Time Machine Works, Part 1: Migration Assistant Chronicles

Posted August 4th, 2008 by Warren

My last post was discussing my hesitations on buying a new iMac 24 inch 3.06ghz. Apple’s sextastic hardware wooed me into buying the mother of all iMacs. The unboxing of an Apple product is almost a ritualistic ceremony. The packaging is so meticulously done, you almost want to save it (on one occasion, I actually did). Setting it up was simple, as expected:

  1. Unwrap the iMac, plug in the power cable.
  2. Plug in keyboard and mouse.
  3. Look amazed at how easy that was.

Typically, one would simply hit the power button and in 15 minutes be browsing on the net. However, I have a MacBook and I have no interest in reinstalling the 50 or so applications all over again. As well as setting up application settings, email accounts, instant messenger accounts, etc… So I thought. *I wonder if I could just hook up my Time Machine backup drive and migrate everything saved on my MacBook.* I decided to research this on the web. I looked at my calendar and verified that I was free all Sunday for damage control.

Starting out as a PC Enthusiast, I’m used to things working “in theory,” but not in practice. I checked out this link on Apple’s website, and it seemed to be a pretty straight forward process. Therefore, I gave it a shot.

Steps to migrating Time Machine backup on an old machine to a new machine

  1. Make sure to have your source computer backed up on the time machine drive.
  2. Connect drive to new computer.
  3. Go through the cool intro video (hey, it is cool!).
  4. Select Time Machine Migration Assistant
  5. It should find all Time Machine backups connected to your computer. Select the appropriate drive.
  6. Check all the boxes displaying the information categories you are restoring.(applications, home folder, etc…). The “Calculating size” process might take a while (mine did), so be patient.
  7. Everything from here on out should be easy enough.

After the restoration process was over, everything worked. I mean everything. All my applications worked. All information was imported over. You might say “Well, duh, Apple said it works seamlessly.” But remember, I come from a PC world, so I just assumed I would have applications that didn’t launch or some kind of spinning beach ball of death explosion on my screen. It didnt happen. Everything worked as organized. Tomorrow, I’ll be continuing my log on the iMac experience.


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