Migration without firewire

The high end MacBook 13″ is basically a smaller version of the MacBook Pro 15″, minus the accelerated graphics and the Firewire port. It has a 2.4 GHz Intel Core Duo, a reasonably sized LED back-lit display, a back- lit keyboard, and just about everything else in the bigger brother Pro system.

I was upgrading from a 12″ PowerBook, and I have upgraded many Macs with Firewire in the past, and it has been flawless. Simple start the old machine in Firewire target mode, connect it via Firewire to the new machine, and the migration assistant does the rest. But the 13″ MacBook does not have a Firewire port, so as I started it up, I was eager to see how I was going to accomplish the migration task on this machine. I am sure Apple had something new.

Like previous machines, I was presented with the Welcome video, a few start-up screens, and finally taken to the migration screen. After saying yes to the migrate, I was supplied with some interesting new options I had not seen before.

The first option I was offered was to transfer the data using an Ethernet cable. Except the old Mac does not know how to do this.

No problem, you simply take the included OS-X install DVD that comes with the new MacBook, and you insert it into your old Mac. On the DVD, there is an update to the Migration assistant for OS-X. Installing this on my PowerBook, I was then offered the option of connecting my old machine via Ethernet as well.

I ran and grabbed a Cat5 cable, hooked the two together, and after a short while, they recognized each other. The new machine puts up a screen with a “code” that you type into the old machine, and the transfer starts. In my case, The MacBook spun and spun with a message that it was processing the data, and then presented me with a dialog that said there was a problem with the network, and the other machine could no longer be found. Second, third, fourth, and a final fifth attempt eventually resulted in the same problem.

OK, there is a “Use Airport” button on the same network dialog, so I decided to try that. You can connect either to an existing airport network, or let the Macbook create it’s own network, and have the old machine connect to that. To prevent swamping my home network, I choose the private network option.

The same thing happened again. They look for each other, then a code appears, you enter it into the old machine, and the transfer starts. Again, the cursor spun for a long time and then a dialog appeared again saying there were network problems and the other machine could not be found. Again, two, three, four, and five attempts gave the same results. I guess the network option is not a choice for me.

But wait, there is a third option. You can now migrate from a Time Machine backup. Really? I thought Time Machine backups were encrypted and locked to the hardware of the machine on which they were created. Just how was this going to work? And to make matters worse, I do mot use Time Machine, so I need to make one of these disks.

I went and found one of my USB drives that was large enough, reformatted it with Mas OS Extended and journaled, and connected it to my 12 “PowerBook, assigned it as my Time Machine drive, and started a backup. 8 hours later, I had a full backup on the USB drive.

I moved the drive to my new MacBook, and started the migration assistant again, and selected “use Time Machine backup.” I was not asked for a code this time, but presented with a dialog in which the backup drive appeared. Selecting it, the migration started again. How could this go wrong?

Well, it did. Again, after some spinning of the cursor, the same network dialog appeared telling me there was a network error. Really? A network error from a USB drive restore? This was odd.

Time to call Apple. Sadly, after 15 minutes of going over the same things, they finally said they had no idea why I kept getting that dialog. And I was still without my new machine. But I had an idea. Perhaps there was a file system error on the new machine that causes the error to occur? Got nothing to loose.

I took out the OS-X install DVD and used it to reformat and install OS-X back to the MacBook. Once I got it back to its “factory” state, I tried the migration again. Using the Time Machine disk again, this time it went flawlessly. Within 2 hours, my new machine was fully up and running.

So much for a simple update. But, if you are thinking of updating to a new Macbook without Firewire, keep that Time Machine disk up-to-date and ready. You will need it!