MBP to MBP help please

[brvheart]

Hello all -

I will try to keep this as short as possible -

I am rather new to Mac (about a year or so) I bought a 15.4" MBP and fell in love with it. I never thought that I would get another, but after a year, I found myself wanting a new MBP - 17" this time....so my home machine took a dump (bye bye to windows yay!!) so I replaced it with a brand new 2.6 17"MBP. I got home, fired it up, let the battery charge and setup my Wireless "N" WAP, no worries . So then I chose the Migration assistant to help copy all my files from the 15.4MBP to the new 17" so that I would have everything on both Macs. I chose to go over my new wireless N after making sure that it all worked the way it should. I knew that transferring 250GB would take a long time, but since I was not going to need either Mac for a few days, I wanted to test the abilities of the N as well as the Migration tool. It got most of the way done with no problem, then died, the old mac stopped responding. So I canceled it and thought I would just use FW between the two...only I did not check to see if the new MBP had FW - it does not....so I thought well I will buy a drive - so I get a Seagate 1.5TB drive, partition it to 2 690ish partions using Journal Mac formatting - I hope that is what I was supposed to use I am still a bit confused on all the options that were offered and did not get a chance to read about it.

So during formatting it asked if I wanted to use TimeMachine and I thought sure so I did then I went in to TM and wanted to tell it what to backup...I had no options to choose users etc - that is question one - where do I change those options on what I want to backup with TM?

Question 2 - is TM the best way to transfer all my files, pictures and music to the new mac so that they are in both spots?

If not how should I go about copying the files from the old MBP to the new one?

Sorry for the long winded and newb questions I have been searching and reading all day and just figured that I would ask all you experts to get the easiest way to get a copy from one place to the other.

Thank you in advanced -

Brvheart

 

[Tomorrow]

I did not check to see if the new MBP had FW - it does not....

Your new MBP does have Firewire, it's Firewire 800. It has a different outlet on the computer, you'll need to either get an adapter or get a different cable. But it does have Firewire.

 

[brvheart]

Your new MBP does have Firewire, it's Firewire 800. It has a different outlet on the computer, you'll need to either get an adapter or get a different cable. But it does have Firewire.

Yep, just found that out after posting the first post - thanks for helping me clear that up though

 

[Consultant]

Ethernet would also work. Try with migration Assistance again.

Or get a firewire 800 cable or firewire 800 to 400 cable if you have a MBP with only firewire 400.

 

[brvheart]

Ethernet would also work. Try with migration Assistance again.

Or get a firewire 800 cable or firewire 800 to 400 cable if you have a MBP with only firewire 400.

thank you

I believe the prior MBP (older style right before the current one) only has 400, so I will see if I can get a 800 to 400 cable

 

[Makosuke]

Just to follow up on that Ethernet comment, connecting the two directly with a good ethernet cable (I think they will auto-negotiate so don't need crossover) or through a gigabit router will let you transfer data between them about an order of magnitude faster than n wireless. Probably close in speed to FW400, so worth it.

Second, I'm pretty sure that the previous (last before Unibody) MBP 15" does have a FW800 port on it. In fact, every 15" but the very first early-2006 "Core Duo" model does, according to EveryMac.

Third, here's what I would do (and in fact have done many times) when I can't get a direct connection working for one reason or another, since you already have an external drive:

1) Connect the external to the old MBP.
2) Download Carbon Copy Cloner.
3) Clone the entire boot drive from the old computer to a partition on the external drive.
4) Disconnect the external and connect it to the new MBP.
5) Fire up Migration Assistant and point it to the cloned partition on the external; it will recognize this as an importable install, and should grab all your previous settings and data correctly.

Again, this has worked for me on a number of occasions.

 

[madog]

thank you

I believe the prior MBP (older style right before the current one) only has 400, so I will see if I can get a 800 to 400 cable

The 2008 model MBP's, Early and Late, have FW 800 and 400. In fact, I believe most, if not all MBP's have had both since it's been available; after that the regular MB's have just had 400.

Only 10 years later or so have they released their first machine without FW, the UniBody MB.

edit: Either way you're right in that you would have at least 400 if you're not sure, but it does have 800.

P.S. Damn you, Makosuke for beating me!

 

[brvheart]

Just to follow up on that Ethernet comment, connecting the two directly with a good ethernet cable (I think they will auto-negotiate so don't need crossover) or through a gigabit router will let you transfer data between them about an order of magnitude faster than n wireless. Probably close in speed to FW400, so worth it.

Second, I'm pretty sure that the previous (last before Unibody) MBP 15" does have a FW800 port on it. In fact, every 15" but the very first early-2006 "Core Duo" model does, according to EveryMac.

Third, here's what I would do (and in fact have done many times) when I can't get a direct connection working for one reason or another, since you already have an external drive:

1) Connect the external to the old MBP.
2) Download Carbon Copy Cloner.
3) Clone the entire boot drive from the old computer to a partition on the external drive.
4) Disconnect the external and connect it to the new MBP.
5) Fire up Migration Assistant and point it to the cloned partition on the external; it will recognize this as an importable install, and should grab all your previous settings and data correctly.

Again, this has worked for me on a number of occasions.

The 2008 model MBP's, Early and Late, have FW 800 and 400. In fact, I believe most, if not all MBP's have had both since it's been available; after that the regular MB's have just had 400.

Only 10 years later or so have they released their first machine without FW, the UniBody MB.

edit: Either way you're right in that you would have at least 400 if you're not sure, but it does have 800.

P.S. Damn you, Makosuke for beating me!

you both are right - it does have a FW800 on it - hand my DA award for that one, but I think that I am going to try to the CCC - will that infact transfer everything from apps, settings, user accounts and files such as itunes lib, iphoto info etc?

And thank you all for not flaming me when asking stupid new questions - I have been warped by years of Windows and am learning to simplify my thinking and world

 

[Makosuke]

... I think that I am going to try to the CCC - will that infact transfer everything from apps, settings, user accounts and files such as itunes lib, iphoto info etc?

CCC will create an exact copy of one partition on another--you can boot from the cloned partition and it should appear identical to the one you started with (that's the whole point, and it works quite well for that). Done it countless times when replacing a drive with a newer, larger one.

Now, when you then point Migration Assistant at this drive, it'll ask you what you want to migrate--user settings, network settings, applications, etc. I generally only migrate the users and network settings, since that's the main difficulty--I prefer to reinstall my apps from scratch to make sure I have the latest version of everything (also to cull out things I'm not using any more). In some situations (mostly Adobe and its monster installers) migrated apps may need to be reinstalled to work correctly, though this is admittedly uncommon.

In theory, in fact, since this is a completely fresh MBP and is, I assume, running a stock 10.5.6 (rather than one of the custom interim builds that very new hardware runs until the first 10.x.x update is released), you could even wipe the new machine's drive and clone your previous OS install right onto the MPB 17" and it would just work.

That said, don't do it--Migration Assistant is good at what it does, and you'll be less likely to chew something up using it than trying to clone another OS install over.