MOTUnation.com

As I will write elsewhere, I had to buy a new Mac today.

As the old Mac can't boot (for now), is it safest to use Time Machine (no more than an hour older than the last crash) to effectively clone my old System Drive stuff to the new iMac, or to install one app at a time from scratch (which might take weeks and might have to wait on the iffy proposition of getting the old MacPro functional again)?

I know the usual answer is to use Time Machine, for an evaded user, but for those of us with lots of hardware-bound licenses and other hindrances, am I likely to run into a lot of problems if I use Time Machine to "save time" in reconstructing my toasted system?

I imagine I'll at least have to issue new authorizations for a bunch of stuff and give a new computer name to associate with the device that will hold the new authorizations, as those won't clone since they are bound to an actual hardware ID vs. a simple hardware alias. But I think that annoyance might be invariant between different approaches to cloning my old system to the new.

Of course, I can't remember for sure what I used for my account name, but it wasn't the default (probably it's my three initials). If I guessed wrong, will that pose problems when using Time Machine backups to reconstruct my system drive? Or should I just choose one directory at a time from Time Machine, at the top-most level? Can/should you even clone the "protected" system level directories? I think those don't get backed up anyway, for the most part.

This has been a very stressful few days, having to make decisions without internet access to do research, and hitting dead ends with phone calls, but I am confident I made the right choice even though it broke the bank, as these new iMacs are great bang-for-buck and who knows when the next MacPro's will come out? We all like to think a year, but it could be much longer.

If you aren't having issues, that would be my choice. If you suspect you may have some permissions or directory corruption, I'd do a clean install of apps and manually bring the documents over via your backup.

Written as I sit waiting at the Apple Store waiting to trade in my iPad Pro for the highest memory ver. Just bought this 2 weeks ago and already half way through the memory of the base model. Just sayin... literally.

Thanks, Michael, and good look you in sorting your iPad situation.

I may clone my new computer's drive to my no-longer-used free-hanging SSD that is in the 2nd optical bay of my MacPro and then use that as the bootable drive for that box so that I can sell high-priced stuff that I won't be using anymore (such as the PCIe SSD).

That would also give me a recovery option on the new computer if cloning the old computer bites me in the butt. Right now though, I am going through the rather slow data copying as I figured I'd better do that first as in many cases applications may look for that stuff right away and fail if not found.

Of course I am referring specifically to my sample libraries.

One area where I'm not sure things will work, is when aliases are in use on the main drive for stuff like the iTunes Music Library. I still want to keep that off the main drive as it will grow in size over time and even with a 2 TB internal drive I think I would regret going back to default locations for everything.

When I went from my 130 GB free-gloating SSD to the 500 MB PCIe SSD a few months back though, I did revert to default locations for a lot of stuff (probably including Mail).

Use Migration Assistant. This is what pops up after an OS installation or when you first boot up a new Mac. It will ask if you are going to import from another Mac, an attached or network drive or a Time Machine backup. It also gives you the option of starting from scratch.

This is not quite the same as a Time Machine Restore but it's close enough — that's done by booting into the Recovery partition.

Mike, thanks, I simply shortened my description as of course I planned to use TM via MA.

In terms of cloning a bootable copy of the still-fairly-fresh had drive in the new iMac, I think I have some instructions on how best to do that, but will probably have to re-find them on the web instead.

I don't plan to update to Sierra 10.12.5 (which just came out) until I have taken care of proper backups of the new computer pre-cloning, and after cloning from the old computer. Too risky otherwise.

I just successfully used Apple Disc Utility to clone my new boot drive before changing it beyond just the initial setup of my user account. I am glad that I didn't have to use a third-party tool.

Although I figured it out on my own, I am about to lose my "new" browser history when I use Migration Assistant to restore my new internal drive to what was on my old system drive (with the newly-created bootable clone a backup plan if anything fails), so the helpful links below are as much for me as for anyone else, as I don't want to waste time trying to figure out the best way to preserve my tiny work history on this new computer before replacing it with my last saved data from the old MacPro.

https://www.lifewire.com/use-disk-utili ... ve-4042367

https://www.imore.com/how-to-clone-your-mac

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202796#startupmanager

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-10081

I was surprised that my boot clone worked, as I don't think doing that via Apple Disc Utility was sufficient back in Yosemite days.

SO far, it looks like using Migration Assistant with Time Machine worked quite well, but I haven't launched enough apps (and no plug-ins) yet to know if I'm going to have to waste a lot of time hunting down serial numbers for Adobe products and the like.

Hopefully, sticking with CS6 and not going to Creative Cloud, won't lock me out from using the new computer with my prior Adobe licenses. That's my biggest concern; I'm certain that other vendors will be helpful and responsive if I run into any troubles.

I don't dare launch DP or any other audio app until I have done a full round of new Time Machine backups (I've already done manual backups as well as creating and verifying a boot clone).

a little late to the party (been away from motunation for quite sometime), but I worked in IT for mac-centric businesses for a while (mostly big marketing firms) and my favorite for cloning has alway been CarbonCopyCloner (https://bombich.com).

So many things can go wrong with a clone from inheriting corrupt files to mismatching permissions, CCC has alway been rock solid. I alway use it for moving to a new system as well as incremental backups (it's far more reliable than TimeMachine in my experience) and for having a bootable clone of my system for emergency recovery.

HTH

Thanks; I thought I remembered Mike Halloran talking about the dangers of ALL of the cloners out there, and deciding to stay away from them, but it's always good to get additional feedback.

It looks like we are on the path to solving all of my problems except for the one with BIAS Peak Pro 7, which is also the oldest of my current problems by now and yet also the one that now has the clearest indicator as to the actual cause (I forget which thread I wrote about that in).

mhschmieder wrote:Thanks; I thought I remembered Mike Halloran talking about the dangers of ALL of the cloners out there, and deciding to stay away from them, but it's always good to get additional feedback.

If it helps understand my perspective, I've cloned literally thousands of OSX systems when I worked in IT. In the circle of Mac IT professionals CCC gets the highest praise. While Apple's own tools are consistently found lacking (and buggy).

Also, Mike Bombich, the developer behind CCC, is a well respected Mac IT guy. He knows his stuff. There are plenty of threads on cloning and backups over at MacInTouch (http://www.macintouch.com), which is run by another very well respected Mac guy. Well worth a read if you're interested in keeping your pulse on the Mac IT community.

It looks like we are on the path to solving all of my problems except for the one with BIAS Peak Pro 7, which is also the oldest of my current problems by now and yet also the one that now has the clearest indicator as to the actual cause (I forget which thread I wrote about that in).

That's always a good thing. It's nice to get issues resolved. Peak may be a lost cause, having been abandoned so long ago. I used to love it, but moved solely to DSP-Quattro when support was dropped.