Quickest way to transfer data from a wireless external drive Time Machine backup!
Okay. If you are like me you use Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) with an external drive attached. If anyone has tried this they know it takes a long, long time for the initial backup. Depending on how much you are backing up it can take days to complete. I have two computers, a mac mini and a macbook pro, that I back up to a 750gig external wireless drive. You can imagine what a nightmare it would be to back up both computers for the first time. However, with a little bit of research and with some trial and error I was able to figure it out. I found a post from Jaems on Jnote.org. I am not going to go through the process because you can read it on Jaems post here which is fairly detailed and explained well. Keep in mind you do not have to do steps 1 to 4 because Snow Leopard allows you to find your external drive. Other things to note, you do not have to wait until a backup is complete, you just have to wait until a sparse bundle file is created on your drive before attaching it to your computer. I had to back up 130gigs from the mini and 145gigs from the macbook pro. In total, it took me about 4 to 5 hours instead of 4 to 5 days.
Now for the real reason I am writing this post. The other day I decided to upgrade my internal Macbook Pro hard drive from its stock 160gig to a 500gig Scorpio Blue drive. The dilemma I had was to figure out a way to transfer my current account and settings to the new drive using my Time Machine backup. After you install the new drive into your Macbook (you can see how to do this here ... thanks OWC) you have to start your computer, put in Snow Leopard and hold down the c key so the computer will launch from the DVD drive. Follow the instructions and install the OS. After the OS installs you are asked whether you want to tranfer data from another computer or a Time Machine backup. Now, you can do this two ways. Since your Time Machine backup is on a wireless external drive which is attached to your AEBS you can choose "transfer from Time Machine backup" and join your network then choose the backup drive and hit continue. If you do this route it is going to take forever since this is done wireless (read above). Instead choose "do not want to transfer data at this time" then you create a new account and home folder that you will delete later (I called mine void).
Make sure you attach your hard drive with the Time Machine back up to your computer. Once the drive is recognized double click the sparse bundle (which looks like a dmg file) of the computer that you want to install so it mounts on to your desktop. Once the Time Machine backup is mounted on your desktop go to the utilities folder (which you can find in applications) and double click the app Migration Assistant. Choose the migration method "from a Time Machine backup or another disk". When you hit continue you should see your the Time Machine back up of the computer that you want to install. Follow the instructions and within an hour or two you will have your old computer and all of its settings and files on your new drive. Once migration assistant is complete log off of your current account then log into your other account that you just installed. Go into accounts in system preferences and delete the account and home folder of the new account. Once that is complete you will have your old computer account and settings on your new hard drive within hours instead of days. Eject the mounted time machine backup and external drive. Attach it back to your AEBS and go into Time Machine choose the disk that has your time machine backup and you are finished. I hope that helps some people and if you have any questions please ask in the comments section and I will try to answer them for you.
