This old Mac
I have an old iMac that’s unable to upgrade beyond 10.4.11. And while it’s gathering dust, it’s perfectly serviceable. On reading your article ‘Your Mac Reborn’, last issue, I thought it would make a suitable media server. All went well until I needed to transfer the iTunes library from my iMac 27-inch to the old Mac. Connected by Ethernet via my router I found the old Mac only wanted to migrate via FireWire. As the 27-inch Mac hasn’t got a FireWire connection, I couldn’t transfer the file. Your article only mentions the migration method. I know there must be alternative ways of doing it, but as the iTunes library is nearly 40 GB in size, I am at a loss as to how I should proceed. James Hancock Matt Bolton says: You’ve got a couple of options here. Assuming your 27-inch iMac has Thunderbolt, you can get a Thunderbolt-to-FireWire adapter. It’s also possible it does have FireWire, but just a different version to the one you’re used to. FireWire 800 connections are different to the old FireWire 400 ports, but again, you can get an adapter for this. To check, launch System Information (hold å as you click the menu) and look for Thunderbolt or FireWire connections down the left-hand side. Alternatively, just copy the iTunes folder from Music on your new Mac to an external drive that has connections both Macs have (likely USB in the worst case scenario) and drop it into the Music folder on your old Mac. This might not work if the versions of iTunes are too far apart, but it’s worth trying. If you don’t have a suitable external drive, and can’t borrow one, consider buying one. Forty quid gets you a 500GB external USB drive, and you can repurpose it as a backup drive when you’ve transferred your music so you can follow our main feature this issue!