tiarraxshawn wrote:
. . .
I'm going from a Powerbook G4 Tiger to a Macbook Air Lion.
That means that the copied Apple articles do not apply to you -- they're for transferring to Snow Leopard. See Mac OS X v10.6: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac. It's word-for-word the same as TommyGun26's post, except for the very first line.
That first line is the link to OS X Lion: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac.
You'll see this in the Migration using FireWire or Thunderbolt section: "Note: If migrating from Mac OS X v10.4 to OS X Lion, see the Additional Information section below," which says "Migration from Mac OS X v10.4 computers to OS X Lion over your Wi-Fi or a wired network is not supported. However, if both Macs are equipped with a FireWire port, you can use Target Disk Mode to transfer your data:"
And, the Time Machine or other disk migration section has detailed instructions for migrating from either Time Machine backups or an "other disk" containing a "clone" of your old Mac, if it's running well enough to make one.
at this point 've been told to skip migration assistant alotgether.
There are differing opinions, but it's certainly possible to migrate from Tiger; you just can't do it via network.
There are advantages and disadvantages, but mostly related to whether you migrate 3rd-party apps. If you only migrate user accounts and data, then they'll be exactly the same as before, and you can reinstall any 3rd-party apps that will work on Lion, and new versions of the ones that don't. Yes, you may get some unnecessary files in the user accounts, but you can just delete them -- they won't cause any trouble other than taking up some space.
Which would have been helpful but since my G4 is acting crazy the mail program seems to have changed anyway so I'll likely just drag and drop from my external.
That's unlikely to work. The structure of Mail's folders and files has changed. If you use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant, the conversion will be done automatically. If you drag the Tiger folders onto your Lion system, it may not. Other Apple apps may have changed, too. I believe Address Book is another.
You can try to copy what you want manually, but that's likely to be tedious and error-prone at best.
If you can make a "clone" of the G4 on a USB drive, then connect it to the new Mac and use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant (probably skipping Applications), that's likely the easiest and safest way to go.
See Using Migration Assistant on Snow Leopard or Leopard for even more detailed instructions, but start with one of the workarounds in Problems after using Migration Assistant.