Migrating from G5 to new Mac Pro

[David Polich]

My new Quad-core Mac Pro arrived today, a week earlier than expected.
Now I'm faced with how to transfer my files from my G5 to the Mac Pro.

I've read a lot of conflicting reports about Migration Assistant, as well
as some outright horror stories. I'm wondering if I should just transfer
files from my backup external drive onto my Mac Pro drives by Ye Olde
Drag and Drop method. I've already decided not to copy applications or
plug-ins from my backup drive...I'd rather just install them all anew on
the MacPro.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated - thanks!

[monkey man]

David, I'm not trusting of any fancy method of migration, and always drag and drop files.

Not sure if this qualifies as advice; I myself don't feel like I know much, but hey, it works and you've the peace of mind that you know what's been transferred and to where. I like that feeling myself.

EDIT: How foolish of me to have forgotten. Congrats on the new, smokin' beastie man! Yay!

[FMiguelez]

.

David, that's a pretty dramatic change! Congrats, BTW. I'm jealous now

Anyway, if I were you, I would copy manually all my DP projects and personal files to whatever drive you will use.

I would instal everything from scratch. Probably a PITA, but you can do it in a couple of days, and your new system would be all fresh and reliable.
Take this chance to document how you instal each app (you'll thank yourself for this down the line).

Migration assistance is useful for office machines, photos, etc., but not for DAWs.
MA will transfer whatever directory anomalies were in the source machine. And since you are going from PPC to Intel, I think it's too much for it.
I mean, if you are not crazy about the idea of installing everything, you could try MA first, just to see what happens, and test thoroughly. But at the first sign of trouble, I'd wipe the drive and do it "the proper" way.

My 2 pesos...

[Dunc]

Hi David
I just went thru the same process myself going from a G5 to a new Mac Pro Quad core. I thought of migration assistant for a while but decided I'd rather bite the bullet and and get fresh installers for all my apps and plugs rather than potentially having old PPC code from my G5 mucking up the works.
After installing all my software I connected the G5 to the Mac Pro with firewire and started the G5 in target disk mode. From there I could cherry pick whichever files I wanted to bring over.
The biggest problem is all the authorizations/serial numbers you have to find to get things rolling again, Not to mention now I have to replace my two UAD1 cards.
It's still an ongoing process after a month but I'm convinced a little pain now will result in a more stable system in the future.

Dunc

[David Polich]

Thanks everyone for the replies. Yeah, I think I'll bypass Migration
Assistant and install all my apps and plugs fresh, and then drag files
I backed up onto my MacPro. Totally correct that migrating from a G5 to
Intel is a receipe for potential trouble.

Time for an "installation party" - two to three days..woohoo!

[monkey man]

I predict dry, scratchy eyes and a little angst...

Enjoy, Dave!

[mhschmieder]

I completely avoided Migration Assistant and did everything by hand, the hard way. Mostly due to the change in architecture going from PPC to Intel, which is fraught with additional perils.

By doing things this way, I became intimately familiar with the few differences that the Intel architecture imposes, with Snow Leopard (vs. Tiger), and with every file on my system (something I'll never be able to do on Windows, even though I've been a software developer on that platform for 18 years).

This gives me huge confidence going forward with the new system. But it did take longer this way. In some cases, I found very good tutorials at Apple's website or through Googling. For instance, importing my Mail had a few glitches but it all worked out in the end.

The only thing I still haven't figured out is why all my keychains now use my admin password; whereas on Tiger, they each had their own password (one for the browser, one for email, and one for everything else). I've searched a lot on the topic, but will search more once I have a spare moment. It somehow seems less secure to me to have all of the keychains, which have their own passwords set up, bypass those in favour of requesting my general admin password.

As for installations, I went to each vendor's site as I didn't trust that my cached installers were the latest and/or Intel-compatible. In a few cases, I had to contact the vendor, and in a few other cases that I documented here, I had to copy the plug-ins directly from my old box (but they work!).

I recommend installing your dongle software as the very first task. For instance, you can go to the PACE website directly to get the latest iLok drivers. Similarly with Steinberg for eLicenser.

[monkey man]

Interesting, Mark. Mail and Safari were the only apps that presented problems for me.

For Mail, I think I had to re-collect a shovel load of legacy messages with a slooow connection, which wasn't great fun.

Safari, for some reason, wouldn't accept my forum and audio site passes; I had to re-register all of them. A pain, but once these two things had been taken care of, all appeared to be fine.

Just wondering, isn't it about time I found out what the heck a keychain is? Seriously!

[David Polich]

I had to delay setting up my new MacPro because I had a project
come in with a tight deadline and decided to finish it on my G5.

So...the installation party begins this weekend! Cover me boys, I'm
goin' in...(puts on protective radiation suit).

Btw, I haven't bothered with Mac Mail or Safari in the last five years.
For the last two big tours I did tech work for, I configured seven
MacBook Pros and installed Firefox on every one of them and didn't
even configure Mac Mail at all. I've never regretted that. It's still
a shite feature, in my opinion, that Apple has never gotten right.
Or Safari, for that matter.

