BS on Transfer Leopard from iMac to MBP
 

I have a problem transferring Leopard 10.5.8 from an iMac G5 (early without iSight) to a 2.5 GHz MBP. Migration Assistant keeps on running into problems, so I am trying to use SD - my much preferred way.

I partitioned the MBP HD and installed vanilla Leopard to 10.5.8 to a small partition. I installed SD on this partition.

I cloned the iMac with SD, to two external HDs - one Apple partition, the other GUID. I had problems with one so hoped I could rectify with the other.

Booted into the vanilla partition on the MBP and used SD to copy from the external disk to the larger MBP partition using Restore All. When first try with each external disk didn't work, I tried updating permissions first. Every case gave the same result.

Even though the System recognised the external disk clone, or the MBP copy, I got the persistent Blue Screen and Pointer where the login screen should be in every case.

Apple has published a fix for the BS, but in this case it is not an update, and there are none of the nasties.

Help please.

It's quite possible that you can't do this: the MBP you're trying to restore to likely does not support 10.5.8, or only supports a special build.

I'm sorry, I left out that when I got the vanilla partition to 10.5.8 both it and the iMac were on build 9L31A. An of course the vanilla partition was OK. Any other reasons why it might not be working?

(Note: I had included that in my first attempt at posting, but I got timed out and lost the whole lot. Forgot the second time around)

You can't start up from the non-vanilla volume, I assume, directly?

I knew I was going to have nomenclature problems…

I assume by "non-vanilla volume" you mean the volume/partition on the MBP where I am creating a clone of the SD backup. And the answer is I can't, although the System allows me to select it as a startup volume.

I meant the directly copied GUID backup, pre-restore.

No obvious reason why, errors, etc?

The GUID is on a USB/FireWire disk which doesn't have the right firewire to boot a PPC. I am hoping it is OK to boot Intel. Have tried both FireWire and USB in booting and same blue screen.

The copy from iMac got three green bands and I assumed no errors.

I don't know of anywhere else I should look for other errors.

Edit: (I'm a bit tired) This external disk has a copy of Drive Genius 2 with Leopard 10.5.7 on it and I can use that to boot the MBP from. So I don't think the disk is a problem.

I'm not sure why this isn't booting. What problem did you have trying to migrate from the backup?

"migrate from the backup" = Restore from external HD to main MBP volume?

no problems I can see. Once again three green bands.

Used SD 2.6.2 on vanilla (copied from either iMac or backup) to Erase and Restore from backup disk to MBP. Fixed permissions on backup once, just in case.


Edit: I tried again and looked at the log - nothing stands out. Haven't got vanilla set up for email so can't send it. If you think it would help I can fix up something. (The new attempt got the same BS.)

No, I mean clean installing the system to the destination drive, then pointing at the backup volume when it prompts you to 'copy from another Mac'.

I didn't actually do that step because the clean install I have is 10.5.4 and the backup is 10.5.8. Am I wrong in assuming that would not be acceptable?

When I brought the MBP up to 10.5.8 (having had to do a full user definition) and tried Migration Assistant, it would not copy because the User already existed!

Thanks for your help so far and I will have to ask for a deferral. I have just sold the MBP so I have nothing to test on now. However if the problem occurs when I get another replacement for the iMac (assuredly Intel), I will be back.

I would like an answer to the first point if you don't mind.

As long as the os is the same series and will run on the mac you have, it's fine. You just need to migrate after first prompted, not manually as you did.