restoring clone to migrate to new computer
 

My wife has an Intel iMac which has been cloned w/ SD and is planning to purchase a new iMac w/ faster CPU, larger hard drive, more RAM.

Can I simply restore the clone of her existing iMac to the new iMac in order to migrate everything over?

No. In general, you should -- when first prompted to 'copy from another Mac' -- point that at either the orginal Mac or a full SuperDuper! backup.

Thanks Dave. So what you are saying is to either:

1. have the original iMac connected to the new one w/ a firewire cable and when it prompts me to " copy from another mac" select the original iMac and migrate from there

or

2. when asked to "copy from another mac" point it to the original iMacs full SD clone

What prompts the "copy from another" option?

Yes - and that prompt appears during your first startup (when you get a new Mac, or during the first restart after you clean install OS X). Don't run the Migration Assistant manually!

Why not run it manually?

What if we already did the initial setup so the new MBP is already setup in the basic way BUT it bare bones and we need to get everything over from the old to the new?

The big problem is that your user account is likely to have a different low-level ID (UID) when imported after this point. You'll see a lot of users encoutering difficulty with this particular situation all over the web... it's best to avoid that situation!

Ok then....sounds good.

Here is my plan...

Install NEW HDD into new MBP.

Backup OLD MBP to firewire drive.

Then reboot NEW MBP from firewire drive attached to it with most current FULL backup with superduper.

Then do a full clone boot copy to new MBP drive.

Should be all good from there right?

The main issue is that the OLD MBP drive is 500gb....the new current one is 320 bg....so that is why I am install a new 500 GB drive into the new MBP to make things even and I don't want to invite any space issues. They are so dang cheap anyway these days, might as well.

How does that plan sound?

The issue here is that the new MBP might not be able to run from the OS X version running from your old MBP. That's why I'm advising something different above.

Ahhh exaclt why I updated both macbook's yesterday with all updates :). So they are all exactly in sync as far as the OS is concerened.

Then I did the backup of the old.

That may work for your specific case, but the technique is not generally reliable.

The problem is that "exactly in sync as far as the OS is concerened" can not be reliably determined by just comparing the OS release numbers or even by using Software Update to make sure everything is "up to date".

The (e.g.) 10.5.7 that comes on/with a new Mac may not be exactly the same as the 10.5.7 that is available as a software update. The version that comes on a new Mac is almost always slightly different than the version it says it is. If it came with 10.5.7, you really need to think of what is on there as "10.5.7.1". This is especially likely for a model that was recently released or updated, but it could apply to any new machine.

The new hardware needs the extra drivers and such that are included in the figurative, extra ".1" of "10.5.7.1". A plain 10.5.7 that was upgraded from a previous release of 10.5 will not have this extra ".1" stuff that the new machine needs.

If the machine is old enough (though still "new"), its drivers might have been included in 10.5.7. But in general, it is not safe to take an OS installation that has been upgraded to 10.5.7 and try to run it on a machine that came with 10.5.7 (it may actually be "10.5.7.1" that it requires).

Just to make sure it's clear, as Chris said, the ".1" is not actually in the verison number. Only the build number changes.