[mhschmieder]

Yeah, Safari sucks big time, in terms of security and lack of refined control, but it's still necessary because a lot of vendors' sites (especially payment sites) only work on Safari.

On my system, I have Safari, Camino, Firefox, and Opera. Opera is once again the best, but I move back and forth between the browsers depending on the type of site and/or task. Opera is first pick for large downloads, for sure, as it gives you the most control. It's also the easiest to set up on a new computer and to pull in settings and bookmarks from another computer or browser. Camino is like Firefox, but more Mac-like with better rendering and fonts (but less support for shortcut keys).

By Mac Mail do you mean Apple Mail? What do you use instead? It sounds like you use webmail then, which is more or less system-agnostic and doesn't require any configuration or importation going to a new computer, since you're leaving your email on a server vs. on your own computer? Are you not using a standalone desktop mail program?

From earlier comments, it sounds like you do depend on Adobe products and Mircosoft Office Suite. I can report that I opened every office document on my new Mac to verify no problems, so no worries there! I opened them in several programs, with no issues.

Mail was the hardest task I did, other than the continuing Steinberg eLicenser fiasco (which I am convinced will NEVER be solved). I imported all of my folders, but some of them went to funny places, or wound up in Junk or the Deleted folder (or vice versa). I suspect this conversion and importation was challenged by the switch of architecture from PPC to Intel. But in the end, I got it all sorted out, and felt confident enough to shut down my old computer (though I haven't dared sell it or mothball it until I've worked with more legacy DP projects).

[monkey man]

Sorry to hear it was tricky, Mark.

What you've said reminds me that I too had an issue of extra, unnecessary mailboxes/containers. I think at least some of them housed important legacy communications but when I physically dragged them to more appropriate folders the new boxes remained. I remember deleting, in the Mail ƒ in the Usr/Lib area, a bunch of data, time and again, only for these new boxes to reappear. I don't quite know how I got rid of them in the end; I'm just grateful I have a clean 10.6.4 image in store as a result of the adventure.

Well done. 'Tis done!

[FMiguelez]

What you've said reminds me that I too had an issue of extra, unnecessary mailboxes/containers. I think at least some of them housed important legacy communications but when I physically dragged them to more appropriate folders the new boxes remained. I remember deleting, in the Mail ƒ in the Usr/Lib area, a bunch of data, time and again, only for these new boxes to reappear. I don't quite know how I got rid of them in the end; I'm just grateful I have a clean 10.6.4 image in store as a result of the adventure.

I used to diligently pull emails from my inbox to their "respective folders". It always felt slow and clumsy, especially managing so many mailboxes. Finding the emails was not particularly quick either.
What I do now, and it works great, is to only have 2-3 main folders (user-created mailboxes, such as Work, Family/Friends, Software/Hardware and General). To find any email, using ⌥⌘F works like a charm, and one gets lots of criteria to use for the searches.
Now I spend a fraction of the time organizing mailboxes and finding my emails.

I do like Mail and Safari a lot. There are only a couple of sites that won't work with Safari properly (my bank's site is one of them - I use Opera for that). I just find the whole MobileMe and Safari/Mail/Adress Book/Calendar combo too convenient and useful to ignore.

[David Polich]

By Mac Mail do you mean Apple Mail? What do you use instead? It sounds like you use webmail then, which is more or less system-agnostic and doesn't require any configuration or importation going to a new computer, since you're leaving your email on a server vs. on your own computer? Are you not using a standalone desktop mail program?

I just use Yahoo Mail via my browser, which is Firefox. I guess I meant
Apple Mail...I just have had too many bad experiences with it, mainly
loss of IP and POP data needed to set up the inboxes and outboxes and
whatever.

[zaratero]

Lately I´ve been using Gmail which gives you the option to work locally with Firefox as well ( mails are downloaded and synced, so no need to be connected to work with your mail). I have 7 accounts redirected there and I can use them all from the gmail interface.
For my web passwords (non monetary) I use Lastpass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRragvvr ... dded#at=61" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. My monetary passwords are still all kept in an encrypted hidden file, never autoremembered by any machine I own, and a black little handbook.
I bought a new laptop last week, after I set my lastpass extension in Safari, mail and site logins were instantly working. And I can use it all in any computer in an event.
I´m all for the cloud thing lately, trying to be careful about sensitive stuff.

[mhschmieder]

Ah, yes, I had those issues with Apple Mail in the early days as well. The only problems I've had for the past few years, though, are IP related and nothing to do with the software.

Some people are finally recommending Mozilla Thunderbird as being ready for prime time, but of course now we also have a new player on the field, which is Outlook for Mac.

At any rate, it sounds like you should have no headaches with email going to the new computer, and that's definitely one of the more complicated apps to port due to the way data is organized and stored.