How do I use a backup of my previous system in migration assistant from an external hard drive?

I had to redo my system completely because Snow Leopard broke my Parallels and then when I went back to Leopard my entire system got all screwed up. So I archived and reinstalled Leopard. Transferred the entire Previous System file to my external hard drive then erased and installed a fresh install of Leopard then upgraded to Snow Leopard. Now I'm trying to restore my Previous System on my computer and I can get the Macbook Pro to recognize the external hd in Migration Assistant and in Disk Utility it appears I would have to transfer section by section. I'm trying to prevent that. I don't have money to buy Super Duper or anything else at the moment so Migration and Disk U. seem to be my only options unless you know of anything else.

Carbon Copy Cloner or SilverKeeper - CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.

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    JLCruz wrote:
    I deleted my back up files from my external hard drive ...
    If this is related to Time Machine Backups...
    See here  >  Should I delete old backups?  If so, How?
    From Here  >  http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    If the TRASH still won’t Empty...
    See Here  >  http://pondini.org/TM/E6.html

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    Hello, Esmin77.  
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    edited.

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