Migrating to new Mac Pro

[danqi]

My new 3.2Ghz Quad-Core will be arriving soon. I will then do a manual migration of my data from my 2006 iMac to the Mac Pro, since I want a fresh start. Is there anything I should look out for? I plan to copy everything in my users folder (except for "Library") and reinstall all applications.

My iMac is running OSX 10.5.8 and the Mac Pro will be running Snow Leopard. Could that discrepancy cause problems during a manual migration of data?

Do you guys know of a good checklist for manual migration?

[Hellhammer]

Use Target Disk Mode (http://www.google.fi/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsupport.apple.com%2Fkb%2Fht1661&ei=i7-QTNaoPM6Rswbco4S1AQ&usg=AFQjCNHtGnZOnTHhAYgaezFqbZc7S4_o5Q) and just drag&drop the folders

[cutterman]

To the OP, that is certainly a safe approach. You may want to consider preserving your ~/Library folder since when you install your apps all your preferences and previous work states will be maintained. This is what I did migrating from a 2007 MP to 2010 and it worked well.

[Garamond]

If you just want to copy everything from your old Mac into a folder on the new Mac Pro, I'd recommend using a network cable for connection onto your old Mac. This way there will be no file permission problems, since you are connecting to the old Mac using login/passw.

I had huge obstacles when just connection via firewire, only half of the files came through because of lack of permissions.

Not sure if you want to do a straight copying of files like this, though.

[danqi]

So you guys don't think there could be issues related to copying from a 10.5.8 system to a Snow Leopard system? And do you know of a good checklist regarding what to copy (e.g. mail folder, etc.)? Thanks!

[Gomff]

If you use the Migration Assistant in the utilities folder, you can check what you want to bring over to your new machine. Just hook up your old machine to your new one via Target Disk Mode as someone else suggested and then run M.A. from your new machine and point it to the targetted disk.

I recently did this with my user account and it worked well without any file permissions problems. It also preserved useful stuff like automatic login details in Firefox and various other similar stuff like software licenses that's a pain to set up again.

Can't answer your question about different OS versions though.

[danqi]

This may be silly, but I don't trust the Migration Assistant.

[mjsmke]

Use Target Disk Mode (http://www.google.fi/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsupport.apple.com%2Fkb%2Fht1661&ei=i7-QTNaoPM6Rswbco4S1AQ&usg=AFQjCNHtGnZOnTHhAYgaezFqbZc7S4_o5Q) and just drag&drop the folders

From experience this is the safest way. If you want to transfer your user setting too then you could use a time machine backup?

[Hellhammer]

From experience this is the safest way. If you want to transfer your user setting too then you could use a time machine backup?

If you want to transfer settings as well, then you can use Migration Assistant. You can either use a TM backup or just connect the computers via FireWire or Ethernet

[Bernard SG]

This may be silly, but I don't trust the Migration Assistant.

Why not?
Personally I had no problems with it.