Migrating Taking Too Long

The fastest way to migrate using your Macbook Air is NOT, I REPEAT, NOT to use wifi, It's so slow it will take forever and then some. Get a USB-to-Ethernet adapter for your Air & use that.

I honestly can't remember if there is a cancel button...will do some research & post back.

Well i just cancelled my migration on a new mac mini from my macbook 2.16 and it started at square one with the welcome screen and all that. It seemed to be 99% finished with less than a minute remaining and it hung on setting timezone. I forced shutdown the mac mini. I am now on my second attempt after updating the new machine to 10.6.4. The macbook was already at 10.6.4. I did find one apple discussion saying migration should resume but if it doesnt to restart the process. I am also taking the advice of using the ethernet cable. My 1st attempt was over wifi. So im using the cable and making sure all the software is up to date. best i can do with the info on here. so far no ill affects of the cancellation.

Well i guess the mac mini is now 10.6.5 and ill have to update the macbook as well.

I'm a bit lost here.

Do you mean you got a new Mini that came with 10.6.3 or earlier, since you mentioned updating it to 10.6.4? Please clarify.

In most cases, the best, fastest, and most reliable way to set up a new Mac is to use +Setup Assistant+ when it first starts up -- just after the Welcome video. It sounds like you did not do that.

Unless I'm missing something, your best bet is probably to start over. 😟

Start the mini up from it's Install disc (the one that came with it), and erase the internal HD. See #1, especially the yellow box, in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum), if you're not sure how to do that.

Then quit Disk Utility and install OSX from the Mini's Install disc.

When it starts up again, connect via FireWire if possible, Ethernet if not, and use +Setup Assistant,+ per [Setting up a new Mac from an old one or its backups|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

GHGaby wrote:
I don't see how this helps me... I don't have a Mini.

That's because I was responding to {Fragomatic}, who does.
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For your situation, as wjosten says, WIFI will take a very long time. I'd expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 GB/hour with a very good connection.

If you cancel, you won't necessarily have to start over from the beginning, but whatever you were in the middle of will have to be deleted and done over, so it's probably not worth it. If it's doing apps, you'd have to delete the last app it transferred, if you can figure out what that was. If it's doing a user account, you'd have to delete that entire account and home folder.

About all you can do to speed it up is reduce other network traffic to the minimum, and get both Macs as close to the router as possible.

Yes the new mini out of the box had 10.6.3 from the Apple store last week. I guess it was there a while.
I did start from scratch with both machines updated to 10.6.5 and over ethernet cable. I had to wipe it since the failed attempts gobbled up 110GB of space. Id also like to mention that the instructions for the MA assistant were updated and clearer. They also gave a choice (on the same page) of what connection would be used. This was an improvement over 10.6.3 instructions.

To the original poster: The advice i gave was recycled from other posts and universal for all machines. We are comparing apples to apples you know 🙂

Here's my experience with this same problem. Christmas 2010 present of new mac mini, out of the box it had OSX 10.6.3. Needed to migrate four user accounts from an old mac mini running OSX 10.4.11. I ran the migration assistant with transfers across an ethernet cable and accepted all default choices; i.e., transfer everything: user files, applications, settings. It took about 4 hours to transfer about 65Gb of user files and applications, then hung at the very end with this msg on the screen: "Transferring Timezone setting Less than one minute remaining". The dialogs on the old and new computers offered no Cancel button, no Details button, nothing at all. I left it alone for another 4 hours. It is difficult for me to put into words just how frustrating it is to see a "less than one minute" message for hours and hours! Eventually I gave up, rebooted both machines and restarted the migration process. This time I UNCHECKED the option to transfer settings (figure I can probably set the timezone on my own). It ran to completion this time, reported that some files could not be transferred. Hey Apple this stinks. Next I have to figure out whether the files from the first transfer attempt are lurking on the new disk somewhere, taking space they shouldn't.

chrislottapple wrote:
Hey Apple this stinks.

Just so you know, Discussions is a set of user-to-user forums. You are not talking to Apple, just to other users like yourself when you post here.

If you want our help with your issue, it would be best to start a topic of your own, describing your problems in detail.