Changing imacs

digitalfailure

digitalfailure

Staff Bog Cleaner 2015
Messages
12,595
Name
Brian
Edit My Images
Yes
Lo all,

I'm looking to change my 24" duo core iMac on snow leopard for a nice shiny 27" on lion when the range refreshes ( hopefully next week)

I've not done this before, so was wondering if there is a way the new mac can ingest all the settings and data off the old mac in one easy go?

It'll need to bring over all my documents, keychain passwords and mail (with server settings etc)

Not fussed about the program's as new versions of cs and lr and office will be installed


So, can it be done or am I going to lose a day to it ?
 
I am pretty sure when you start the new Imac up you can restore from a time machine backup (assuming you use time machine)

When my mate and I both got our new 27 inch imacs he plugged his time machine drive in from his old macbook laptop and had it bring across all his stuff and settings this way.

Looks fairly easy/straightforward but did take quite a while to do.
 
I have a time machine partition on my Drobo , but these things are usually a little bit vague with the details when you press go and then 3 hours later nothing works :runaway:
 
Yep, no problem. There are a couple of ways to do this but my preferred method is this:-

Just put the 2 Macs side by side and connect them with a firewire cable. Start the 24 inch mac while holding the "T" key down to start in target disk mode.

Start the new mac and go through all the stuff until you get the option of transferring your stuff from another mac or another volume. In this case you need to select from another volume. The mac will then show the disk of your old mac which you then select. From this point you just hit transfer and everything will come across.

You may need to reinstall and resetup any printers you've been using, but other than that it'll be exactly how your old mac was.

Depending on how much info you have this could take some hours.
 
Last edited:
That sounds ideal, thanks :)

Re setting a printer up, I got fed up with the epsom printer wasting more ink than it used every time it started or I wanted to use it so I disconnected it a year or so ago :)
 
One thing I forgot is that it's likely you'll need to re-enter serial numbers for a number of programs, normally the Adobe stuff, and you may find that you need to deactivate the Adobe stuff on your old 24-inch before it'll allow you to run them on the new computer. From what I remember Adobe allows 2 activations per serial number.

Basically don't wipe your old machine until your sure that everything is working on the new one, and remember to deactivate the Adobe stuff before you wipe the computer otherwise you'll be at your install limit for those programs. At least this is how it used to be.
 
Is there a way to stop it from installing the old adobe stuff as cs and lr will be new current versions instead of outdated cs4 and lr2

No point in installing those just to remove them
 
Are you installing brand new full versions or upgrades?

In answer to your question yes you can select what applications you bring across. You can select this on the same window where you initiate the transfer. When you see it it'll be fairly obvious how to do it.

To be honest I generally just let it bring everything across and then delete what I don't want later.
 
It will be new versions of cs6 and lr4 and the on one suite as I don't wish to risk messing up any of the programs by updating them.

As long as I can bring across all saved docs and the contents of my mail accounts ( settings and mails) I'm happy, tbh the docs aren't too much of a problem as they're also backed up on my Drobo but it's less shuffling about if it all migrates :D
 
Just bring everything across. If you're installing new adobe products then it shouldn't matter if the previous versions are already installed - I have cs2, 3, and 4 all side by side and it's never been a problem on Mac. You can always remove them later if necessary.

I often migrate people from an old to a new Mac and in virtually every case they've chosen to omit something from the transfer process they're generally back in a week or so saying that they now really need the stuff they omitted, and, oops, they've gone and wiped their old machine.
 
Last edited:
Hey Brian,

Just been watching the liveblogs for WWDC and it doesn't look as though there's a new iMac just yet. I'm thinking I'm going to sell my current-gen iMac to pick up a retina MacBook Pro, so if you are interested in getting the current top-spec iMac at a discount, I can post a link to my for sale thread.

If you would prefer to hold on for the iMac refresh hopefully later this year, I can completely understand that, I just wanted to mention this in case you were thinking about it. I hope it doesn't annoy you me posting this in a discussion about how to migrate between Macs (and I see you've already had some pretty solid advice).

Again, sorry for the off-topic post!

John
 
Hehehe I've already seen it John :D

I was hoping apple would have switched to the ivy bridge chip and a solid state drive, I don't ned massive space as I have a drobo with 000's of gb free :)

As apple have decided to let the iMac stagnate I might review my options and keep the 24" as a editing machine and get a new mbp to play with and shoot tethered to.

Part of the desire to change the machine was because I need to enter this decade with cs6 and lr4 and I don't think my 2.8 duo core 24" will run it very well with just the 4gb so an out with the old and in with the new scenario was planned.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top