Nate Clark asks:
I have an old (4+ years) MacBook that’s on its last legs. I’m going to purchase a new one within the next year, but before I do so, I have some concerns. Obviously the new MacBook Pros are all running Mountain Lion, but my MacBook is still on Snow Leopard. If I choose to transfer my user account and all associated data using Migration Assistant, will anything be lost/incompatible?
Mine is the only account on my laptop, and I back up to an external drive with Time Machine regularly.
Browser: Firefox 17
System: OS X Snow Leopard
Tagged: backup data, mac tips, os x mountain lion, os x snow leopard, time machine
System: OS X Snow Leopard
Tagged: backup data, mac tips, os x mountain lion, os x snow leopard, time machine
6 Answers - Write an Answer
Justin Pot
January 7, 2013I’m not sure how restoring would work, though I suspect it would be fine.
If you’re nervous you can manually grab files from your backup drive. Just head to /Volumes/NAMEOFYOURBACKUPHERE/Backups.backupdb/ in Finder and you’ll find all of your files there.
ha14
January 7, 2013Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its Backups, or a PC
http://pondini.org/OSX/Setup.html
You can easily set up a new Mac from:
•Another Mac
•Time Machine backups of another Mac
•A “clone” of another Mac (such as those made by CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper).
•A PC (on Lion only)
perhaps when you turn on your new Macbook for the first time, you will be asked if you want to transfer data from another Mac (Setup Assistant).
Nate Clark
January 8, 2013I’ve used Migration Assistant before, it works like a charm, but that was always from one Snow Leopard Mac to another. I’m more concerned that something will be mysteriously incompatible.
Jan Fritsch
January 8, 2013During the initial setup (Setup Assistant) you can select to restore your user account form the Time Machine backup or you can do the same after setting up Mountain Lion using the Migration Utility.
What you should not do is restore the entire Time Machine backup including all your software. This will restore the older Snow Leopard to the device which will result in it no longer starting up duo to missing hardware support.
Macs usually don’t run with OS X versions prior to the one that shipped with it.
SAURAV AZAD
January 17, 2013no it wont affect check the apple support site for more info
Anish Parameshwaran
January 30, 2013Yes, it should be fine – Migration Assistant should be useful in this process.