What is the Volume Password that Migration Assistant is asking for?

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What is the Volume Password that Migration Assistant is asking for?

I'm having exactly the same problem as listed in this post.

Trying to copy a user account from on machine running High Sierra to another running Mojave. Everything seems normal until after it asks to set a password for the user account on the new machine, after asking if I want to "replace" the existing account.

Then it prompts for a "Volume Password" saying ...

"In order to add new users this system, we need to collect a password from an existing user who is already authorized."

... but none of the account passwords (user being migrated, admin user, etc). FileVault is OFF on both machines.

So what password is it asking for?

Posted on Jul 25, 2020 2:43 PM

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Answer 1

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Ray_Z Author

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Jul 28, 2020 7:13 AM in response to TheLittles

It worked! Upgrading the target machine from Mojave to Catalina got rid of the prompt for the Volume Password, and copying the user account from the Time Machine backup got rid of the "Some documents for [username] could not be transferred." error I was seeing when trying to transfer directly from the old machine.

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Answer 2

Ray_Z Author

Level 1

12 points

Jul 27, 2020 8:03 AM in response to babowa

While I wasn't able to find anything helpful in other forums, I did eventually find a way around what I can only assume was some bug or corruption somewhere.

I decided to upgrade the system on the machine I was migrating to from Mojave to Catalina. Then it stopped asking for "Volume Password."

However, now I have another issue ... it appears to be working fine, but then terminates saying "Some documents for [username] could not be transferred." It essentially copied almost nothing. So now I'm trying to copy from a Time Machine backup instead of directly from the old machine and it seems it might be working.

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Answer 3

babowa

Level 9

78,562 points

Jul 25, 2020 5:55 PM in response to Ray_Z

See if aything here helps; by the way, th easiest is to use the Setup Assistant which is only offered during the initial setup process. The Migration Assistant is essentially the same thing except that it is usually used later after you have already set up an account - which makes the process more difficult (MA will create a second account which will make things messy):

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250289081

FWIW, volumes are now what partitions used to be before Catalina.

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Answer 4

TheLittles