Apple's Setup Assistant -using it with an external hard drive, not just a Mac.

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Apple's Setup Assistant -using it with an external hard drive, not just a Mac.

Date Created: 03 Dec, 2004, 11:49 PM

My partner Lili's Version A Powerbook 12" was replaced by Apple today after it met its "Three Strikes, You're out" criteria for replacement.

Apparently, Apple Australia follows a policy that after a certain number of product failures, they will no longer repair the machine but replace it with the current equivalent.

The 'Book had been purchased early September, 2003, and on 9/11, within the first week, a new logic board was put in.

From there:

Feb. 26: A power adaptor failure saw a replacement
May 19: New combo drive installed after it failed to accept CDs
July 28: Failure to wake up, new logic board inserted
August 19: No video display; faulty display replaced

At this point a new machine was offered.

However as we were due to travel to New York in a few days the offer was declined until our return.

On September 8, a kernel panel was noted but a Panther re-install was needed.

On November 11, a screen flicker occured and on return to the dealer, Lili was informed Apple was now brought into the picture to organise a total replacement. (It ought to have happened with the first week's logic board failure.)

On December 2, the new Powerbook arrived, with a paid upgrade to SuperDrive status (at cost of AUD400). Of course all new Powerbooks now come with Airport Extreme standard, so the original AE card was pulled since it had been purchased separately, as had an extra 512MB RAM module.

The technician at the local dealership which handled the original 2003 purchase, and now the replacement (Computer's Now - Malvern) then dropped the news on us that the original RAM she added at the time of purchase was no longer compatible with the new Powerbook.

A quick phonecall to Apple HQ saw the rep. advise the dealership to install a new RAM module, but no stock on hand saw her suggest she will send a new one from Sydney on Monday.

One other change: Beside being a faster G4 CPU, the hard drive has now increased to a 60GB (up from 40GB).

So all around, Lili is very happy with the service from Apple, although being a switcher, she could easily have been disappointed with Apple's quality control. It was my thought that given the significant logic board failure in the first week, that she had a lemon on her hands, and as it turned it this was the case.

Nonetheless, as a former Windows 98 user (and PC trainer for older folk) she had become sufficiently convinced of OS X's superiority that these initial Apple ownership issues didn't deter her.

Now to a couple of interesting discoveries:

Lili wanted to preserve her settings, including a large iPhoto and iTunes collection, good-sized Mailbox, Safari bookmarks and history, and lots of other personal data, and application registrations.

Having previously been in the situation of bringing in my old Powerbook data to a new Powerbook (when a broken screen occured, covered by home insurance) I had learnt to use Mike Bombich's great Carbon Cloner app.

So I trudged off and bought a 160GB Western Digital hard drive (AUD129) and installed it in my originall FirewireDirect external case, which had contained a four-year old 30GB IBM hard drive.

I had a strange recall that perhaps the firewire hardware controller might not "see" 160GB, and as it turned out it in fact only allowed a 128GB formatting to occur using Disk Utility

I then setup three partitions, calling one of 40GB "Panther" which was to be Lili's Powerbook. The transfer from her machine took about 30", and using the external drive to reboot as the startup disk showed the cloning had been successful.

Now as it turned out, Computers Now did not permit us to have both 12" Powerbooks in our hands to facilitate the transfer, and their offer doing the transfer for AUD198 for the two hours service work was ruled out as uneconomical.

The new Powerbook came with some battery juice so we decided to take it through the standard setup sequence. Being greeted with the mulitlingual "Welcome" sign and familiar music is always exciting for devoted Mac heads.

In researching this entry, I came across John Chang's blog entry on the Mac's new Setup Assistant, first seen on the G5 PowerMacs, and iMacs.

Here is what he wrote:

In Mac OS X v10.0, v10.1, and v10.2 Jaguar, the intro music was "Sofa Rockers (Richard Dorfmeister Remix)" by Kruder & Dorfmeister, on the album "The K&D Sessions." In Mac OS X v10.3 Panther, the intro sequence has been updated. Now the music is "Eple" by Röyksopp, on the album "Melody A.M."

Now that was news to me!

The Powerbook came bundled with OS X 10.3.4. We were soon presented after the Welcome and language menu with something I had not seen before: An invitation from Panther to use the Setup Assistant to augment a transfer of old Powerbook settings to the new one.

