How can I transfer data from cloned old iMac to newest iMac?

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How can I transfer data from cloned old iMac to newest iMac?

My 2008 iMac just died after having various kinds of problems for a long while. I ordered 2013 iMac and it is coming. Since the old iMac (system 10.7.5) cannot even boot into Recovery or Safe mode, it will be impossible to transfer data from it. I have 2 external HDs that are clones of the old iMac, using Carbon Copy Cloner. One HD also has a partition with Time Machine backups.

When attempting to boot into Recovery Mode on the old iMac, which succeeded only once, I saw that all recent Time Machine backups are unavailable; the most recent usable back updates from two months ago, although backup was going on every hour until the old iMac called it quits. This seems to show there are serious damages to the drive. It looks I must transfer data from external HD.

Question is what is the best way to do that, without importing corrupted data. Is there a better way than to use Migration Assistant?

And which should I transfer data from, Time Machine backup or cloned copy? I am getting quite desperate; must save and transfer all data. Any help is greatly appreciated.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Dec 14, 2013 5:11 PM

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LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Dec 14, 2013 6:25 PM in response to timsee77

When you first turn on your new Mac you can used the Setup Assistant system to copy over your User files, Settings and Apps from any one of your externals with either the clones or the TM backup.

But since you were running Snow Leopard on the older Mac some of the Apps you were using on that OS X version may not work on the new Mac. Especially older Apps that needed the Rosetta system for PowerPC apps. Those Apps are no longer supported in any of the newer OS X versions.So you would need to find newer Apps that do the smae things or upgrade to a newer veersion of the same App. Also some other Apps will need to be updated before you try to run them. you can do that by using Software update or going to the Apps website and downloading the updates.

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