Migration Assistant question

[Biffarama]

Hi all,

I'm new to the Mac, was just given a 2011-era 27-inch iMac. Created my admin account and upgraded to Yosemite last night. All is good so far.

Would like to move data from my Windows 7 machine to this iMac, emails, photos, videos, music, docs, etc. Found info on here about using the Migration Assistant to make this happen. So I started the process but as I did some further reading I saw that the Assistant creates a new account on the iMac when the data is moved. I don't want a new account created because I just spent hours setting up my account on the iMac. So, I have two questions:

1. Is it possible to avoid creating the new account during this process?
2. If not, is there a way of moving my data over into my existing account easily?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Troy

 

[chscag]

No way to avoid it if you have already created an account on your Mac. We advise folks who have a new Mac and wish to migrate data from a PC or another Mac not to create an account on the Mac otherwise you'll wind up with two accounts.

You can move your data one of two ways: 1. Use the Windows Migration Assistant and afterward move the data from the new account to your already created account. 2. Move your data manually.

I recommend moving the data manually. You can't migrate programs anyway, so the only other things you're really concerned with is: Photos, Music, certain documents, and possibly email. Those can be moved without any difficulty.

 

[chas_m]

As Charlie says, most things can be moved over manually very straightforwardly. Email can be a bit tricky depending on what client you used for email and how it is stored -- an IMAP Gmail account? No problem. A MS Office Outlook account with all mailed stored locally? Way trickier. Likewise, contacts and calendar data.

You said it took you "hours" to create your account, but I can't think why -- it's usually a very quick process. Maybe if you give us some details on what you had to do that took so long, we might be able to find a way for you to use Migration Assistant to set up the new account and then more easily bring the few things your actual User account had over to the new account fairly painlessly.

For example, if you spent those hours installing programs, that's not an issue -- the apps will all still be available in the second account too.

 

[S.SubZero]

• Is it possible to avoid creating the new account during this process?
• If not, is there a way of moving my data over into my existing account easily?

The migration assistant is very 'basic' with regards to Windows. It will just look for "Pictures" and copy that folder to /Users/whoever/Pictures. Repeat for the other file storage directories like Music, Videos (/Users/whoever/Movies), etc.

There is nothing stopping you from doing this yourself. Just plug the drive in and copy the stuff.

 

[Biffarama]

OK, thanks for your replies, I have a couple more questions.

The external drive I have is a LaCie Cloudbox and the only connection it has is Ethernet, no USB or FireWire. Is it possible to connect to the iMac directly by Ethernet cable?

If so, would I use Finder to move the data? Where would I copy the files to exactly?

Thanks

 

[S.SubZero]

If so, would I use Finder to move the data? Where would I copy the files to exactly?

Your NAS box, you would just copy your entire Windows profile to it. Then you can simply download it to your Mac, folder by folder.

As far as "exactly" where to copy them.. OK, you want to pay close attention. You might want to grab a pen, paper, and your seat.

The CUsers\whoever\Desktop\ contents go to... watch closely..
/Users/whoever/Desktop

The CUsers\whoever\Documents\ contents goes to.. this may be a shock, but..
/Users/whoever/Documents

If I'm going too fast let me know. I can break this up into multiple posts if needed.

/sarcasm off

This is what you do. Just copy the files from "Users\whoever\<folder>" to "/Users/whoever/<folder>." As I said earlier on Windows they have a Videos folder, which OS X calls Movies. Same difference.

You don't care about hidden files since OS X can't use them. All you care about is the core contents of said folders. If OS X has no equivalent (ie. 'Links') then don't bother copying it since OS X can't use it.