Follow-up to 'Use Time Machine to Transfer One Drive to Another?', here:

[forums.macresource.com]

Repeating question I posed yesterday on the former thread:

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Well, I finally got the Mac Mini. Tried using Migration Assistant on the active SSD (it has an HDD and an SSD) from my wife's iMac Time Machine backup, but got some kind of mess with user IDs.

So I wiped the SSD clean, booting from the HDD. Now I'm trying Migration Assistant over the wired Ethernet network from the iMac to the Mini. But MA isn't giving me the option of which drive should be the target; it seems to assume that the boot drive must be the target.

Is there a way to pick the erased SSD to migrate to?

/Mr Lynn

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Migration Assistant will migrate to the boot drive that it's running from.

Install an OS on the SSD, boot to the SSD and during initial setup, the Setup Assistant (which is basically the Migration Assistant being run at initial setup) will prompt you and you can then opt to restore from a backup, another Mac, or an external drive.

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[support.apple.com]

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btfc
[support.apple.com]

Downloaded an OS 10.12 installer (same OS as the iMac is using). But the installer won't let me install on the SSD. The Installer skips over the Destination page.

The SSD is not locked; I can read and write (tested with document).

What's up with that?

/Mr Lynn

EDIT: The drives in the Mini are formatted APSF, not Mac OS Extended. Apparently APSF wants 10.13 or higher. Disk Utility on the HDD doesn't give me the OS Extended option. So I guess I'll have to try 10.13 (High Sierra) and hope that doesn't mess up the apps, etc. migrated from 10.12. Or else copy over an earlier version of Disk Utility?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2021 02:55PM by mrlynn.

Check format and partition scheme with Disk Utility. Erase/Reformat as necessary.


[eshop.macsales.com]

Carbon Copy?

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btfc
Check format and partition scheme with Disk Utility. Erase/Reformat as necessary.


[eshop.macsales.com]

Ah, so I can partition most of the disk and format it to MacOS Extended (Journaled). Didn't know that; thanks. Now I can try installing Sierra.

/Mr Lynn

EDIT: Nope; SSD MacOS Extd partition does not show up as an drive option for the installer (yes, it's on the desktop).

And, BTW, Apple old-OS install page sends me to the App Store for 10.13 (High Sierra), and there I get an interesting message: "This copy of the 'Install MacOS' application is too old to be opened on this version of the MacOS." The HDD boot drive is running 10.14 (Mojave).



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2021 04:32PM by mrlynn.

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RE:up
Carbon Copy?

Well, I have SuperDuper, so I guess I can try that, now that I've turned the SSD into an OS-extd drive.

/Mr Lynn

Is there any reason not to erase the SSD as GUID/APFS and install Mojave?

macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) is no longer supported by Apple and recent applications often require Mojave as the minimum OS.

Are you running any really old apps that may not work under Mojave?

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Sarcany
Is there any reason not to erase the SSD as GUID/APFS and install Mojave?

macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) is no longer supported by Apple and recent applications often require Mojave as the minimum OS.

Are you running any really old apps that may not work under Mojave?

Mainly she has a lot of legacy MS Word documents that she needs to reference occasionally. The latest version I have is Office:Mac2011, which I have been able to install on my MBAir running Mojave, so maybe that'll work (but was iffy trying to install on another machine). I was hoping to just transfer over applications and documents and users without a lot of folderol.

The previous owner had Mojave installed; I tried to restore her iMac drive from a TM backup to the SSD, but as I mentioned earlier, ended up with conflicts of various types.

My original plan, if I got her a replacement iMac, was to just pull the drive out of hers, and use it as an external. Could still do that with the Mini, but since it had the SSD already in it, I thought I'd just transfer to that. Turns out it's more trouble than I anticipated.

Yeah, maybe reformat APFS and install Mojave and just migrate data and users. If MS Word fails to install, I could just give her OpenOffice. . .

/Mr Lynn

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mrlynn
My original plan, if I got her a replacement iMac, was to just pull the drive out of hers, and use it as an external. Could still do that with the Mini, but since it had the SSD already in it, I thought I'd just transfer to that...

For now, the iMac is not bootable to a GUI? Or will it get you logged in and able to use it while safe-booted?

If you can still get into the iMac, I might do it this way: Clone to an external hard drive from the iMac using Carbon Copy Cloner; Boot the Mac mini to the external hard drive; Erase the internal SSD as GUID/Mac OS Extended (Journaled); Clone from the external hard drive to the internal SSD on the mini.

...Then wipe the external drive and redeploy it as your new Time Machine drive for the mini.

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Well, I just reformatted the Mini's SSD to APSF and am installing Mojave. If I get problems migrating data and users (not applications?), then I'll just do what you said, using SuperDuper! not CCC, as SD! is what I have.

Thanks,

/Mr Lynn

UPDATE: Migration Assistant from old iMac to Mojave installation on Mini SSD worked! OfficeMac:2011 is read-only, which means I'll have to see if I can get it to recognize the key code. Otherwise, most stuff seems to be working. So maybe no need to go to greater lengths.

If I'd done the migration directly from the iMac over Ethernet to start with, instead of using the Time Machine backup, I'd have been much better off, and saved a lot of time.

Oh well; live and loin, I guess. Thanks to all for the advice.

Now I've got to think about updating my own late-2015 iMac, still running Sierra. I need High Sierra to get reports in Money Dance; not sure about going higher at this point. I do use other applications.

/Mr Lynn