I currently have two old Macs...let's call them my MAIN Mac (a G4
running Tiger) and my OTHER Mac (early Intel iMac also running Tiger).
And, I'm about to purchase a NEW Mac. (3 Macs...MAIN, OTHER and NEW)

What I'd like to do is move virtually everything (user accounts,
applications, settings, documents, etc.) from my current MAIN Mac to my
NEW Mac. I've never actually done this before, but I believe, on
initial install of the NEW Mac, the Mac OS actually asks if you want to
do just this.

Question#1: If the above is true, what cable is required during the
install process when moving "stuff" from my current "MAIN" Mac to my
"NEW" Mac?

Question #2: Also, I have one user account on my OTHER Mac that I would
also like to bring over to my NEW Mac. Is this also possible?

I'm assuming that (with the right cable), I can make my NEW Mac very
much like my current MAIN Mac without too much work. In fact, right
after install, I'd hope I'm ready to go if all goes well! But, moving
over another user after the initial install is a little perplexing. Can
I bring over another user to my new Mac (a second time) during the same
initial install? Or, is there another proper way to move a user account
from one Mac to another Mac even after the initial install of the new
Mac?

Thanks!

In article <260220081322399937%william@wjoiaspois.com>,
 Will <william@wjoiaspois.com> wrote:

> What I'd like to do is move virtually everything (user accounts,
> applications, settings, documents, etc.) from my current MAIN Mac to my
> NEW Mac. I've never actually done this before, but I believe, on
> initial install of the NEW Mac, the Mac OS actually asks if you want to
> do just this.

Yep, sure does.

> Question#1: If the above is true, what cable is required during the
> install process when moving "stuff" from my current "MAIN" Mac to my
> "NEW" Mac?

The best option is a Firewire cable.

> Question #2: Also, I have one user account on my OTHER Mac that I would
> also like to bring over to my NEW Mac. Is this also possible?

That I'm not sure about.  I don't think you can do it during the 
install, but you can run the Migration Assistant after the install to 
copy that account over.

You just want to be careful that the accounts on those other Macs (MAIN 
and OTHER) are using the same short user name.

-- 
Bart: This is the worst day of my life.
Homer: This is the worst day of your life SO FAR.

Will <william@wjoiaspois.com> writes:

> I currently have two old Macs...let's call them my MAIN Mac (a G4
> running Tiger) and my OTHER Mac (early Intel iMac also running Tiger).
> And, I'm about to purchase a NEW Mac. (3 Macs...MAIN, OTHER and NEW)
> 
> What I'd like to do is move virtually everything (user accounts,
> applications, settings, documents, etc.) from my current MAIN Mac to my
> NEW Mac. I've never actually done this before, but I believe, on
> initial install of the NEW Mac, the Mac OS actually asks if you want to
> do just this.

That's true.

> Question#1: If the above is true, what cable is required during the
> install process when moving "stuff" from my current "MAIN" Mac to my
> "NEW" Mac?

A firewire cable to connect the two computers.

> Question #2: Also, I have one user account on my OTHER Mac that I would
> also like to bring over to my NEW Mac. Is this also possible?

Yes.  This doesn't have to be done at install time.  It can be done
(for either of your computers) later using the program 

/Applications/Utilities/Migration Assistant

on your NEW machine.


> I'm assuming that (with the right cable), I can make my NEW Mac very
> much like my current MAIN Mac without too much work. In fact, right
> after install, I'd hope I'm ready to go if all goes well! But, moving
> over another user after the initial install is a little perplexing. Can
> I bring over another user to my new Mac (a second time) during the same
> initial install?

That I don't know.

> Or, is there another proper way to move a user account
> from one Mac to another Mac even after the initial install of the new
> Mac?

Yes - see above!

