Migration assistant now seeing my User file only back ups on my time machine, nor am I able to drag the entire user folder to my new desktop.

I cannot recover my system on a clean install when I try to either use migration assistant or drag and drop of my backed up user profile. I did not back up anything else. I can see the file on my external drive but migration assitant does not see it as a restore and when I drag and drop the file to my desktop, the system informs me I do not have permissions to transfer all of the files.
What can I do?
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Persol

persol19 wrote:
Yes, there were no system files included. Soley the items that are incopassed within the user file.
Rats.  It's awful that Apple doesn't warn folks about that. 
Since I am not able to use them as backups, what is the best way to restore all of my previous preferences, calenders, notes, adressbook, etc.?
Would it be best to replace each file in the library of the new machine with the coresponding folders of the new machine?
That's going to be difficult, but is about your only option (assuming you have no other backups).
Part of the hassle is, you have to do it "piecemeal" -- you can't just delete the old home folder, or any of the "default" sub-folders (Desktop, Documents, etc.), and drag in the one from your backups -- you'll get a message about it being a required folder, so you can't delete it.
So you'll have to do it with the contents of the sub-folders.
Make a large pot of coffee. 
For future reference, many long-time users consider a good backup plan to start with a minimum of two full backups, via two different apps, on two different pieces of hardware.  These should be updated regularly. 
For "primary" backups, Time Machine (built in to OSX) is quite good.  You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial, and perhaps browse Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
#27 in the FAQ link has some suggestions for "secondary" backups.

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