Backing up my Home Folder

I just got a 500 GB Western Digital USB 2.0 Hard drive.
I have a MacBook with 10.4.9.
I want to back up my home folder, so I dragged the entire folder to the hard drive. It copies the first few gigs with no problem, but then an error occurs..Finder error -36. It says bad file or something, says the name, and cancels the data copying. So I delete that file, delete the home folder on the new hard drive, and start all over by dragging the folder again.
Then, there is another file that is corrupted or whatever, same error, and it cancels transferring.
What's the best way to back up my home folder? I don't have a .Mac account and the backup program's trial version limits it to 100 MBs.
What should I do?? Thanks!

I encounter no issues dragging and dropping my Home folder on an external disk? Never have. Just cpoied again for giggles & laughs.
It completed fine but I was not fast enough to capture it
-mj
[email protected]
iMac 24" 2.16 GHz 2GB RAM/   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   17" FP iMac G4 17" 800 MHz 768MB/ iMac 333MHz 256 MB / LaCie d2s/ APC-UPS

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