Migration Assistant starts, but then pc says its trying to reconnect

I have just purchased a Macbook Pro and have installed the Migration Assistant on my old laptop (HP pavilion dv7), and have for the last few days been only trying to transfer music, pictures and movies. No settings, email accounts etc.

Everything runs correctly for approx an hour (says it will take about 8 hours), and then my HP gets a small screen telling me that it is trying to reconnect to my mac (no error message appearing on the mac). Both are still connected to my network, I have done this via wi-fi and also via ethernet cable between the 2.

Is this the only easy way (when operating properly) or is there another way, for instance via my old 80g Ipod (being used as a hard drive - particularly for itunes).

Thanks in advance...😉