migration assistant taking forever at "less than a minute"

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migration assistant taking forever at "less than a minute"

Using Migration Assistant to set up new Macbook Pro running 10.8 from external drive (via USB) using 10.8 Time Maching back up from my iMac. I did the exact same thing in January from old Macbook Pro to new iMac without any trouble. This time around the migration assistant has been in "Less than a minutate remaining" mode for about 3 hours. It has gone from "tranferring files and folders" to "transferring system settings" but both has remained in "Less than a minute remaining." Should I be persistant and stick it out? If so, for how long? Some support threads say stick it out while Apple support says "this is not normal" and the back up could be corrupt and may need to be migrated in safe mode. Any thoughts or ideas shared here appreciated. Thanks!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), migration assistant

Posted on Oct 5, 2013 8:29 AM

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Answer 1

Baracas

Level 1

4 points

Mar 15, 2014 2:39 PM in response to Genki_ru

I had this problem migrating from my iMac; a late 2009 24in FW800 with Mavericks, to a late 2013 27inch Thunderbolt. Migration Assistant hung at "lass than a minute" for over an hour and change... My back up drives had two F800 interfaces and a USB. I was abe to plug an additional drive into one of the remaining available ports on the back of my Time Capsule drive. This woke up the Time Capsule drive and finished the migration installation process.

I beleive the setting "put Hard Drives to sleep when possible" must have been on by default on the unused OS without my awareness. The action of plugging in an additional drive to the remaining port on my Time Capusle back up drive woke the Time Capsule drive up and then in completed almost imediately. Hope this helps and that any future readers have a BAck Up drive with more than one port and an extra device or drive they can plug into in (Daisy Chain Style) to get the Capusle drive to complete. Good luck!

Turned Out Flawless for Me.

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Answer 2

May 31, 2015 7:43 PM in response to Genki_ru

I just went thru this. The bottom line is that it's much easier, faster, and less aggravating to migrate via a Time Machine backup than from another Mac. I tried for a few days to make it work from another Mac.

In the end, I bought at USB 3.0 two-terabyte Seagate drive for $99 from Best Buy, made it the Time Machine volume connected to the old Mac. When Time Machine was done, I plugged the drive into the new Mac and used Migration Assistant with it.

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