All,
I use ON2007 and have bought a new laptop. I have been "moving" by pointing
notebooks at a flash drive because I want to begin using the information on
two other machines: the new laptop and my desktop. So far, so good.

There were several mentions in posts that "Unfiled" doesn't belong to a
notebook and doesn't move with the same steps so I:
1. Chose the notebook that would carry the notes to the new machine
2. Created...

Are the notes still in the original UnfiledNotes section? Have you tried
opening a backup?

The recommended way to move UnfiledNotes is to go to the section that
you want to move, go to File->SaveAs, then pick the new location and
save the section as "Unfiled Notes". After that, go to
Tools->Options->Save, select unfiled notes in the paths box, click
Modify, and point it at the new section that you just saved. You can use
this method to point any number of instances of OneNote at the same
unfiled notes section, and it'll sync and merge just like any other
notebook.

Ilya

Ilya, Thank you for looking after the flock late on Friday. I still have two
questions for everyone:

After I cleaned out Unfiled on the old laptop there were no notes in the
section. Those I kept sat in a new section in an existing notebook which had
never been asked to sync. I had planned to move the notes through this
method; they would not be going into a new "Unfiled" on the new laptop.

I have found and restored a ten-day-old backup for "Unfiled" in that backup
folder, which is good. I have done the steps you suggest to replicate these
restored Unfiled notes, but I have to go through the same winnowing process
again to decide what to keep. They didn't come back into the Unfiled section
so far... they are in a new section on this old laptop. Now, having saved
that section as "Unfiled" how do I get those notes to merge with the existing
Unfiled notes on the new laptop?

My plan was to have them arrive on the new laptop in a different section,
all sorted -- or those that weren't in a section marked "To be Filed".

I searched the Help files for "merge" but nothing (there was very little)
applied to this.