What Filesystem Format is the Default on MacOS?

[britechguy]

Just a bit more detail. The new MacBook is due to arrive on Monday, and here are the pics of the "About this Mac" from the old ones:





So we are talking old here!

 

[NviGate Systems]

You have your work cut out for you. The 10.5.8 Mac I would transfer manually and do time machine backup on the 10.13.6 mac.

No matter which way you look at it, even if it's just documents, the older C2D mac will require hand holding as any documents will likely be in outdated formats as those machines often shipped with iWorks, Apples in house editing suite for photos to documents. (Unless they had Office)

Consider any and all apps on the old mac as obsolete, so advice client there is zero guarantee the data can be reused. Many apps back then we're very much dead end roads, exporting from some apps was buggy or even non existent.

 

[britechguy]

@NviGate Systems

It's not entirely clear, but the focus does appear to be getting old photos more than anything else. If that does turn out to be the case, I'll just use an external drive to "copy and port" rather than anything more elaborate.

I don't think the client is asking for any apps to be transferred, as I think she's not been using either machine for some time and just wants her "precious data" rather than all of it, lock, stock, and barrel.

I'll know for sure once I get there.

 

[overburnz]

@britechguy those old machines use iPhoto as the gallery, you should be able to copy the library to any new macOS and import under the photos app, all other documents (if you don’t want to do a Time Machine) just import them manually

 

[Markverhyden]

@NviGate Systems

It's not entirely clear, but the focus does appear to be getting old photos more than anything else. If that does turn out to be the case, I'll just use an external drive to "copy and port" rather than anything more elaborate.

I don't think the client is asking for any apps to be transferred, as I think she's not been using either machine for some time and just wants her "precious data" rather than all of it, lock, stock, and barrel.

I'll know for sure once I get there.

Seem to remember that you said earlier she just wanted her "stuff". Given two very different machines, including OS, using the migration tool will be very complicated. I'd just use the new drive she purchased, grab the profile(s), Macintosh HD>Users> , copy them to the drive. Then drop them onto the desktop of the profile on the new machine. Sort accordingly.

As @overburnz said you can convert the iPhoto library on the 10.5.8 machine. The other should already have a compatible library so shouldn't need to be converted.

 

[britechguy]

Thanks to all for your ongoing contributions. It's always fun when "ancient" hardware is involved, regardless of the platform. And because I deal with Macs far less frequently than PCs, my memory regarding both how things work now, and how they worked in the past, under that platform is hazier.

 

[britechguy]

Follow-up: First appointment was today. Successfully pulled photo and desired document data from the truly ancient machine. Of course the photos are in Apple's proprietary iPhotos library format, even though they were local to the machine.

The second machine is now "time machining" itself for the first time to a brand new, empty, and freshly formatted Toshiba Canvio external drive. I have to say I am shocked, really shocked, at just how slow this process is. It took forever to get just the first few GB of data and there's hundreds more to go. I've never had a Windows full system image backup, regardless of the product I've used to take it, proceed this slowly. Once this completes I'll time machine the data and apps back on to the brand new Mac.

Every time I have to work with Macs I learn to hate Apple more. Even trying to deal with changing the email address (unsuccessful) for the client's Apple ID was unsuccessful and required logging in to a specific Apple website. I find it very odd that a Gmail address that is her own cannot be used (or at least Apple won't accept it as valid) for a replacement Apple ID address while it's been using an ancient hotmail address that the client herself doesn't really use at all anymore. I gave up fighting that battle.

I just hope when the time comes to restore from Time Machine the process is not nearly as slow as the backup is being!

 

[Markverhyden]

It's taking that long because a 2011 iMac has USB 2.0 ports not USB 3.0. It does have Thunderbolt which could be cross connected to USB C.

On the Apple ID thing. It's not unusual to for an online account to not allow the initial "username" to be changed. It was quite common years ago but recently many, if not most, places allow that. Did you see the KB below about that?

Change your Apple ID

If you no longer use the email address that's associated with your Apple ID, you can change it. You won’t lose access to your contacts, purchases, or other account information.

support.apple.com

 

[timeshifter]

It's taking that long because a 2011 iMac has USB 2.0 ports not USB 3.0.

Also, the first rule of Time Machine: Don't Watch Time Machine

 

[britechguy]

Change your Apple ID

If you no longer use the email address that's associated with your Apple ID, you can change it. You won’t lose access to your contacts, purchases, or other account information.

support.apple.com

This is precisely how we tried to do it. The Gmail address is not new, and the process adamantly refused to allow it. I have no idea what's up.

I guess the Time Machine backup will be done in a day or two at the rate it's going. I also have found through web searches, including information on Apple's help pages, that initial Time Machine backups are not infrequently glacially slow. Luckily, there is no real "need for speed" for this whole process to be completed.

The fact that the new Mac has only USB-C ports means that we're having to acquire USB-A female to USB-C male (3.1 compatible) adapters for the two existing backup drives. There was nothing wrong I could find with the original WD drive when I worked with it. But we're keeping both.

 

[timeshifter]

Your speed could also be hampered by the old age of a spinning drive.

 

[britechguy]

Your speed could also be hampered by the old age of a spinning drive.

True, but this seems to be a bit extreme even for that reason.

There's slow, and there's this . . .