Migration Assistant query, possible problems

[voodoopenguin]

My wife's G5 iMac has been a bit temperamental recently and so I have bought a new (but old model) iMac, 21.5" Intel Core i3, 3.06GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB. The new iMac has Firewire 800 and the old one has Firewire 400 so a suitable cable was bought to connect the two. Started up the new one and when the option came to transfer details from another computer I followed the instructions. It said it detected a Firewire connection after starting the G5 in Target so clicked to the next stage where it says "Remaining Space: Calculating" and "Selected Items: Calculating" where the spinning grey thing in the middle of the screen just spun away for over 45 minutes until I thought this is too long. Phoned the shop to find out if there is something else I should know and they said that the G5 was too old to migrate to the new iMac. I'm sure the Apple Store seemed happy that it should be OK but just to test I connected my MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard to see if it could deal with that (I wouldn't have carried on, just testing) but that also got through to this "Calculating" spinning thing and after 15 minutes I stopped that.

Question, this "calculating", should it take such a long time and so should I be letting it sit there for even longer than the 45 minutes I gave the G5 or could there be something else wrong?

Cheers

Paul

[Black]

Bad advice from the store.
Something else is wrong. What sort of "temperamental" has the G5 been exhibiting?

[cbelt3]

Agreed, bad advice.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4413

You might have Firewire issues... try Ethernet ?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3231

[voodoopenguin]

Black wrote:
Something else is wrong. What sort of "temperamental" has the G5 been exhibiting?

Occasional freezing up which is then fine on a restart. Started to happen more regularly recently. It starts in Target mode perfectly when connected to my MacBook Pro and I did a full back up while it was connected. There has been nothing wrong (eek, shouldn't say that!) with the MBP and that also has now been spinning in the calculating point for almost half an hour. I take it that connecting Firewire 400 and 800 shouldn't cause a problem.

Paul

[Ken Sp.]

If you have a current Time Machine back up, you can migrate from that, or try putting the G5 internal drive in an external case.

[voodoopenguin]

OK, first problem seems to have been solved.

I was following the on screen directions but by accident found that if I started my MacBook Pro in Target mode before starting the Migration Assistant it showed up so I stopped that and tried the same thing with the G5 and again it went through the calculating stage quickly and is now transferring things over. Let's hope it's all plain sailing from here on.

I know you shouldn't ask but I've been having several problems with the various house computers in the last few days so a new iMac - leader?

[Paul F.]

How about a round of "God Save the Leader"? :-)

[Black]

Sounds like it ought to be fine now. Maybe a slightly funky 400/800 adapter?