I got a new MacBook Pro, the fast one, and started the migration tool.... Estimated 36 hrs 54 mins to transfer..... And then it came acros an IDisk from mobile me that is defunct, but the folder is still hanging around, and it has stalled. Does anyone know a safe way to quit both ends of the migration safely? Cmd period doesn't work, neither does escape, the source Mac can quit but the receiving end has no quit..... Any bright ideas?
Gordon, these are, shall we say, first birthday single cake candle thoughts but, as no one has so far offered anything else, here goes. (You have probably done some of this by now anyway, but what follows might be useful to someone in a similar predicament.)
As you are migrating to a brand new Mac, one rather assumes that there is no important and irreplaceable data on it. I would try a force quit of Migration Assistant on the MacBook -- or in extremis -- "pull the plug" on the MacBook Pro by holding down the start button for several seconds.
If you just happen to have a clone (as you know, I am a notorious enthusiast) of the MacBook you could then wipe it clean and restore the original software.
When cloning consider whether you need to re-install the emergency partition. It will "survive" erasing the OSX apps & data partition and will not need re-establishing, in fact re-establishing it may mean having to erase the drive as a whole if it was already present. Just start your MacBook Pro with the option key held down to see if it's there.
With no clone, I would look for any vestiges of the stalled defunct iDisk and remove them from both Macs. What is left of the stalled migration can then be checked for consistency using Get Info and comparing the byte counts which should be pretty similar even if not exactly the same. Where the byte counts differ by a larger amount I would assume that the migration of that software has not been completed, and should be sent to trash. As a guess (yes, a guess) Migration Assistant may well overwrite all its preceding files which, if it does so, is convenient.
Simplest approach? Use the emergency partition to erase the MacBook Pro and reinstall Mountain Lion. (or run the MBkPro from an external drive and do the same with your already downloaded ML installer. Then I would just re-do the migration (without the defunct iDisk this time). Your apps will copy across and can be updated afterwards if necessary.
There we are. Probably a waste of time, but let us know how you solved it anyway (candle flame flickers and goes out).
well we live and learn to love Apple even more..... Mountain Lion has an awesome recovery built in. I quit the stalled migration, restarted the new mac with alt-cmd r held down and it asked me for a wireless connection, and a password, and in about a minute restored itself to factory condition, by black magic.
I then plugged a hard drive in and restored from a time machine backup, and voila, done, and happy. The next time I ran time machine it asked if I'd like to inherit my time machine history as well, so I have swapped old hardware for new, and BLAZING fast it is too.
now the question is why was the wireless connection between old and new macs so slow..... anybodys guess.
Gordon Clyne 