Macos – What’s the easiest way to move from one Macintosh to another

Try Carbon Copy Cloner. It does a bit-by-bit copy, which should guarantee that it is an EXACT copy. I hope this helps.

The direct answer:

Copy these folders to the same location on the MacBook Pro. If you run into "file is in use" errors, ensure that the application is closed and if that fails rename the folder (on the MacBook Pro) to something else and then copy your data over. As a reminder ~ denotes your home folder

Address Book
~/Library/Application\ Support/AddressBook

iCal
This depends on what version of OS X you were running on the iBook If you were running OS X 10.4: ~/Library/Application\ Support/iCal - be sure to delete ~/Library/Calendars so that the version of iCal in 10.5 will import the old information from Application Support into it's new location. If you were running OS X 10.5: ~/Library/Calendars

Mail
~/Library/Mail

Preferences for all the applications can be found at ~/Library/Preferences/ under the names com.apple.NAME_OF_APPLICATION.plist - while you don't need to copy it for the Address Book and iCal you will need to copy it for Mail so that Mail knows what accounts you have set up.

If you'd still like to give Migration Assistant a try and the powered USB hub fails you can use Firewire Target Disk Mode. What you need to do is plug the drive into a computer that does recognize the hard drive, then run a Firewire cable from that computer to your MacBook Pro. If the Mac in question has FireWire 800 you can use a FireWire 800 (9-pin to 9-pin cable) otherwise you'll need to get a hold of a Firewire 400 to FireWire 800 (6-pin to 9-pin) cable. Restart the Mac in question holding the T key and all the drives (including externals, CDs, etc.) that will mount on the MacBook Pro. You can then use Migration Assistant.