Migration assistant won't work via thunderbolt in Mavericks

After a similar problem I found http://www.hardturm.ch/luz/2014/02/fixing-os-x-10-9-mavericks-migration-from-ext ernal-volume/ which explains that since Migration assistant logs you out, it also unmounts external disks. They have a solution in using ssh and command line stuff to mount the needed disk remotely, but someone in the comments had a simpler solution: do not plug in the external firewire disk until after launchine Migration Assistant. So before running MA, eject the external disk that you want to migrate to the new machine (and unplug it) then start Migration Assistant and after selecting "migrate from an attached disk" THEN plug in the disk. It worked for me.

I Went into system preferences, and restarted "old" MacBook Air 2013 in disk mode, kept the thunderbolt plugged into both machines the whole time. Then once it was in disk mode (lightening bolt on screen), I started the new MacBook Air and on the desktop the old mac showed up as a orange disk drive. I then went into migration assistant on the new MacBook Air and it saw the old mac right away and I selected the drive and five minutes later, it transferred 72 GB to the new air and all was well... Hope this helps anyone

Thanks Peter you just saved me 49 hours apparently!!!!

PeterSels - this worked (reduced time from 119 hours to 4). Thanks.

In case anyone has the same situation as me, I was trying to get my Mac to recognize the thunderbolt connection in the middle of migrating via Wi-Fi and it wouldn't... It just kept suggesting that I plug in a thunderbolt cable. I didn't want to interrupt the transfer by shutting down my computer or anything for fear of messing something up... but I was annoyed at the time (12 hours) and the cost of the cable. Suddenly it occurred to me what to do. I unceremoniously unplugged the wifi router... Without that connection, the estimated time almost immediately jumped down to 57 minutes. Voilá!

Just in case anyone is running Yosemite.

I'm having the same problems.

I started the transfer using WiFi, it said it would complete in 8 hours. Since I was going to be gone that long, I thought "no biggie".

When I returned, the time was 22 hours. I had a new thunderbolt cable with me, I plugged that in, but that did not seem to matter.

If Migration Assistant is going to be helpful, it shouldn't tell me -after- the transfer starts to plug in a thunderbolt cable.

FWIW:

I tried the target disk mode. No matter what I did MA did not find it.

I am migrating to a brand new out of the box computer that starts Migration Assistant when it is turned on.

After several attempts, I ensured that WiFi was off on both computers and I got MA to stop telling me to plug in my $39 thunderbolt cable.

Apparently though, the source computer goes to sleep!

I have to constantly wake it up.

I had to try to get some sleep and came out here to find it telling me it had 58 hours to go.

After being "awake" for about 10 minutes, that number dropped to 2 hours and 38 minutes.

Of course, it went back to sleep again then. After waking it up, now the numbers are climbing and it is up to 5+ hours remaining.

Thank you! This worked great! My migration time went from six hours to 30 minutes.

Just to complete this saga.

My old computer was dying a slow death. After I managed to get everything off of it, I find it will stay awake only long enough to reboot and maybe sign in. If I press the power key it will awake again for a few minutes and then go to sleep again. I have to wait for hours for this to work again. I managed to unauthorized this computer for iTunes but I have not yet been able to erase the hard drive.

Anyway, it turned out that my old computer T-bolt interface did not work. So I purchased a T-bolt to Enet adapter for the new computer.

I used MA solely to transfer settings. I did NOT try to transfer any data using MA. (well, I did once, but was faced with the same problems before were MA would fail.) Once the settings were in place and my User Accounts were ok, I then hooked the two computers via ethernet and selectively move files from the old to the new. That included applications. One "good" thing about this was that I left a lot of cruft behind that I no longer used. The "bad thing" was that this took a couple of days to ensure the move was successful. I also used Time Machine to retrieve some files.

My move is complete, but I sure hope to never have to repeat this again.

REALLY angry about this one.

Just spent a full day trying to migrate my 2013 iMac to new 2015 retina one with a new Thunderbolt cable that cost about $50

The two machines just never 'see each other' and I'm NOT doing this via wifi.

How on earth can this be an 'issue' that doesn't have a fix?????

Ended up connecting via Ethernet with both wifis switched off

FWIW: turning off the router for me did not cause the two computers to ignore the wi-fi connection they had already established.

I only mention this because it did not work for me and I don't want folks to think it will (vs it might) work for them.

The t-bolt to t-bolt connections seem to be unreliable also.

enet to net seems to work reliably.

Additionally, my old macbook pro was dying so I was just lucky to get my data moved. Although I did not use MA. It was the first time in over 20 years that it failed. I guess I can give them a break. (Apple that is)

I am having the exact same issue here and if I have to go buy another $100 in cables to get this thing to connect via network cables, I think I'd rather return the laptop and go back to my Macbook Ar. I have tried every which way, Target mode, not target, connecting during search and before. Rebooting, buying yet another $39 dollar cable and the thunderbolt won't work. I'm not waiting the 177 hours it will take over WIFI either. (Thats what it reports) Does anyone have any insight before I return my Macbook Pro?

Same issue from a 2011 MBP to a brand new 2015 retina MPB - both running Yosemite! Putting the old one into target disk mode cut the transfer time to 2.5 hours from >100 via migration assistant even with a Thunderbolt cable attached. I was starting to think the cable was faulty - turns out that just the Migration Assistant is the problem, at least on the source machine. Odd that Apple should neglect this infrequently used but nonetheless critical piece of software. Thanks for the reminder of Target Disk mode!

WOW! Thank you SO much. I just found your response by Googling "can't transfer data from Macbook to Macbook." You solved my problem.

Very grateful to you!!

I'm migrating from a 21.5" 2012 iMac to a new late 2015 27" iMac via Thunderbolt.

At first it only displayed the WIFI network. I then hit the back button on the new iMac to deselect the WIFI, not much luck there - it won't let you unlearn the network.

I then adjusted the Thunderbolt cable and then the old I Mac Migration Assistant displayed current connection: Thunderbolt.

On the new iMac, not until I began the transfer did it finally state Thunderbolt connection. Up until then it had only displayed WIFI.

I'm transferring about 750GB. The old iMac is Thunderbolt 1 and the new is Thunderbolt 2 with SSD. At first it displayed 300 hours but then it went to 3 hours 40 minutes with a transfer speed of 67 MB/s.

I Hope this helps.