Migration Assistant Not Transferring Anything From Time Machine

[disengage0]

Setting up a new machine and attempting to use Migration Assistant to setup based on a Time Machine backup.

The process goes swimmingly -- I go through, select the users and items I want transferred, then begin the transfer of about 90 gigs. The process "completes" in about 30 seconds and says it's successfully done [no way 90 gigs can transfer that fast, so this was the first warning sign].

I log into the migrated account and nothing is there -- no files, settings, nothing. It's just user name and password of the target user with nothing else. I've attempted to redo this several times with the same result.

I've done some searching and can't find any other instance of this problem. If it matters, the Time Machine backup is on a NAS, although Migration Assistant had no problem connecting to the NAS, accessing the backup, and selecting what to transfer. It's very frustrating because OS X claims the migration is complete and successful, so I have no error messages to reference.

 

[Weaselboy]

If it matters, the Time Machine backup is on a NAS

I think that is your problem. Time Machine backed up to a networked drive is in a different format that a local backup. If you made the TM backup to a locally attached drive it will need to be locally (directly) attached to use it with Migration Assistant.

 

[disengage0]

I think that is your problem. Time Machine backed up to a networked drive is in a different format that a local backup. If you made the TM backup to a locally attached drive it will need to be locally (directly) attached to use it with Migration Assistant.

Thanks for your response!

The original backup was made as a networked drive, so it's being accessed in the same form that it was created.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks for your response!

The original backup was made as a networked drive, so it's being accessed in the same form that it was created.

Hmm... should work then. Time Machine requires AFP support. I wonder if your NAS supports AFP? Some don't.

Sometimes the NAS specs won't specifically mention AFP, but they will say "supports Time Machine", so that's a good clue it does support AFP.

 

[disengage0]

Hmm... should work then. Time Machine requires AFP support. I wonder if your NAS supports AFP? Some don't.

Sometimes the NAS specs won't specifically mention AFP, but they will say "supports Time Machine", so that's a good clue it does support AFP.

Good idea -- I checked and it does support AFP (it also has built into tools to configure a Time Machine instance but I checked on the AFP just to be sure).

I'll keep thinking to see if any other ideas come up. I called Apple Care and they weren't very helpful, unfortunately.

 

[Weaselboy]

Good idea -- I checked and it does support AFP (it also has built into tools to configure a Time Machine instance but I checked on the AFP just to be sure).

I'll keep thinking to see if any other ideas come up. I called Apple Care and they weren't very helpful, unfortunately.

Dang... sorry but I am at a loss.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Do you still have the original source drive?
I.E., the computer that has the data from which you created the TM backup?

Why I'm asking:
You could use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to clone the contents of your source drive to a cloned backup.

Then, mount the cloned backup on the new computer.

Then, use either the Setup Assitant or Migration Assitant to migrate your data over.