Selling Up .. Now im stuck! :(

Daniel97 said:

Bit stuck guys!

Im selling my MBA.

Im buying a Mac Mini for my TV & an iPad instead.

How on eff do i transfer everything.

The air is going tomorrow the mini wont be here until Saturday.

Plug in a USB drive to the macbook air and back up via timemachine? Carbon clone copy?

After its backed up how do i then wipe the machine and put a new user on there ready for the new person?

Thanks all

Click to expand...

I would use Carbon Copy Cloner. First partition the USB drive GUID partition scheme HFS+. Then have CCC make a bootable copy of what's on your MBA. Next you boot while holding Option and make sure everything is still there when you boot from the external drive. This leaves you with only one copy of everything so if you want a little more safety you can... Get a second USB drive and create a FRESH BRAND NEW TIME MACHINE BACKUP to the second drive. Relying on a TM backup that has been running for months might land you with a nasty surprise if the backup somehow got corrupted. I've had this happen more than twice (backing up over wifi) so while you are backing up locally, it's remote but it's still a real possibility. The time to find out your data is gone is NOT after you sold your MBA.

Another option is to ask the buyer of the MBA for a couple of extra days so you can do a direct migration from the MBA to the new Mini.

Lastly, you could use crashplan to back up either to an external drive or their servers on the internet (for a paid account). This takes a while depending on how much you are backing up.

The bottom line is that by waiting until the day before you have to get rid of your MBA, you have waited too long and your options to make a good backup are limited. DO NOT rely solely on one kind of backup, especially if it's Time Machine.

Daniel97 said:

So far i have a USB drive.

Partition into 2

1 partition is a CCC backup .. dont know if its bootable though?

2nd partition is a fresh time machine back up

is this sufficient?

If yes how do i then wipe the mac and then how do i transfer contents to the new mac ..

Click to expand...

Your plan can work but it has the weakness that all your stuff is tied to one physical device that if damaged takes all your data with it.

Start by making the drive GUID partition scheme then create two HFS+ partitions. One for Time Machine and one for the CCC backup. The CCC backup partition doesn't need to be as big as your Macintosh HD as a lot of log files and other cruft are not copied by CCC.

You can then make a fresh new TM backup to the second partition along with a bootable clone using CCC. At this point you can test the bootable clone by holding option while your MBA is booting with your USB drive plugged in.

Once you're convinced you have at least 2 backups that work, you can go ahead and wipe your MBA. There are several ways to do this. One is to do a "wipe and install" and simply not migrate any data. Another is to create a new admin account, then delete your old home folder. This leaves 3rd party applications and other cruft lying around but it is the fastest way to wipe a Mac.

When your new machine arrives, you can plug in your USB HDD and "migrate" from your fresh TM backup. If something goes wrong, you also have the bootable CCC clone sitting there on the same drive and you can either migrate from that or boot from it on your new machine.

Keep in mind that USB drives cost less than $90 and it's well worth having an independent second backup of all your stuff if you still intend to allow the MBA to go before you have the new mini in your hands.

If you only have a few gig of files that you "really care about", take the time to copy them up to a dropbox or box.net online folder so they are backed up a second time. Running a "fresh" TM backup can take 6 hours or more depending on how much you are backing up. Running a CCC clone can take a few hours as well. Uploading several gig of files to box.net or another online backup site can also take several hours depending on your internet connection. Bottom line: Get started now if you still intend to let that MBA go as of tomorrow!

Daniel97 said:

Okay i have done all you said except i don't know what partition my drives are?

GUID?

All i know is i went into disk utility and have 2 partitions of 120GB that are Mac OS journaled.

One has a complete CCC & one has a TM.

I have a 2nd USB HD that i have been lent that i shall do the exact same with. Partition into 2 and make a CCC & a TM.

Is this correct?

Click to expand...

When you plug in the second drive, go in Disk Utility and partition it. If it's already HFS+, take a look at the options and make sure it's GUID partition scheme which is needed if you want to boot from the thing. You can tell pretty quick if you reboot with the first drive you made plugged in and hold option. If it shows up on the list of boot devices, you are good to go should you ever decide you want to boot from the drive for any reason.

With 2 drives, I would have made one CCC and one Time Machine rather than putting both things on both drives. If you repeat the process of the first drive you will now have 4 backups (on 2 devices).

When it comes to backup, more is (almost always) better. It sounds like you are on the right track. Here's another thing I thought of. After Time Machine quits backing up, you can use the unused space to store regular files. You could copy your Documents folder to the same drive you used for a TM backup if there's enough room, thus giving yourself yet another backup of your documents.

Once your new machine arrives, I suggest you try migrating from one of the fresh TM backups you made today. Only if that doesn't succeed should you think about booting from, migrating from or copying from one of the CCC clones you made.