transfer from 2008 iMac to early 2011 iMac

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Level 1

18 points

transfer from 2008 iMac to early 2011 iMac

I have a 2008 imac that I upgraded to mountail lion 10.8.5 and bought a used early 2011 imac that still have the owners data on in. i have a snow leopard restore disc from the 2011 imac that is 10.6.8. i want to know the best way to transfer all my data from old to new should i do a clean restore? or restore from my backup from time maching to 2011 imac? i want to keep my mountain lion update without repurchase too I also have microsoft office on my original imac and other applications that i do not want to repurchase.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Feb 18, 2014 3:16 PM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,472 points

Feb 18, 2014 3:30 PM in response to 3noa

If the seller included all the media and licenses for any applicaitons included in your purchase then simply do an erase and install of the 2011 using the Snow Leopard discs, then update it to 10.6.8 using the 10.6.8 update combo. Next update the system to download and install Mavericks to the 2011. Then run Migration Assistant on the 2011 and use your Time Machine backup from your 2008 to restore all your data, apps, settings etc from your 2008. After this is all done run Software Update 2-3 times and install any updates Apple suggests.

If the seller did not include the media and license information on any included apps well then you have illegal applications and are pretty much on your own unless the seller can provide them to you. Regarding your MS Office app on your 2008, as long as it's MS Office 2008 or above you're fine. I believe the worst case scenario is you may need to re-install on the 2011 including the licensing information.

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