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Migration assistant: 'Preparing for the transfer' for hours

Hi, my mbp 16" from 2019 was using Catalina up until next week when I decided to update it to Monterey, it bricked my computer and had to be serviced and all its data got wiped out.


Now im trying to restore all of it from the time machine, a 4TB external hard drive but the data from should be 400GB max so there's space enough to be copied. I started the migration assistant, it recognized the backup, I started the process and it has been for a few hours in 'preparing to transfer the user documents' stage. The bar is moving from one side to the other, so i assume it's not stuck but im not sure how much time it can spend in this phase.

I remember doing the same thing a couple years ago from an older mac to this one and it was much much faster than it is now.


Is there any other way to recover the files without relying on apple's software. I know the old versions have folders and stuff but im not sure it'd be an easy task to sort everything by hand.


Thank you very much

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.3

Posted on May 10, 2022 6:08 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 11, 2022 5:21 AM

Recovering the data is the important part, os settings etc is secondary


the answer to the question if anyone finds himself on the problem is around 10 hours to start copying the documents and it has been copying data for the last 6 hours and I estimate it will need another 4 to finish


20 hrs in total.


regards

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2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 11, 2022 5:21 AM in response to ku4hx

Recovering the data is the important part, os settings etc is secondary


the answer to the question if anyone finds himself on the problem is around 10 hours to start copying the documents and it has been copying data for the last 6 hours and I estimate it will need another 4 to finish


20 hrs in total.


regards

May 11, 2022 5:21 AM in response to JRmacos

TM will not fully restore your Mac as it does not contain the operating system ... user data, settings, and apps only.


If you need to rebuild your Mac:

How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support


Read the full article first; reinstallation is included.


To restore your Apple product to out-of-the-box Apple condition requires an Apple solution. So no, you can't get around using Apple guidance and software unless you plan on installing Linux maybe.


If you're considering hacked Apple software ... don't. That's a disaster waiting to happen.


Setup Assistant can be used during the process to restore TM data, i.e. your user data as of the last time you backed up. Licensed apps will likely be problematic.


Migration assistant: 'Preparing for the transfer' for hours

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