Here's the diagram the Setup Assistant presents you with, at right.

It features the familiar Target-mode "Hold down the T key" at startup when the old Powerbook starts up, and offers to transfer selected material, using checkboxes.

(This was taken from Apple's own homepage about Setup Assistant. Notice at the top of this blog entry that the page features the Jaguar motif in the toolbar.)

Using Setup Assistant is likely what the service department at Computers Now would have done.

So with the old Powerbook's content installed on my new external drive, we wondered what might happen if we connected it to the new Powerbook, even though it was not a Powerbook - just an external drive.

We connected it to the Powerbook and it was recognised and we proceeded to check the boxes of what we wanted installed. Guess what? It went ahead with the transfer, and the 35GB transfer took about 30".

After it completed, we rebooted and System Update took us through a 10.3.6 combo update, and a number of iApp updates too.

This was a worry since we thought the transfer would have included the newer Apps. previously installed.

After the full update and optimization, we rebooted, did a permissions repair (perhaps redundant), and went about checking how the Setup Assistant had done its job.

It had and hadn't.

Opening up iTunes Library showed it to be empty - not the 12GB of files we had hoped to see! Yet the hard drive now held 30GB or so, suggesting files had transferred. But where were they?

Opening Lili's home folder revealed the answer.

Now you might not be able to see it, but in the Users folder under "home" is a another folder, called lilixxxxx.transferring. (The xxxxx is her surname)

Looking inside the folder showed the missing folder named Application, Libraries, Documents, Mail, etc... all those essential files and folders that made the new Powerbook her Powerbook.

These all the had the familiar red "No entry" icons on them, causing us to go to Get Info and change ownerships, which required the use of the Administrator password. (Each time I help a Switcher to the Mac platform make some changes and the Admin. Password is asked for - and it can be often - I remind them this is what makes the Mac the safe platform it is. Compared to other systems which allow Apps. to sneak in under the safety radar.)

Mail was also a problem, and needed some more password action, but eventually we got it working.

As far as I can see, this "feature" of Setup Assistance is not a documented feature. The Powerbook written manual did come with a separate page on its use with Target firewire mode.

What we did is not for the newbie however. Lili said that she couldn't have tweaked it on her own, especially the work of resetting folder permissions in Get Info.

Still, it seems to be a handy undocumented feature of Setup Assistant, although I must add the caveat that others' experience might not match our success so explore at your own risk. My guess is it's officially indocumented because it could be asking for trouble, something not in Apple's DNA.

The alternatives would be to do a standard new machine install, then use the Carbon Cloner to transfer Apps and documents, as well as preferences. Or not do the original install in the first place, but just wipe it clean and install using the Cloner too. Just make sure the cloned hard drive has been tested with Disk Utility or Disk Warrior (or similar) so you're not bringing old problems to a virgin Powerbook.

Update: iDVD when first started up said it wouldn't recognise the SuperDrive!

So when we employed the Restore discs to see if perhaps iDVD needed to be re-installed we discovered the Powerbook had been delivered with a Combo drive - not a SuperDrive as specified! Back to the store on Monday! This is the sort of thing that should have been picked up by both Apple, and Computers Now. (It seems new Apple HQ staff saw this error fall through the cracks). So word to the wise: if you are ordering a BTO (Built To Order) be absolutely sure you get what you ordered before taking final possession. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

And a further warning: We returned the original Powerbook to the store without first erasing the hard drive. We insisted the drive be securely reformatted, so we are keeping fingers crossed this occurs.

Further Update: Apple came good and sent to Computers Now the extra RAM and a SuperDrive which was installed promptly after the Powerbook was left with the Service department for a short while.

Lili is very happy with her new "baby". It is a speedy little devil, measurably faster than the first one, and a joy to use. No wonder they keep popping up in Linux conferences and such.

But it's not all good news.

Apple dealers here have been bundling Powerbooks with Airport Express units FOC, which is one sign of updates lurking around the corner. Possibly at MacWorld in three weeks. Which we fully intend to visit. That ought to complete Lili's indoctrination into the MacWorld. If you're Jewish and visiting Israel for the first time, or a Catholic visiting the Vatican, you'll know what I mean.