Lewis <gkreme@gmail.com> writes:

> In article <260220081322399937%william@wjoiaspois.com>,
>  Will <william@wjoiaspois.com> wrote:
> 
> > What I'd like to do is move virtually everything (user accounts,
> > applications, settings, documents, etc.) from my current MAIN Mac to my
> > NEW Mac. I've never actually done this before, but I believe, on
> > initial install of the NEW Mac, the Mac OS actually asks if you want to
> > do just this.
> 
> Yep, sure does.
> 
> > Question#1: If the above is true, what cable is required during the
> > install process when moving "stuff" from my current "MAIN" Mac to my
> > "NEW" Mac?
> 
> The best option is a Firewire cable.
> 
> > Question #2: Also, I have one user account on my OTHER Mac that I would
> > also like to bring over to my NEW Mac. Is this also possible?
> 
> That I'm not sure about.  I don't think you can do it during the 
> install, but you can run the Migration Assistant after the install to 
> copy that account over.
> 
> You just want to be careful that the accounts on those other Macs (MAIN 
> and OTHER) are using the same short user name.

He doesn't necessarily want that.  In fact I don't know what happens
if he does that.  I assume that information the _second_ time he runs
Migration Assistant gets copied over the information from the first
time he ran it, which might not be what he wants.

His life will be simpler if the accounts on the two macs have
_different_ short user names, but then he'll have two different
accounts on his new computer, one from each of the older computers.

In article <fd7igrlfwe.fsf@ethel.the.log>,
 Doug Anderson <ethelthelogremovethis@gmail.com> wrote:

> > You just want to be careful that the accounts on those other Macs (MAIN 
> > and OTHER) are using the same short user name.
> 
> He doesn't necessarily want that.  In fact I don't know what happens
> if he does that.  I assume that information the _second_ time he runs
> Migration Assistant gets copied over the information from the first
> time he ran it, which might not be what he wants.

Yes, bad omission.  I meant to type ' are NOT using the same short user 
name.

In fact, I did type it.  Some electron-thieves must have intercepted it 
in stream, right?

-- 
Bart: This is the worst day of my life.
Homer: This is the worst day of your life SO FAR.

In article <gkreme-A2712C.12061926022008@news.giganews.com>,
 Lewis <gkreme@gmail.com> wrote:

> In article <fd7igrlfwe.fsf@ethel.the.log>,
>  Doug Anderson <ethelthelogremovethis@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > > You just want to be careful that the accounts on those other Macs (MAIN 
> > > and OTHER) are using the same short user name.
> > 
> > He doesn't necessarily want that.  In fact I don't know what happens
> > if he does that.  I assume that information the _second_ time he runs
> > Migration Assistant gets copied over the information from the first
> > time he ran it, which might not be what he wants.
> 
> Yes, bad omission.  I meant to type ' are NOT using the same short user 
> name.
> 
> In fact, I did type it.  Some electron-thieves must have intercepted it 
> in stream, right?

Even if they are, and you *don't* want to overwrite them, Migration 
Assistant will give you the opportunity to change the short name when 
migrating them.

-- 
Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint =  5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3  7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF

On 2008-02-26 11:28:19 -0800, Tom Stiller <tomstiller@comcast.net> said:

> In article <gkreme-A2712C.12061926022008@news.giganews.com>,
>  Lewis <gkreme@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> In article <fd7igrlfwe.fsf@ethel.the.log>,
>> Doug Anderson <ethelthelogremovethis@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>>> You just want to be careful that the accounts on those other Macs (MAIN
>>>> and OTHER) are using the same short user name.
>>> 
>>> He doesn't necessarily want that.  In fact I don't know what happens
>>> if he does that.  I assume that information the _second_ time he runs
>>> Migration Assistant gets copied over the information from the first
>>> time he ran it, which might not be what he wants.
>> 
>> Yes, bad omission.  I meant to type ' are NOT using the same short user
>> name.
>> 
>> In fact, I did type it.  Some electron-thieves must have intercepted it
>> in stream, right?
> 
> Even if they are, and you *don't* want to overwrite them, Migration
> Assistant will give you the opportunity to change the short name when
> migrating them.

Nice tip!
-- 
Adobe - Preventing the case-sensitive revolution everyday

Thanks Lewis and others...much appreciated.

