Server Migration: Problems with attributes

I am migrating from a host to another and I am trying to mimic the attributes on the old server.
Only problem is I can't figure out a fast way. Any recommendations?

Initially I thought about listing all my files on my previous host, but for some reason the listing of all files produced incomplete results. The saved file (ls -laR /home/files > /home/files/list).txt seems short of the entire list as it stops when the saved output reaches 3 MB or so (using perl)

I really appreciate your thoughts.

Ray

man tar or  dd

I don't have full unix authority. I was talking about my remote ftp account.