Migration assistant hangs to 1:17 left

I've transferred the contents of my old iMac to the new one. I use Firewire cable, and the old Mac is in firewire slave state (?).

I let the migration assistant run overnight, since it estimated the transfer to take an end before I wake up. When I did, I checked its state, it told 1 hr 17 minutes left. Now after 3 hours it still hasn't changed its mind.

Does it make any sense to wait anymore? Something else worth trying?

Did you make a Time Machine backup of the old iMac? Using Time Machine to transfer your data, applications, settings, and so forth is a better way to get everything on the new machine rather than using the Migration Assistant.

I just recently transferred everything from our old MacBook over to a new iMac using Time Machine. The time it took to do the transfer was around 30 minutes.

chscag said:

Did you make a Time Machine backup of the old iMac? Using Time Machine to transfer your data, applications, settings, and so forth is a better way to get everything on the new machine rather than using the Migration Assistant.

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I agree fully. The reason why I had difficulties was that I used the target machine during the transfer - I think. The positive side of it is that I ended up doing a fresh install, which is a better starting point. I have too much rubbish on my comp which has been hanging there for years.