New iMac Woes

Barks

Barks

Barks

Soldato
Joined
20 Jul 2008
Posts
4,512
Problem: Trying to migrate from an old iMac to a new iMac, specifically 2 profiles so that the new iMac has 2 profiles and the source iMac has 1 remaining profile.

Solution: Migration Assistant, what a fantastic procedure right?

Unfortunately MA is the possibly the worst example of software engineering I have ever encountered. It won't work with my Time Machine backup, over Lan, over Wi-Fi, via Firewire. I've tried everything and spent literally all day reading guides but cannot get it to work. Type it in Google and you won't have to go far to realise it is utterly hopeless and riddled with bugs.

I'm now doing a full restore from Time Machine onto my new iMac and will then erase the user I don't want. However in the list the last full backup shown is from October! Does this mean it is in the process of putting an October version of my source iMac onto the new one, or will it restore the source iMac as I last backed it up this morning?
 
I'll see if this Time Machine backup dated from October restores the backup properly as completed this morning.

The whole thing is completely unacceptable. How can Time Machine work so well when you want to grab an old file deleted by accident yet it's completely and utterly useless at doing a full restore?
 
Nope. Low and be*******hold it has restored a version of the iMac from October 2013.

Apple really are a load of turd.

Really angry.
 
Oh great, now I seem to have erased the recovery partition and it's having to do an internet reset via LAN.

Mr Bell - I should have stopped what I was doing and taken your advice on the fresh start. What I've witnessed today (apart from a day of my life wasted) is a company like Apple making a simple process such as backing up impossible through trying to implement simplicity. You literally have no say in how it does anything, everything is fully automatic and it just doesn't work.
 
I don't ever trust the "solutions" that Apple provide. Anything from syncing to migrating, I'd rather do it all manually.

For migrating accounts and machines I use Carbon Copy Cloner to write them to an external drive, then write them back on the new drive.
 
I've learnt my lesson mate.

I think I'll shell out for CCC and do my backups manually from now on. That Time Machine is clearly utterly useless for doing a full restore from.
 
It's strange you have this issue recently swell. Till about last week TimeMachine restores worked fine for me every time I used for a new machine, then suddenly last week they just wouldn't work properly!

Decided to just buy CCC...
 
I heard somewhere that time machine backups are very prone to corruption, not sure how legit that info is though. I do manual backups and use the backup service Crashplan.
 
I've seen some horrible PC problems in my time and nothing has filled me with rage like this before.

It's just too simplistic, you have no control over how it does anything, you can't just leave it for a few hours like on a Windows PC because something will and does go wrong.

If I ever buy an Apple product again I'm taking it to the store and they can bloody do it for me.
 
Does Crashplan just install as an App and run in the background?

I actually use Drop Box for all my crucial files but I have hundreds of gigabytes of photos from the last 15 years and I probably need them backed up off-site just in case of a burglary or something.
 
Barks said:
Does Crashplan just install as an App and run in the background?

I actually use Drop Box for all my crucial files but I have hundreds of gigabytes of photos from the last 15 years and I probably need them backed up off-site just in case of a burglary or something.
Click to expand...

Yup, exactly that. It's pretty cheap too IIRC. £250 for 10 machines for 4 years!
 
Not wishing to be rude but it sounds a lot more like user error than a problem with Apples MA.

For example: OP restores a backup with the latest showing as October - Acts surprised when backup is actually from October. Then deletes recovery partition.

It's always easier to blame something else though :)
 
uniQ said:
Not wishing to be rude but it sounds a lot more like user error than a problem with Apples MA.

For example: OP restores a backup with the latest showing as October - Acts surprised when backup is actually from October. Then deletes recovery partition.

It's always easier to blame something else though :)
Click to expand...

This.
 
Boot to fresh install of Mavericks (or whatever the version of OS X is at the time), chose not to use Migration Assistant. Create account, restore from Time Machine backup what is needed - I normally restore user data (documents, settings) but not Apps.

I've done this a bucket load and never had a problem. The only time I have seen Time Machine have an issue is when it got in a mess about the hard links it had created. Formatted drive and then backed up again with TM.

Of course I have other backups rather than just the Time Machine one.

Question, how did you manage to delete the restore partition?
 
Time Machine is rubbish, but Migration Assistant is superb for bringing in Applications and User accounts from another Mac or a cloned copy of such. I have used it 100s of times, I used time machine <5 times and vowed never to again.
 
uniQ said:
Not wishing to be rude but it sounds a lot more like user error than a problem with Apples MA.

For example: OP restores a backup with the latest showing as October - Acts surprised when backup is actually from October. Then deletes recovery partition.

It's always easier to blame something else though :)
Click to expand...

OP was unbelievably stressed out after wasting a day trying to solve the problem so yes you are right! :D

I am entirely in my right to blame Time Machine though because it doesn't work and there's a plethora of people on the Internet suffering exactly the same problems with Migration Assistant and Time Machine. They don't work.

Also if anything removing options from the user in an attempt to simplify everything takes the blame away from the operator.
 
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