How do a migrate from a Wallstreet?

Question

I'd love to join the ranks of those delighted with their migration to a new OSX machine. In my case, it is proving a little more complex. My old PowerBook G3 Pismo (circa 1999) died suddenly (possibly from the loss of a heat-sensitive fuse, I'm told), giving me the excuse to replace it at last with a very fast, not-quite-state-of-the-art PowerBook G4 (circa 2005).
In order to rescue my beloved files, apps, and settings, I needed to reincarnate the 2.5" internal drive - a Travelstar 2.5" in some device that would switch on. The first thing I tried was a proprietary, USB "enclosure" from Maplins. They didn't have firewire enclosures, but a USB one claimed to be OSX compatible. Big mistake. This just sat and clicked at a fast, regular, 3 clicks per second - which bofs told me was a sure sign of "mechanical failure" (I knew they were wrong - but could not prove it, and was nearly talked into paying £75 for diagnosis plus a further £500 for "recovery" of my "data" - which sounded like extortion to me).
Then I succeeded in plumbing it into an even older PowerBook Wallstreet (circa 1997) of my brother's. This was a straightforward operation requiring the removal of the keyboard, the heat-sink, and five screws (three phillips, two star-key - just fiddly enough to please geeks and deter richer "consumers" from attempting it at home). It powered up at once, like a dream - but only on the OS9 partition, since OSX is not retroactively compatible with the Wallstreet PowerBook. Unfortunately, this Wallstreet G3 was too ancient even to have it's own USB ports, let alone FireWire. Someone HAD installed a sort of PC card dongle that enabled both, so long as you booted up OS9 with two proprietary extensions. But there was simply not a hope in **** of getting this prehistoric notebook to emulate a firewire drive in order to perform the simple migration that most mac users rave about.
Undeterred, I connected the two machines via Ethernet. Here I encountered another problem: my classic OS9 could log on to my new G4 - but my new G4 refused to connect to it, claiming it used "an incompatible version of the AFP protocol." Any way round this? What is AFP, anyway?
OK. No problem. I got the old Wallstreet effectively to "push" all of its files, over the Ethernet, onto my new machine, placing them into a folder called Eric's HD. This is a slow process. As I write, there are still 8 hours to go. Nevertheless, I will have a copy, of sorts, of my complete OSX and Classic systems on my new computer.
Now. Here's the question. How do I get my brand new OSX Tiger to "Migrate" these old files, apps and preferences, onto my new OS - since they reside neither on "another Mac" (in FireWire "Target Disk" mode), nor on "another volume on this Mac that has OSX installed." They now simply live in a little folder on my new internal hard drive.
I know I could order a FireWire enclosure from MacAlly (@£39) and hope it behaves better than the two USB2 enclosures I have already tried. But what if, after waiting three days for delivery, I still get those clicks and nothing else? I really had hoped to complete my migation this weekend....
Anyone know whether Migration will work from a folder on your Drive 0 - or have any other ideas? I imagine it would be be tedious and risky to copy over all my library files by hand....

Answer 1

You're right, KAppy. I have been spending WAY too much time on this. Had I an enclosure which worked, I would have migrated at the drop of a hat days ago. But I AM attempting to migrate from one OSX to another (Panther to Tiger - aren't they similar enough?), and I didn't want to lose my applications and settings.
Unfortunately, the only thing I could lay my hands on which would enclose my disk and actually drive it, was an intermediary Wallstreet (borrowed from my brother). This older computer wouldn't boot my OSX system - but would start up from the old Classic folder.
You're also right that my mistake was trying to copy the hard drive by drag-and-drop. I thought that files invisible to OSX would still be visible to OS9, but I've now found a load of invisible files and folders were not copied. Had my G4 been able to talk to the Wallstreet, then I could have migrated, or used Carbon Copy, or whatever. But whilst the G3 could talk to the G4, the G4 annoyingly complained that the Wallstreet's 'AFP protocol' was 'incompatible' - what does that mean, anyway? Could I have chosen a different protocol on the OS9? - and refused to connect.
Anyway, thanks for the patient advice. I'll order a FireWire enclosure, which won't arrive for a few days - but which will then, I trust, actually work with my Travelstar 40Gig (the proprietary USB2 enclosures I tried simply wouldn't).
Meanwhile, I've now got the G3 to mount the Big Backup Drive via a FireWire device. Do you think OS9's Disk Copy could create an image of my OSX partition - and that this would then be recognised by the Migration Assistant?