Mail program crashes everytime I open it

Question

Mail quits unexpectedly, usually within seconds of when I start scrolling among existing messages (imported from Netscape on my old PowerMac G4) or try to open a blank e-mail form to draft an outgoing message. Seems strange this should be an issue with a brand new computer, unless it's something to do with compatability of the old mailboxes I imported from Netscape.

Answer 1

Verify/repair your disk first (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
When an application crashes (i.e. quits unexpectedly), the system writes information about the state of the application at the moment of the crash into a log file. That information is called a crash report and it makes troubleshooting much easier. In order to find and paste the relevant part of the crash report here, proceed as follows:
1. Open ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Mail.crash.log. The whole Mail crash log appears on a Console window (you can also open that file with any text editor). It may contain many crash reports. We only want the latest, which is located at the bottom of the file.
2. Look for a line that begins with "Date/Time:" as close to the bottom as possible, and another that says "Thread N Crashed:", where N is a number. Select everything from the "Date/Time:" line to the lines immediately following "Thread N Crashed:". Copy that text and paste it here. Do not post the whole crash log, and do not include anything beyond the lines immediately following "Thread N Crashed:" either, just the relevant part.
Take a look at the following thread for examples of what a crash report looks like and what to do in each case:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=466701
Don't hesitate to post the relevant part of your crash report here if you are not sure which of the cases discussed in that thread applies to you.