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Migration from non-Firewire MacBook to new Retina MacBook

I have just purchased a new Retina MacBook. My current MacBook is the 2008 model without a Firewire port. Since the old MacBook does not have Firewire or Thunderbolt, and the new MacBook does not have Ethernet, I am left with Wi-Fi as the migration alternative. I suspect that this will be a VERY slow procedure.


I do have an external USB 2 hard drive with a full bootable backup. My question is: Can I connect this hard drive via USB to the new MacBook and migrate the files? If so, would this be faster than using Wi-Fi?


Thanks for any advice.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 27, 2013 3:42 PM

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5 replies

Nov 2, 2013 1:56 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

Just to add a bit about my experiences with the transfer. It did finally work, but it wasn't easy!


When I finally got the cable (after Fedex lost it for 3 days), the instructions on the Apple site were totally inadequate. They didn't explain that you should turn off wi-fi on the computers, or how to set them up for Ethernet transfer on the Network screen, then get them back on wi-fi when you were done. This was not as easy as it should have been -- or at least not for me!


I finally got the two connected properly and then realized (this was admittedly my fault) that I had not upgraded the Migration Assistant on the old computer. So I had to go back and start from zero again.


I also could not get the window to open to give me a choice of which sub-folders to transfer. So I ended up transferring everything. Not a major issue, but just more time consuming.


However, once finished, everything was pretty much where it belonged, and all my apps were fine. The only one that gave me any problem was Dreamweaver. The transfer did not move DWs configuration files, but I was able to fix that by copying that Configuration folder over to the new computer via wi-fi.


By the way, those instructions that Ogelthorpe linked to, even though they say they are for 10.6, are more complete and explicit than the ones on the Apple site specifically for Mavericks. So thanks very much for the help!

Migration from non-Firewire MacBook to new Retina MacBook

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