How do I move iPhoto time machine backup to new computer

No

but you can copy it from your old mac - Connect the two Macs together (network, firewire target mode, etc) or use an external hard drive formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity from the old Mac to the pictures folder of the new Mac - launch iPhoto on the new mac and it will open the library and convert it as needed and you will be ready move forward.

LN

best solution is to copy from your old Mac - again Connect the two Macs together (network, firewire target mode, etc) or use an external hard drive formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity from the old Mac to the pictures folder of the new Mac - launch iPhoto on the new mac and it will open the library and convert it as needed and you will be ready move forward.

The speed of this copy should not be affected by anything on your old computer unless the HD is dyeing

Tm should protect you but it hast to be restored - not copies - copying from the old Mc is the very best way

As to why you can't do anything - could be many reasons - which is beyond the scope of this four - but Migration assistant has a very poor record in working with the iPhoto library so it is fortunately that it will not let you try that

LN

You can try to "inherit" your old backup to be able to browse it on the new mac and to restore from it using Time Machine. When you "inherit" the backup, you are able to restore single files or the iPhoto Library. See Pondini's FAQ:

B6. "Reconnecting" to your backups: http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html

B5. Would you like to inherit (or re-use) the backup . . . ?: http://pondini.org/TM/B5.html

The easiest way to be able to use the Time Machine backup an old Mac however, is to set a new mac up with "Setup Assistant", the first moment, when you set up a new Mac and are asked how you want to transfer data.If you use Setup Assistant to migrate the settings of your Mac from the old mac and your home folder. You inherit the Time Machine backup, and your user account will be the same user as on your old mac and you avoid all kind of permission problems. Transferring later complicates things, because you already have created a new and different user account.

I've got an old iMac that's about to crash and is extremely slow.

What makes you think, the old mac is about to crash? If it is only slowness and general unresponsiveness, check, how full your disk is. Sometimes a Mac just looks like having hardware trouble, when you allow the free disk space to drop below a critical minimum of at least 10GB of free disk space.

It would have been simple, if you had used the Time Machine backup, when you set up your mac to migrate at least the settings with Setup Assistant (not Migration Assistant). Then everything would have been automatic and and no Terminal necessary to be able to use your old Time Machine backup through Time Machine. Unfortunately you did not use that easy opportunity to inherit the old backup. And then the only options are to wipe your new mac and start over again, this time by using the Setup Assistant, or to try to fix it using the Terminal. But don't do that, if you are not comfortable with the Terminal.

Copy your library over, if that are the only files that need restoring.

I'm a bit late to the party here but if you're concerned with your old Mac crashing during transfer try connecting the two Macs with a Firewire cable and boot your old Mac into Target Disk Mode, Transferring files between two computers using FireWire. That will free the old hard drive from it's dependence on its system and let the transfer work.

Is starting up in Target Mode less likely to cause problems in start up mode? Are we actually starting up the computer?

Yes, it doesn't rely on the system software and can be read by any computer, Mac or PC. It's just like it's an external hard drive.

Argh! I've tried to do the transfer in Target Mode but then I got a message saying "Finder cannot complete operation because some of the data in iPhoto cannot be read or written"...?

Have you tried to transfer the "iPhoto" application? You need to transfer the iPhoto Library from your Applications folder.

Is there an "Error -36" with the error message? The message above can be caused by a single file in the iPhoto Library package that is corrupted and cannot be read, perhaps caused by bad blocks on your old drive or illegal characters or similar in the filename.

In that case you can open the iPhoto library from the Finder and copy it over in parts: Be very careful not to change anything inside when you are doing this.

Do the following:

• Connect the two macs again in Target Disk Mode.
• Create a new folder in your Pictures folder on the new mac.
• Select the iPhoto library on your old drive, ctrl-click it, and use the command "Show Package Content":
• Try to drag the content over to your new folder in Pictures on the new mac. Do this in easy instalments, folder by folder.
• At some stage you will hit the file or folder that cannot be copied. If it is a folder, open it and copy the content separately. If it is a single file, skip it and take a note of what is missing. Tell us here, which file could not be copied.

Then rename the folder you copied your library to as "iPhotoLibraryFromOldMac.photolibrary" and double-click it to open it in iPhoto.