Hi, I'm getting myself in a bit of a mess. I've just bought a new mac mini and I want to transfer
just my
music,
photos,
contacts and *iPhone / iPad apps* to it from my old G4 PowerBook, running leopard. What is the best way to do this please? I dont want all the applications that were on my PB because I want to start it all again clean. I do have an iPhone and iPad though, so I also want to sync them with the new mac mini and not loose the data.
I tried the migration assistant after setting up the mac and that created a new login account so have now re-installed the OS discs it came with so I can start all over again.
*With Migration Assistant you control the data that is migrated from another Macintosh computer. By clicking the triangle next to a user's name, you can select which User Accounts to migrate and choose which folders to migrate. You can also choose whether to migrate Applications, Network and Computer settings, or Volumes. Migrating only what you need can reduce the time it takes to complete your migration.*
I now want to delete all users and put the Mac mini back in the state it was in when I received it from Apple. So delete all user account. I put the disc in and held down c to re-install but the user account are still. I want to go back to how it was when I took it out of the box, so that I can use migration assistant from the start
If all else fails, and you live within a convenient distance of an Apple Store make an appointment with the Genius Bar at the store. You can do it online. Take your Mac mini with you and previous computer and they will sort you out. I presume that as you have only recently bought your Mac min i that you are still covered by the warranty for this purpose. If you took out the extended 3 year warranty then you should definately be covered. The staff are brilliant and don't talk down to none techies like me!!!
Start up from your install disc, go to Disk Utility and select the disk and click erase - to securely erase data click Security Options and Erase Free Space which will entirely wipe your disk, overwriting it with zeros so that no data is recoverable.
You can't choose which apps to migrate. It's all or nothing. You don't need to use secure erase. Erase will do the job you want. You will then need to reinstall from the two discs that came with the Mac.
I also used the Migration Assistant to Transfer info to my Mac Mini - and I have now got both my Laptop and MacMini using the SAME Airport MAC Address to access the internet!
I'd really appreciate any assistance in changing the mac-mini to a unique MAC address...