My Dad arrived home tonight with a new PC because he wanted to upgrade our current PC but it’s too old. What’s the best way to transfer files from the old hard drive to the new one? Disks, sending them to myself via gmail, what? Please bear in mind that I have some pretty large files to transfer and I’ve lost disks for some programs and stuff, including Photoshop 7. (I’m not very careful with my stuff, unfortunately.:()
Please help.
Paddy
You could try putting both drives in one computer.
Or, connect them to the same network and have a 10/100/1000 ethernet cable handy.
I don’t even wanna try taking the drive out of the computer.:ne:
imagines :h: Oh, so I just lift th…[size=5]**BANG! :run: **[/size]Holy Jesus what was that??? imagines no more
As for the other thing. [size=5]**WHAT?:huh: **[/size]
I’m currently trying to send a 299MB file from one Gmail account to another. Not working. It’s gonna take about two weeks to send.
I’d give the networking a shot first otherwise your gonna end up with a dual boot system and have to take the time to repair it later on.
If you had access to an external usb or firewire drive that would be another way to go.
Please try to talk english. The most technical thing I can do with a computer is push the on button and wait. That’s about it.
As for the other thing. WHAT?
If both of your machines have an ethernet card just connect them with some cat5 cable. If your using xp you probably wont even need to run the networking wizard, just tranfer your folders from one computer to the next in your network places.
<edit> Or use that xp file transfer wizard thing that I have no idea how it works. 
Repeat:
I too was absolutely terrified at the thought of opening up my machine. But I gotta tell you - it is so easy and so much better than trying to transfer files by email etc. It’s not really as hard as you think - just open 'er up, unplug the old drive, put the little plug in the right place to make it a slave drive instead of a master drive (there is usually a diagram on the drive itself for where to put the plug), then simply slide it into an empty slot in the new machine and plug it in!
Its really nice to have two hard drives. When I put my old one in my new machine I moved everything over to the new machine, then wiped clean the old one, then transfered all my files on to the old drive. I use the new drive for software only.
:thumb:
How does two drives work? Just another letter in My Computer? (F:/blahblahblah?)
Thanks for the advice Lunatic. I need to be told everything simply like you just did.
Question: If my old drive is too old to run Windows XP, and the whole point of getting a new PC was mainly to upgrade to XP and also to have more space, what would happen if I put the old drive in the new PC and tried to run XP?
Yes exactly, it shows up as another letter. The only really critical thing is to make sure that the 2nd hard drive is designated as slave. It sounds scary but its the easiest thing to do. Like I mentioned you just follow the diagram on the hard drive itself. Make sure you check both hard drives to make sure the pin is in the right place for the master (new hard drive) and slave (old hard drive). You can probably check the new one in place (don’t have to pull it out).
Here is an image of what I am talking about - so it doesn’t sound so foreign. It’s just a matter of putting the little plug thing in the right configuration on the pins.
edit To answer your questions - a hard drive is really just storage space. I was running Windows 98 on my old machine and have XP on the new one. Since I was only going to use the old drive for storing files and running software off the new drive I simply copied the files I wanted to keep (not the programs) to the new drive, wiped the old one clean, and moved the files back. Yes I had to reload a few programs but it wasn’t that big a deal for me - it would have taken longer to move the files I wanted to keep by disc or email.
Most new machines come with burning software of some kind. For added insurance once you get the old drive installed you can burn stuff before you wipe anything.
Lunatics right, installing the drive is a simple thing to do but there are some minimal risks in this case. Its not likely you’ll lose any data but you may have some headaches later on.
If you try to boot your computer with two seperate operating systems, it may ignore the older drives OS at startup in which case everything would be fine. If, however, it gives you a choice between the two then your boot loader has probably already been re-written and even after you format the old drive your still going to end up with a dual boot screen every time you reboot.
Not to mention that if both drives currently have the same label such as C: then one of them will be re-labeled. Again, not a big deal unless you select the wrong drive the first time you boot the two systems and your new drive accidentaly gets re-labeled.
Drive labels and the boot.ini file are of course repairable but from what you said above it doesnt sound like something you’d have alot of fun doing.
Since we are talking about two functioning operating systems here, the networking option would be best if your machines have the capability. How do you connect to the internet? If you have dsl or cable you most likely have an ethernet card (maybe, unless its usb). Your ethernet outlet should look like an oversized phone connection and if its not disabled it should be lit up (may have to remove cable to see light).
If you have these connections on both machines just connect them together with the cat5 cable and run the “Files and Settings Transfer Wizard” from Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/ XP should walk you through it.
If you do have cable or dsl, that wire with the big square head on it is your cat5 cable. 
I have dsl but it works through USB. Is it possible to just put the old drive in the new PC, copy everything I need, and then remove the old drive again? What about dll and regedit files? Is everything neede to run the programs kept in the Program Files folder?
The reason I am unsure about putting the old drive in the new PC is that the guy who built the computer for us strongly reccommended against it. Most likely for the reasons ditchhopper said. That all sounds like a nightmare to fix.
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