Wow, so I really shouldn't migrate, huh? We are change averse.

Typo Boy, what exactly are you trying to copy? Are you just copying the contents to a hard drive?

The easiest way to do that is to click on the disk, hold down "option" and drag it to a folder or the hard drive.

It will then copy the entire contents to a folder on the hard drive with the name of the disc.

I'm trying to copy an entire windows hard drive from a dead computer (Now successfully mounted as an external hard drive on the Mac) into a folder on the MAC. When I drag and drop it creates a pointer rather than making a real copy. The "duplicate" eventually generated an error and left a garbage folder which I deleted and emptied the trash. All I want to do is copy the windows hard drive onto a folder on the mac. But I want a real folder, so I can disconnect the windows hard drive and still have the files.

Can you trying copying a folder on the external hard drive to the mac?

As opposed to copying the whole drive? Yeah that makes sense. This is for a friend whose windows machine died and bought a MAC. Salvaging her drive, moving it to an external case and attaching it to the Mac proved the easy part. I'll try that in the morning.

yes. just to see if you can copy anything at all.

if that works, then I would copy the files over - folder by folder and see how that works.

You might want to focus on copying documents (music files, office, etc.) and avoid the applications and settings files.

I was talking to her while reading these suggestions. She can copy individual files, so I can try to do a file by file in the morning. I am going to have to try to migrate her email which is going to be a pain.

what email program was she using?

outlook express in her old computer. Don't know what on the Mac, but I'm betting whatever the default was. In a PC to PC migration, I'd simply open her old pst file and pull over her old emails and contacts. I suspect something like that would work in the Mac, subject to my complete ignorance of Macs.