User folder questions...

[Zh2]

Hi,

Stumped here. Any input will be gratefully received...

New Mac arrived at friend's house. Decided not to use migration assistant.

I set up the new Mac then tried to copy across the old user folder to new machine. The new machine is not seeing the old user folder.

I suspect that this is because I already had a user / home folder.

How can I make it so that all the old user folder, from the old machine, is useable on the new machine please?

Thanks in advance and regards.

Z

 

[talmy]

You should create the accounts on the new system first, move all the files/folders over, and then (probably) correct all the file permissions which will be wrong.

But the easiest method is to reinstall Lion and then use Migration Assistant. That's what it's there for.

 

[Zh2]

Hi,

I am aware of that. Thank you. The reason I have decided against using Migration Assistant is that it has created more problems than it has solved here recently.

Is there anything else I can do before I have to start over?

Thanks again and regards once more.

Z

 

[talmy]

You have to set up an account before the user folder will be recognized. I'll assume you already have an administrator account set up that isn't the user account you want to move. I'd suggest renaming the user folder, say "Z", to some arbitrary name that isn't the user name, say "foo". You can do this in terminal with sudo mv /Users/Z /Users/foo

Then create the new user account, "Z". With Users&Groups unlocked, option-click on the user name and select Advanced Options. Notice the User ID, let's call it "N". Go back to terminal and remove the new user folder sudo rm -Rf /Users/Z
then rename the temporary folder sudo mv /Users/foo /Users/Z
Then change the ownership of the files: chown -R /Users/Z N

 

[Zh2]

Excellent!

Thank you!

Regards.

Z.