An initial comment: I agree with ColoradoMarmot that you should be doing the migration while Setup Assistant is running during initial setup of Lion after it was installed, as that produces a better outcome with older macOS versions (newer versions are better at replacing accounts but you can still end up with user iD number mismatches if you aren't careful).

That is probably not the reason you are having trouble with this.

I'm curious why you want to go to the trouble of running Lion in a VM. Do you have applications which are incompatible with a somewhat newer macOS version such as El Capitan? That would probably be easier due to supporting USB 3.0, and it can migrate from a source which was running Lion.

One point you need to be aware of: even if you manage to migrate your Lion system to a VM (running any macOS version), you may find that some of your applications don't work properly in a VM due to the lack of 3D graphics support for macOS guests. There was experimental 3D support in later macOS versions but it doesn't work for older macOS versions which you may need for legacy applications.

There are some surprising cases, e.g. Apple's iWork '09 suite (or earlier) uses 3D graphics to render all documents, so when run in a VM its document windows are blank (apart from the controls around the edges).

@Tony030942 wrote:

I have external drives visible on Host desktop but Fusion 13 window identifies the external drive 'Lion (ASMedia ASM1156-PM)' offering me the option of importing to Host or Guest then states "unable to connect to its ideal host controller.” I am warned connection may make MVware unstable. I go ahead and click import and that is the end of the process. No external drive icon on Guest Lion desktop. Finder has external disk ticked in preferences for visibility along with HDD and iMacs etc.

You should be choosing the Guest option at that point.

As noted in the earlier thread and you mentioned having already done this: you need to have set VMware Fusion to use USB 2.0 mode for a Lion guest, because Lion doesn't support USB 3.0.

USB 2.0 support in Fusion can be problematic with peripherals that also support USB 3.0, due to the way that USB controllers are logically separated in the host Mac. If the host Mac and drive both support USB 3.0, the drive will connect to the Mac using USB 3.0 and will not be visible to the USB 2.0 controller. VMware Fusion is trying to map the drive to the guest from the USB 2.0 controller, but it isn't there so nothing appears in the guest.

Try this: plug the drive into a hub which only supports USB 2.0 and not USB 3.0. That forces the drive to be in USB 2.0 mode, and forces the Mac to connect it to the USB 2.0 controller, where VMware Fusion should be able to map it to the guest.

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I assume Migration assistant wants a Mac attached.

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Every version of Migration or Setup Assistant supports an external drive as the source (e.g. a clone of the source Mac, or a Time Machine backup of the source Mac).

When two real Macs are involved, the source Mac can also be in "Target Disk Mode" (originally Firewire, later Thunderbolt, a few Macs can do this via USB) but this probably won't work if you are trying to migrate to a VM guest: Firewire or Thunderbolt remapping is not possible, USB will run into the same problem with USB 3.0 vs 2.0 if it is even supported by your source Mac.

The network-based method (with the source Mac running Migration Assistant in "To another Mac" mode) was added as a feature of Migration/Setup assistant somewhere around Snow Leopard. This could potentially work with a Fusion guest as the destination, but in order to do so, the VM guest and the other Mac must be on the same local network so that they can see each other via Bonjour. With older versions of VMware Fusion running on older versions of macOS, this was possible by having the guest network in bridged mode, but recent versions (Fusion 12.2 and later running on macOS Big Sur or later) use the Apple Hypervisor which limits some networking options. If your guest network is going through a NAT layer then your Lion guest won't be able to see the source Mac.

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Is this a limitation caused by the free, basic application?

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Certainly not for the USB connection method, and probably not for the network method.

Fusion Professional (not just paying for Fusion Player) adds some extra networking features, but can't get around limitations imposed by Apple's hypervisor on macOS Big Sur and later.

Due to these sorts of limitations with Apple's hypervisor, I'm still using Fusion 12.1.x on macOS Catalina. As I only need to run my VMs occasionally, my 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro is set up with two startup volumes: it normally starts up into a reasonably current macOS version, and I reboot onto the Catalina volume if I need to run Fusion. This is not my primary Mac so rebooting is not an inconvenience.

My use of old macOS VMs is mostly for comparison or historic curiosity, plus a small selection of occasionally needed applications which I've confirmed work OK in a VM. I installed them fresh, never bothered migrating anything to a VM.

For applications which don't work in a VM (or don't make sense due to hardware requirements) I'm keeping a few working old Macs with older macOS versions. Mac Minis are good for this due to size, with a shared monitor/keyboard/mouse (or accessing only via a network and some kind of screen sharing).