Yes, just to be clear...the first thing I want to do is make my NEW mac
as close to being a working clone of my current MAIN mac as
possible...including even being the same user name, short name,
passwords, documents, applications, everything! Then, after this is
done and my NEW mac is hopefully virtually a clone of my current MAIN
mac, I wanted to bring over ANOTHER DIFFERENT user account (my father's
actually) from this OTHER Mac to my now NEW Mac. 

As I understand your answers, during install of my NEW Mac, with the
aid of a firewire cable, I can actually make my NEW Mac just like my
old MAIN mac. Then, after the NEW computer is up and running, I can use
Migration Assistant (and the same firewire cable) to move over a
different user account from the OTHER Mac.

Cool!


In article <gkreme-905DD6.11365626022008@news.giganews.com>, Lewis
<gkreme@gmail.com> wrote:

> In article <260220081322399937%william@wjoiaspois.com>,
>  Will <william@wjoiaspois.com> wrote:
> 
> > What I'd like to do is move virtually everything (user accounts,
> > applications, settings, documents, etc.) from my current MAIN Mac to my
> > NEW Mac. I've never actually done this before, but I believe, on
> > initial install of the NEW Mac, the Mac OS actually asks if you want to
> > do just this.
> 
> Yep, sure does.
> 
> > Question#1: If the above is true, what cable is required during the
> > install process when moving "stuff" from my current "MAIN" Mac to my
> > "NEW" Mac?
> 
> The best option is a Firewire cable.
> 
> > Question #2: Also, I have one user account on my OTHER Mac that I would
> > also like to bring over to my NEW Mac. Is this also possible?
> 
> That I'm not sure about.  I don't think you can do it during the 
> install, but you can run the Migration Assistant after the install to 
> copy that account over.
> 
> You just want to be careful that the accounts on those other Macs (MAIN 
> and OTHER) are using the same short user name.

In article <260220081322399937%william@wjoiaspois.com>,
 Will <william@wjoiaspois.com> wrote:

> 
> I currently have two old Macs...let's call them my MAIN Mac (a G4
> running Tiger) and my OTHER Mac (early Intel iMac also running Tiger).
> And, I'm about to purchase a NEW Mac. (3 Macs...MAIN, OTHER and NEW)
> 
> What I'd like to do is move virtually everything (user accounts,
> applications, settings, documents, etc.) from my current MAIN Mac to my
> NEW Mac. I've never actually done this before, but I believe, on
> initial install of the NEW Mac, the Mac OS actually asks if you want to
> do just this.
> 


A post from me a few days ago, appended below, might be of use to you, 
although please note!! -- I'm not a "Mac guru", had a different 
objective than you do, and have not tested my "standby clone" 
extensively to see that it does everything _exactly_ the same as my 
primary Mac did.

But if you have nothing on your new Mac at this point that needs to be 
preserved, maybe you could try this same approach . . .

======================================================

From recent post:

>    I'm going to try creating a bootable backup of my primary MacBook to the
>    internal HD of a "standby MacBook" using SuperDuper and Target Disk
>    mode, so that this standby MacBook can provide an instantly bootable hot
>    backup for my primary MacBook.

I've now done this, and I'm just reporting that, so far as I can tell 
thus far, doing this seems to have worked just fine.

After connecting the standby MacBook to my primary MacBook in Target
Disk mode, I erased and renamed the targt internal disk using Disk 
Utility,  then did a full bootable backup of my primary Mac to it using 
SuperDuper.

When I then I shut down down and restarted the standby MacBook, it
booted just fine (albeit very slowly on the initial boot), and it now
seems on limiting testing to function just like the primary MacBook.

AES <siegman@stanford.edu> wrote:

> But if you have nothing on your new Mac at this point that needs to be
> preserved, maybe you could try this same approach . . .

The old Mac is running Tiger, the new one will have Leopard instead.
Cloning the old one onto the new will downgrade the OS, and the new one
may not even be capable of booting Tiger.  Migration Assistant will do
exactly what he needs.

