Migration Assistant Help

[Frankyette]

Last night, I unwisely decided to try and migrate to my new MBA over WiFi. The results are probably what I get for not consulting Google first.

While migrating, the screen showed no 'time estimation,' so, after about an hour, I figured there was a problem with the WiFi and tried to stop it. Instead of Command + Q to quit Migration Assistant, I was like, "Well, restarting fixes everything!" and proceeded to do that.

Spoiler alert: No, it does not.

Last night, I couldn't get either of them to do anything. The source MBA wouldn't reboot (still not sure what its problem was - it was just sending files?) and the target Mac, when rebooted, showed a silver 'no entry' sign:

http://imgur.com/orarxc0
(Tried putting image into the post, but it didn't want to work. Computers hate me as of late.)

Since then, the source MBA rebooted and was fine. (If anyone has any ideas on why it didn't want to last night, I'd love to hear them.) Old MBA was rebooted and still showed the No Entry symbol. I think it needs to be wiped - what cable(s) do I need? Also, I'm going to be using a Time Machine disk for my next go around the block (which will be whenever I get the target MBA wiped). Will that take as long / cause as much pain? If so, I'll just do it manually.

 

[motrek]

...
Since then, the source MBA rebooted and was fine. (If anyone has any ideas on why it didn't want to last night, I'd love to hear them.) Old MBA was rebooted and still showed the No Entry symbol. I think it needs to be wiped - what cable(s) do I need? Also, I'm going to be using a Time Machine disk for my next go around the block (which will be whenever I get the target MBA wiped). Will that take as long / cause as much pain? If so, I'll just do it manually.

I have always used a shareware program called SuperDuper! for migration. It's a disk cloning program. You can use it to copy your old MBA's drive onto an external drive very easily (faster and more straightforward than Time Machine) and then Migration Assistant can work with the cloned drive. Using this method, I don't think Migration Assistant has ever taken me more than an hour to finish and it gives fairly accurate progress updates along the way.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Last night, I unwisely decided to try and migrate to my new MBA over WiFi. The results are probably what I get for not consulting Google first.

While migrating, the screen showed no 'time estimation,' so, after about an hour, I figured there was a problem with the WiFi and tried to stop it. Instead of Command + Q to quit Migration Assistant, I was like, "Well, restarting fixes everything!" and proceeded to do that.

Spoiler alert: No, it does not.

Last night, I couldn't get either of them to do anything. The source MBA wouldn't reboot (still not sure what its problem was - it was just sending files?) and the target Mac, when rebooted, showed a silver 'no entry' sign:

http://imgur.com/orarxc0
(Tried putting image into the post, but it didn't want to work. Computers hate me as of late.)

Since then, the source MBA rebooted and was fine. (If anyone has any ideas on why it didn't want to last night, I'd love to hear them.) Old MBA was rebooted and still showed the No Entry symbol. I think it needs to be wiped - what cable(s) do I need? Also, I'm going to be using a Time Machine disk for my next go around the block (which will be whenever I get the target MBA wiped). Will that take as long / cause as much pain? If so, I'll just do it manually.

The Prohibitory Sign on the new (target) Mac means the Mac can't find a valid System Folder to boot from. Reinstall OS X - a full wipe is not likely to be needed: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18872

When you do the OS X reinstall, try to connect to the router with an Ethernet cable - Wi-Fi is possible, but much slower. As long as you have that Ethernet cable, you could also use it for Migration Assistant afterwards.

This is a handy reference for anyone trying to interpret startup issues: https://support.apple.com/HT204156

 

[Frankyette]

The Prohibitory Sign on the new (target) Mac means the Mac can't find a valid System Folder to boot from. Reinstall OS X - a full wipe is not likely to be needed: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18872

When you do the OS X reinstall, try to connect to the router with an Ethernet cable - Wi-Fi is possible, but much slower. As long as you have that Ethernet cable, you could also use it for Migration Assistant afterwards.

This is a handy reference for anyone trying to interpret startup issues: https://support.apple.com/HT204156

Thank you so much. Fixing now.