Migration Assistant fails due to math error

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Level 1

8 points

Migration Assistant fails due to math error

I've seen posts about this prior to mine - but they're all locked without any answer.

The problem is that all items except my account can be migrated from my old PowerBook 15". My account is erroneously stated to be of a huge size, several million gigs. So even though my new MacBook Pro 17" has a lot more space on the harddisk than the old one, the Migration Assistant refuses to carry out the transfer of my account.

Can anyone help?

MacBook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Dec 23, 2006 4:50 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 23, 2006 6:16 PM in response to Cyberdog

Run WhatSize
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13006
on your "old" Mac. it should reveal where the "bloat" is. Post back the results. Could be any number of "runaway" cache files, system logs, etc causing the ovrsize user folder. BTW what size does "Get Info" show for the folder?

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Answer 2

Cyberdog Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 24, 2006 1:48 AM in response to Cyberdog

Thanks for responding. WhatSize reports that my user folder is 47.1 gigs. This is exactly the same as is shown by Get Info. In fact, there is nothing at all on the disk larger than this, so Migration Assistant showing millions of gigs more for my user account is really weird.

Btw, I have run both Disk Utility and TinkerTool System to verify, repair and fix my old harddisk. I still get the same error.

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Answer 3

Cyberdog Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 24, 2006 1:50 AM in response to Cyberdog

Oh, and Merry X-mas to all you Mac people out there! 🙂

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Answer 4

Dec 24, 2006 7:22 AM in response to Cyberdog

Try booting into single user mode and running fsk. You can boot into single-user mode by holding down the command and s keys while restarting your Mac. Once you do that, just run the fsk command that shows up in the log-in message and see if that helps.

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Answer 5

Dec 24, 2006 8:55 AM in response to Cyberdog

Maybe you shuld try not using the MA. Just boot the "old" computer into target disk mode, attach it to the new computer and copy the users folder over. MA is not without it's flaws...

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