Migration Assistant on Yosemite MacBook Air unable to connect to iBook on 10.4.11

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Migration Assistant on Yosemite MacBook Air unable to connect to iBook on 10.4.11

I recently bought a MacBook Air, OS X 10.11.2. I have been using a vintage 2006 iBook, OS X 10.4.11. When I connected the two machines with a USB to ethernet adapter and RJ-45 crossover cable the Migration Assistant was unable to connect to the iBook.

Is there a limit to how far back in versions that Migration Assistant works?

I am able to make a network connection with the same setup to share files.

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Mar 4, 2015 12:32 PM

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Answer 1

Lanny

Level 6

13,207 points

Mar 4, 2015 2:10 PM in response to Knit-Perl

Are you running Migration Assistant on both Macs? A crossover cable is not necessary.

As it turns out, Migration from Tiger is not supported: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204320

Scroll to the bottom of the page:

Migration from Mac OS X Tiger v10.4 to OS X Mountain Lion v10.8 or later

Migrating from OS X Tiger v10.4 to OS X Mountain Lion v10.8 or later is not supported and is not expected to complete via Migration Assistant. For upgrades from OS X Tiger or older to OS X Mountain Lion or later, you can make a standard file sharing connection and manually copy your files. Recommended folders to transfer from your Home folder on the old computer to the new computer are:

Documents
Music
Movies
Pictures
Desktop

Copy these folders and any others you'd like to transfer to the same locations on the new computer. For more information regarding file sharing in OS X, see Mac Basics - File sharing. Note: Copying any data files from your user Library folder to the new computer could have unexpected results.

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Answer 2

Knit-Perl Author

Level 1

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Mar 4, 2015 3:41 PM in response to Lanny

Thanks for the link, confirms what I suspected.

I was running Migration Assistant on both machines.

Do you have a link to document that using a crossover cable is not necessary if you don't use a hub too?

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Answer 3

Lanny

Level 6

13,207 points

Mar 4, 2015 5:38 PM in response to Knit-Perl

Do you have a link to document that using a crossover cable is not necessary

They haven't been necessary for almost 15 years now: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT2274

Note: all of the info that I've provided to you could have just been Googled.

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Answer 4

Knit-Perl Author

Level 1

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Mar 4, 2015 6:04 PM in response to Lanny

That link confirms that I needed the crossover cable because my old computer is an iBook. The iBook was nearing the end of its product cycle in 2006 when I bought it -- less than 15 years ago.

I have been doing a lot of googling in the past week with the new computer. Thank you for your patience.

In summary, the answer to my question is that Migration Assistant does not work for Tiger (OS X 10.4) and Yosemite (OS X 10.10)

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