OS X Migration Assistant Works with USB Drives

Apple's Migration Assistant software, included with OS X since v10.4, makes moving your personal data and applications from an existing Macintosh to a newer one a snap. However, if you are attempting to migrate from an older Macintosh which does NOT have FireWire ports, it may appear that Migration Assistant does not provide a solution. As it turns out, Migration Assistant will work with USB external hard drives - just ignore text prompts that suggest otherwise.

Apple Computer doesn't suggest that this is possible, and when the Migration Assistant is run, the only options presented to the user are to select a FireWire drive or an alternative internal volume. However, I was successful in using an external 2.5" USB hard drive to transfer files from a pre-FireWire 350MHz Mac (all iMacs with CPU speeds of 400MHz or higher have FireWire ports) to a newer iBook G4.

Note: For this to work, the USB external hard drive may require formatting as a Macintosh volume. I attempted to use the external USB hard drive formatted as an MS-DOS volume, Carbon Copy Cloner complained that no available drive could be found. Reformatting using Disk Utility (CAUTION! Formatting deletes all data on the formatted drive forever!) as a Mac volume made the drive visible to CCC.