Sounds like the permissions are "wrong" or rather the owner is. Click on the folder, press Command+i, in the "Sharing & Permissions:" section (on the bottom) and check if it shows your new user-account on the MBP as owner (first icon) and if the privileges are "Read & Write".
Probably it will show a different user as owner. You could then try to fix the permissions by running Disk Utility, selecting you OS X partition on the left and click "Repair Disk Permissions" - but maybe this won't fix it, then you have to do it using the Terminal.
Maybe someone else can elaborate on that.
Edit 2011-12-18: Ok, I'll try myself:
Something I didn't know yet but found now looking for an easy fix:
From Troubleshooting permissions issues in Mac OS X
Note: In Mac OS X 10.5 and later, while started up ("booted") from the Mac OS X 10.5 installation disc, a user's home directory permissions can be reset using the Reset Password utility.
- But in Lion they removed the option form the menu, so if you boot (holding "alt ⌥") into Recovery HD
- Wait for “Mac OS X Utilities” menu to appear, indicating that you are booted into recovery mode
- Click on the “Utilities” menu and select "Terminal"
- Type the following:
resetpassword
- Confirm the user account and then the password change and reboot Mac OS X 10.7 as usual with your new password
Copied from Reset a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Password
I didn't try it myself, but hopefully this should reset/repair your home directory permissions.
Maybe even better solution using Finder in normal OS X:
- In Finder select the folder
- Press Command+i
- Expand "Sharing & Permissions" section (Unlock if necessary
1)
- If you're not in the list of owners, press [+]
2
- In the upcoming list, select your new user
- Finally click the gear
3, make your new user the owner, apply to enclosed items
- and delete the old user by selecting his name from the list and clicking [-]
Easiest way, if you're not afraid of the terminal:
Assuming your new user is named harmen
sudo chown -R harmen /Users/harmen
This will make you the owner of everything inside /Users/harmen
Read more here
Good luck.
I recently experienced this issue as well. I hypothesize that the backup is being staged in a cached folder while it completes at which time it'll write the dirs into the proper file structure. To reclaim the diskspace, simply quit migration assistant. Login as a user and restart your Mac. By doing this it cleared out the cached migration and i could start again.
Best Answer
Unlikely. MA only transfer user files, apps, and any associated files those apps need to run (like Photoshop, which installs things into /Library, and not just your particular user's directory, although it does do that too).
If anything, the only thing you can break are the apps that are being migrated or fail to transfer some of your files (music, documents, etc.).
The Power Saver preference pane is located under /System/ and that is in no way modified by MA. Nothing under the "/System" directory is written to, and that is where the OS (and it's core files) are found (among other places, not openly visible to the end user).
It may be that the settings for Power Saver are corrupted (and those reside in the user's directory, specifically ~/Library/Preferences/).
The best solution, would be to boot using the recovery utility (or safe-mode) and delete the user's directory (e.g., /Users/{your username}) and start migration assistant again once you reboot normally (at which point OS X will take you through the registration process again). Obviously this would delete all the files from that user (music, movies, etc.) so make sure you have backups of everything.
Alternatively, you can log into OS X, create a new administrator account (but don't use your regular naming convention, call it Jonny Appleseed/john, for example) using the System Preference's Users & Groups, log out, and log back in using that new account, and then delete your old administrator account, then recreate it using the same steps you did with the currently logged in account. Once that is done, log out and back in with your newly recreated account, and delete the extra administrator account. This will ensure your new account is set up using the same naming convention your original account was set to (making things easier for MA).
Running MA after that, should transfer all the files over again cleanly without having to worry about somethings getting overwritten or not overwritten.
It is also of note that MA just copies over files and doesn't move them. So all the source files are still there and once you delete the user directory, it'll be a total fresh start.