Help Re Setup and Migration Assistant “this user’s home is relocated and will not be copied”.
Hello all.
Apologies for long first post, hopefully it will give you sufficient background to help/advise me. I am a dangerous animal, I know more than many, but nothing like as much as the true experts in this forum.
Preamble: I have had my late 2014 iMac 27" i5 from new in 2015. It started behaving oddly just over a year ago, mainly I think because the 1TB HDD was pretty full. On advice, I replaced the PCIe card (for OS), upgraded to 2TB SDD (for data), and maxed out the RAM at 32GB. If I remember rightly that was when I updated to Big Sur. You probably all know this, but the late 2014 is incompatible with more recent IOS.
So far so good for 15 months. A few weeks ago more oddities, including system freeze. I ran First Aid on both drives: PCIe no reported problems, 2TB SSD, "First Aid Process has failed". I sent some screenshots and manufacturer advised that the drive had probably failed (I understand that is quite rare for SSD).
I replaced the SSD with a new 2TB SSD (same make that I will not name yet, but a "premium" brand). Formatted it to APFS. Restarted in Recovery mode and tried to restore from Time Machine but told I needed to use Migration Assistant ... which I couldn't find a way to open. Logging in to my account using standard or safe mode gave me "You are unable to log in to user account **** at this time".
I refitted the first SSD and created a new admin account before fitting the new SSD again. Tried Migration Assistant in the new admin account. Most of the files and folders were available except for my main business account where I got the message “this user’s home is relocated and will not be copied”. I was able to log in with my AppleId and set up my email and calendar but was still unable to migrate any of my files and to new SSD, or access my account via Time Machine. I suspected another fault so decided to retire the 2014 computer.
Unable to afford a new Studio Display and suitably specced Mini or Studio, I decided to get a refurbished 2019 27" i9 with 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD and Ventura.
Before switching on I read this useful post Setup Assistant and Migration Assistant - Apple Community. I connected wired keyboard, wired mouse, LAN cable and external drive containing my Time Machine.
Booted up (beautifully quickly) to a screen with a test account that had a simple password provided by the supplier.
Thee was no option (that I could see) for Setup Assistant so I ran Migration Assistant. Very disappointed to see exactly the same message on Time Machine “this user’s home is relocated and will not be copied”.
The good news is that the huge majority of my data is on Dropbox and a NAS drive that I can still access via my MACBook, I also have a 'normal' copy of my SSD data files on a separate external HDD. However I would really like all my old settings, applications (56GB) other files and folders (4GB) and System & Network (225 kB) on my (nearly) new iMac.
At last my questions!
- Is there a way to get my account files out of Time Machine? There is about 1TB of data. I can log in with my Apple ID.
- Is it worth continuing to try to migrate my applications and other bits or would it be better not to risk transferring the cause of my problems and to start afresh then connect to my Dropbox and NAS?
- Should I create a new account on the new mac with the same name as the one on my old mac and try migration again?
- Is it worth trying a complete 'restore to factory settings' on the refurbished iMac then reboot and hope Setup Assistant works?
I work from home, am self employed, and run a very small business. Lucky to have fibre to premises broadband.
Any advice welcomed and I can provide more information if necessary
Thanks Mike
iMac (2017 – 2020)
