Re: Migration assistant - just user account

On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:32:50 +0000, peterd.news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Pd)
wrote:

I'm trying to use Migration Assistant to move my user account across to
a new iMac, but it says I need another 135GB. If I deselect all user
accounts in the selection list, Migration Assistant still wants to
transfer 215 GB, presumably applications and (stuff?).

Is there some clever way to just transfer a user account, without all
the other (stuff)?

Yes, but you may end up doing terminal work.

Log in as an admin user.

Create a new user with the same name and rights (admin/not) as you
want to import.

Login as that user, run Terminal and type 'ls -ln'
You'll get something like this, but taller:

Hybrid:~ jaimie$ ls -ln
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 5 502 502 170 28 Oct 21:20 Applications
drwx------ 17 502 502 578 21 Dec 17:46 Desktop
^^^ ^^^
You need to note the numbers 502 and 502 for later. Yours may be
different. The first is the userID, the second the groupID
Now logout again.

As the admin user, mount the originating disk and copy the whole
/Volumes/Old_drive/Users/username/ folder, overwriting the one in
/Users/username/

As Administrator, run Terminal, go to the user's home folder and type
'ls -ln' again. If it comes out with the same two numbers as before,
job done.

If it doesn't, still as admin and in the home folder type
'chown -R 502:502 *' , substituting whichever two numbers came from
the first 'ls -ln' you did (in the same order - userID:groupID). This
changes all the old files to the correct ownership for the new user.
Job done.

(Would someone sanity check this for me?)


Now, doing this may not make everything work - there may be software
in the user's home that needs stuff in /Library that won't be there.
But you'll have to sort that out yourself - a reinstall should do in
most cases.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"I have an asteroid named after me. Isaac Asimov's got one too.
It's smaller and more eccentric." -- Arthur C. Clarke
.

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