Migration Assistant says the source laptop is running too new an OS

Question

Migration Assistant says the source laptop is running too new an OS

Hi there,

Today I bought a new MacBook Pro from the Apple Store. I'm at home, trying to move all of my data over from my old 2007 MacBook Pro. But the migration assistant says the OSX on my old machine is too new and I need to upgrade the new machine's OSX first.

Which I am trying to do right now, but the download speeds are a joke. It's been ten minutes and I've downloaded . . . 22 Mb of 5.16 Gb.

How can I get the app store to download at modern speeds? Or how can I get migration assistant to work?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Oct 25, 2014 5:10 PM

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Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

82,841 points

Oct 25, 2014 6:57 PM in response to morganfromoakland

First off, unfortunately 10.6.7 has a lot of old incompatible software with 10.7 or later. You have several options as this tip outlines:

http://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6271

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Answer 2

Oct 25, 2014 7:52 PM in response to morganfromoakland

morganfromoakland wrote:

Hi there,

Today I bought a new MacBook Pro from the Apple Store. I'm at home, trying to move all of my data over from my old 2007 MacBook Pro. But the migration assistant says the OSX on my old machine is too new and I need to upgrade the new machine's OSX first...

What you're saying Migration Assistant is saying doesn't make sense. If your new MBP is actually new (not refurbished), and you just bought it, it should have come with Yosemite installed on it and since that was just released, you can't upgrade the new MBP any further.

Instead, I'd suggest downloading and installing on your old MBP the update to 10.6.8 and then this Migration Assistant Update and then try using Migration Assistant on your new MBP again. I think the Migration Assistant Update is necessary for compatibility with current versions of Migration Assistant, and the 10.6.8 update is necessary as a prerequisite for that.

That should also solve your download speed problem because you won't need to download a very large Mac OS X installer.

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Answer 3

Oct 25, 2014 10:04 PM in response to FatMac-MacPro

My new MBP has Mavericks installed, not Yosemite. And trying to update to Yosemite will take a week at these download speeds.

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Answer 4

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Oct 26, 2014 2:01 AM in response to morganfromoakland

Migration Assistant in Mavericks is compatible with OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.8 or later. If you are migrating from an earlier version of OS X, update your older computer first, or manually copy your data from one computer to another.

From:

OS X: How to migrate data from another Mac using Mavericks

Thus you need to update to 10.6.8 as already said. Are the two connected via wifi? Try a wired ethernet connection or use FireWire with the old Mac in Target Disk Mode

How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode

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Answer 5

Oct 26, 2014 8:22 AM in response to lllaass

SO I updated the new MBP to the newest version of MAvericks and now Migration Assistant works, but it says it will take 500 hours to transfer my files. I tried using my external hard drive--which is also my Time Machine--but the new MBP does not recognize the external hard drive when I plug it in.

Not in disk utility, not in finder, not at all.

Which is a real bummer, as my external hard drive is also my iPhoto library. I have no idea what I'm going to do if the new MBP can't see it.

I'll try the ethernet cable solution, but the new MBP doesn't have an ethernet jack?

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Answer 6

Oct 26, 2014 9:08 AM in response to morganfromoakland

morganfromoakland wrote:

SO I updated the new MBP to the newest version of MAvericks and now Migration Assistant works, but it says it will take 500 hours to transfer my files...

Did you also install the Migration Assistant Update I mentioned on your old MBP after you upgraded it to 10.6.8 (which I said was a prerequisite)?

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