Moving to another (used) computer

[Alan Craig]

My wife and I both have MacBooks, currently I have a Pro and she has an Air, both running OS X Lion. We both have complete backups on a Time Capsule.

My wife is about to buy a new Air and I will take over her old one. I believe that setting up her new machine from the TC is straightforward – it’s just one of the setup options. Right?

However I am a little unsure of how I ‘take over’ her old machine. I assume I reload the OS and go through the setup again, but I don’t know exactly how to do this, so any help would be welcomed.

Also, is it possible to estimate how long this takes? Is it worthwhile hardwiring to the TC rather than relying on transfer over the network?

Thanks for any input

Alan

 

[cyber16]

With a full current new time machine, you can boot into the recovery and restore your backup from there, no need to start fresh unless you want
That is if your data backup will fit on the new drive

you may need to remove ownership in the preferences to allow the restore.

Its been awhile myself, I always just used target mode

 

[gavinstubbs09]

Like it was said above, when you get it go into Recovery Mode then select restore from a time machine backup. Then you should be set!

 

[Weaselboy]

My wife and I both have MacBooks, currently I have a Pro and she has an Air, both running OS X Lion. We both have complete backups on a Time Capsule.

My wife is about to buy a new Air and I will take over her old one. I believe that setting up her new machine from the TC is straightforward – it’s just one of the setup options. Right?

When you start the new machine a setup process will run where you sleect language etc... at the end of that it will ask of you want to import from a previous Mac. Tell it yes and point to the TC backup from her old Air. That will bring in her account with all her data. Make sure you do this at setup. Don't make an account first then try to import.

However I am a little unsure of how I ‘take over’ her old machine. I assume I reload the OS and go through the setup again, but I don’t know exactly how to do this, so any help would be welcomed.

The quickest is to use Migration Assistant to bring your account and data in from your TC backup. Login to her account and while there make a new temp admin account (we will delete this later). Now logout of her account and login to the temp admin account. While in the temp account delete her account and data. While still in that temp account launch Migration Assistant and point it to your old TC backup. That will bring in your account and all your data. Once that is done logout of the temp account and login to your account that was imported. Poke around and make sure everything is there, then delete the temp account.

Also, is it possible to estimate how long this takes? Is it worthwhile hardwiring to the TC rather than relying on transfer over the network?

It is really hard to say, if you just have a GB or so of documents it can be done in less than an hour. If you have 80GB of music it can take multiple hours. If you can hard wire ethernet that is definitely much faster and the best way to go.

What I described only has to copy over your data from the TC rather than a fill restore which also copies over the entire OS. For that reason the Migration Assistant process will be much quicker.

 

[Tinknock71]

Boot up in recovery mode, select time machine backup and about 1/2 later (depending on size of drive) computer will be back up and running, I have done this when installing new hard drives and getting new computers very easy to do so don't stress.