How to transfer from old PB G4 to new MBP?

[sprtnbsblplya]

I am currently using a 15.2" Powerbook G4 Hi-Res, and am replacing it with a new 15" MBP the second it gets here from California.

Is there any way that I can connect my Powerbook to the MBP and transfer everything over to it, so that when done the MBP will look and feel just like my old PB?
I don't want to do just a simple file transfer of documents and such, I want the new computer to be identically set up to the old one.

I also have a 2.5" external firewire 320gb HD that I have been using to Time Machine the PB, so if that will help in the process that would be useful as well.

Thanks!

 

[Makosuke]

Sounds like you've already got 10.5 installed, which means yes, it's very, very easy.

When you turn on the new MBP the setup process will ask you if you want to transfer data from an old Mac. Say yes, and it'll walk you through using either firewire target disk mode or a network connection to transfer files and settings. It will transfer pretty much everything, and you should feel right at home when you log in for the first time.

The only exception are apps with a bunch of stuff installed at low levels, primarily Adobe Creative Suite--that's always required a reinstall for me. Actually, I tend to just transfer the user and network settings, as that's all that's really important for most setups, and it'll have your workspace looking exactly as it should once you reinstall any apps you need (which is good, because it'll get you latest versions if you weren't fully up to date).

Also: I recently tried the network version for the first time and was shocked at how smoothly it worked.

 

[sprtnbsblplya]

Hmm, after reading your post now I'm debating if I want to do it the automatic way or go through each piece one-by-one now.

I have quite a bit of intensive software on the PB G4, Photoshop CS3 Extended for analysis, Final Cut Express for recording off the microscope, ChemBioDraw Ultra v11.0 for homework and studying, Mathematica 6 for homework, Office '04 and iLife (some version), as well as some small games like Starcraft and Warcraft III installed on it, and some astronomy software for personal use away from homework, we all gotta take a break from responsibility sometimes 😉.

The whole reason I wanted to do the automatic route was all of this software took an entire afternoon to setup on the PB G4, and I have a lot of deadlines to meet this month and I didn't feel like losing an entire afternoon. Now I'm wondering if I should just do it all properly on the new MBP so I can guarantee it will all work perfectly w/o any flaws.

 

[Makosuke]

Yeah, given that setup I think it's honestly worth the time to reinstall everything; the automatic transfer MIGHT work just fine, but given the potential for glitches down the line it seems like somewhat foolish economy.

Now, you should still DEFINITELY use the automatic transfer utility to transfer your user settings--there is little if any benefit to not doing that, since it's pretty much just copying your entire home folder over and setting up the account on the machine for you. If anything, I've had more problems with manual transfer (usually permissions glitches) of user files.

When you run the migration assistant it'll give you the option to select what to transfer--just uncheck everything but user files and you should be ok. If you've got a bunch of stuff in your dock this way will also serve as somewhat of a reminder of what you need, since the icons of stuff not on the system will show as ? until you install the software.

I also didn't realize Mathematica 6 ran on 10.5; good to know. In fact, a lot of those scientific packages (Mathematica, Matlab, Comsol) have weird installation systems that could get screwed up by transferring instead of reinstalling.

 

[blinkie]

I'd advise caution. I recently tried the automatic transfer from my old G4 to my new macbook and is wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped, with the transfer stalling after about half an hour and not knowing what had got through, I ended up doing most of it manually.

 

[BobZune]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0 has some good hints on the topic.