as these older iMacs often had two internal volumes, an SSD and a hard disk, many people would have found the need to move their Home folder to the larger disk. Why does Migration Assistant have a problem with this?

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Answer 11

darditti Author

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Jun 30, 2020 12:14 PM in response to MrHoffman

Thanks MrHoffman, but it is not possible to do anything on the computer that is being migrated from as that computer is not working. This is the actually the reason for needing to migrate to a new computer, using the Time Machine backup of the old computer.

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Answer 12

darditti Author

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Jun 30, 2020 1:54 PM in response to darditti

Sorry Kappy, I don’t understand that at all. Migration Assistant isn’t ‘pointed’ anywhere. It just refuses to copy the Home folder that was moved. Also, Carbon Copy cloner does not seem to work for this as it will not copy Time Machine backup files.

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Answer 13

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,120 points

Jul 6, 2020 5:09 PM in response to darditti

Does this have any different effect to just dragging and dropping files from the Time Machine folder using Finder?

Not really. Just helps prevent damaging the backup if you were to delete something.

No, Fusion drives are a recent invention. The Mac in question was made in 2011 and always had two separate drives.

So is this incorrect?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

You could get a Mac configured with an SSD in 2011 via special order, but I couldn't find one that could be configured with both. The Fusion drive debuted with 2012 Macs.

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Answer 14

darditti Author

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5 points

Jun 30, 2020 2:17 PM in response to darditti

Time Machine will not restore one Home folder into a different Home folder. It only restores folders to how they were in the past.

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Migration Assistant message “This user's home is relocated and will not be copied”

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