-- 
<http://designsbymike.net/shop/mac.cgi> Mac and geek T-shirts & gifts
<http://designsbymike.net/shop/musings.cgi> Muckraking T-shirts
<http://designsbymike.net/shop/prius.cgi> Prius shirts/bumper stickers
<http://bogart-tribute.net> Tribute to Humphrey Bogart

> 
> The old Mac is running Tiger, the new one will have Leopard instead.
> Cloning the old one onto the new will downgrade the OS, and the new one
> may not even be capable of booting Tiger.  Migration Assistant will do
> exactly what he needs.

Makes sense. Thanks.

By the way, just to update anyone still reading this thread. I had
originally mentioned that I wanted to move my current MAIN mac to a NEW
mac, and then bring over one user from my OTHER mac. Since I don't yet
have the new Mac, it dawned on me, why wait to move the user from the
OTHER machine over? So, I moved over the one other user (on my OTHER
machine) which happened to be my father's account onto my current MAIN
mac now. I used Migration Assistant and all seemed to go well. (I
figure when I get the NEW mac, I can just use the initial setup's
option to migrate stuff from another machine to move over ALL my
current users...to the new machine.)

There was one oddity that I can't quite explain. I used Migration
Assistant, I used a firewire cable, rebooted the OTHER mac holding down
the 'T' key, got the Firewire symbol on its screen, and the OTHER mac
drive appeared on my main machine (running M.A.). The oddity was that I
got an error message saying that the user that I wanted to transfer (my
father's account) on the OTHER mac already existed on my machine (and
it did NOT). So, I chose to replace the supposedly existing user on my
machine and the software told me that it would archive in a deleted
user folder the old info. Sounded OK to me, so I clicked GO FOR IT (or
whatever.) End result...it did what I wanted, it moved over my father's
account onto my computer, and created a  Deleted Users folder but with
nothing in it. So, the behavior was a little different than I was
expecting, but it DID seem to work fine.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in to help.

In article <270220081818427274%william@wjoiaspois.com>,
 Will <william@wjoiaspois.com> wrote:

> > 
> > The old Mac is running Tiger, the new one will have Leopard instead.
> > Cloning the old one onto the new will downgrade the OS, and the new one
> > may not even be capable of booting Tiger.  Migration Assistant will do
> > exactly what he needs.
> 
> Makes sense. Thanks.
> 
> By the way, just to update anyone still reading this thread. I had
> originally mentioned that I wanted to move my current MAIN mac to a NEW
> mac, and then bring over one user from my OTHER mac. Since I don't yet
> have the new Mac, it dawned on me, why wait to move the user from the
> OTHER machine over? So, I moved over the one other user (on my OTHER
> machine) which happened to be my father's account onto my current MAIN
> mac now. I used Migration Assistant and all seemed to go well. (I
> figure when I get the NEW mac, I can just use the initial setup's
> option to migrate stuff from another machine to move over ALL my
> current users...to the new machine.)
> 
> There was one oddity that I can't quite explain. I used Migration
> Assistant, I used a firewire cable, rebooted the OTHER mac holding down
> the 'T' key, got the Firewire symbol on its screen, and the OTHER mac
> drive appeared on my main machine (running M.A.). The oddity was that I
> got an error message saying that the user that I wanted to transfer (my
> father's account) on the OTHER mac already existed on my machine (and
> it did NOT). So, I chose to replace the supposedly existing user on my
> machine and the software told me that it would archive in a deleted
> user folder the old info. Sounded OK to me, so I clicked GO FOR IT (or
> whatever.) End result...it did what I wanted, it moved over my father's
> account onto my computer, and created a  Deleted Users folder but with
> nothing in it. So, the behavior was a little different than I was
> expecting, but it DID seem to work fine.
> 
My *guess* would be that while the two accounts had different short 
names, they probably had the same user ID number (e.g. 501) and that 
triggered the error dialog.  I have several Macs and the same accounts 
on all of them, but I've been careful to keep the user ID numbers the 
same on all machines.  For a variety of reasons, I have found it 
necessary to move user accounts among these machines, but have never 
seen the dialog box you mentioned.

-- 
Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint =  5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3  7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF