Kevin's Watch

I have today received my new pc (bought my last one 8 yrs ago). Is it possible to connect these two techo-beasts into thrall, thus saving time and effort in transfering docs, pics etc over.

The phone lines are now open.

I'm sure there is, I just don't know why you'd want to

Three quick options, Hue:

Transfer files directly between the two machines using Windows Easy Transfer This program probably came with your new computer if it is Windows 7 or Vista. You may need to buy an Easy Transfer cable, which connects to the USB port on each machine. This is the fastest, easiest and coolest way to move your files and settings. Creates parallel folder structures and every thing!

Transfer over a network If you have both computers on your wireless (or wired) network, you can move files that way. Not as fast as a direct cable, but not too bad.

Use a flash drive or other external media Copy what you want to move from the old computer to the flash drive, then move the flash drive to the new computer and copy again. Clearly the most effort-intensive way, but workable.

Loresraat, ali?

*blink* Who moved this thread? I've never seen it before....

Anyhow, Hue, what SD said. I seem to recall my last new PC having the ability to pull files off of the old PC. Not sure whether it was when I inherited Magickmaker's old Dell laptop (Vista) or when I got the netbook (Windows 7) -- but I remember having the old machine in thrall to the new one via my home network. It was fun to watch.

I used to say just put the old HD in the new and make it a slave.
You'd see it as another drive and you could just copy and paste what you wanted.
8 years though....you probably have an IDE drive which new PC's don't take any more.
You can go to a PC shop if you can find one. Best Buy type stores don't count. something local where they know their shit.
Get a "USB to Sata IDE drive converter" for 15 or 20 bucks.

plug your old drive into the USB on your new PC and copy and paste what you need.

Not saying that won't work, HLT -- but why make someone open the case and remove the old drive? Lots of people don't fell confident mucking about under the hood (even if you and I do) and paying someone to do this is highway robbery.

Windows Easy Transfer is Hue's #1 solution here. Did some checking since my last post, and it can be used over the network as well as with a direct cable.

Failing that, a flash drive big enough to handle any eight-year-old hard disk is less expensive than the USB SATA adapter and doesn't require opening the case. Transfer what you want to keep, delete from the old machine what you don't want anyone else to have access to, then hand the old machine down to someone. If nothing else, some school or day-care will surely want it.

You gonna give that machine away, you should probably sanitize the disk first if you used the machine for any online banking, purchasing and/or tax returns, etc. You'd be surprised how much good stuff like passwords, SSN's, account data and the like can be filched off of disks even if you think you sent everything to the recycle bin and then emptied it. I recommend DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke), found at www.dban.org. The bad news of course is that once done, the Windows operating system will have to be reinstalled, but you can put a bare bones install on there.

aliantha wrote:*blink* Who moved this thread? I've never seen it before....

that was me.

I always use flash drives, but i've never had much on my PCs anyway.

Farsailer wrote:You gonna give that machine away, you should probably sanitize the disk first if you used the machine for any online banking, purchasing and/or tax returns, etc. You'd be surprised how much good stuff like passwords, SSN's, account data and the like can be filched off of disks even if you think you sent everything to the recycle bin and then emptied it. I recommend DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke), found at www.dban.org. The bad news of course is that once done, the Windows operating system will have to be reinstalled, but you can put a bare bones install on there.

I want to emphasize this. Deleting your files doesn't delete them, it pretty much just deletes your connection to them. Things like DBAN will place a bunch of 0s and 1s that covers everything nicely and is what government uses when they get rid of their computers. There's a method to this, which may be located at the link Farsailer linked to, or you can look it up.

Yeah, but looks like the Dban is only a wipe program...takes everything.

You can use CCleaner or Eraser to do multi-pass deletions of things without harming data you want to keep. They'll also both overwrite empty space on the drive, wiping anything left over from the tracks. (Both do everything from 1 quick pass, to 7 or 9 pass overwrites. IIRC, the US government only uses 3 or 4.

Anyway, agree with SD really. If the drive is small enough, dump everything (or what you want) to a flash drive.

Otherwise, network cable. Never heard of this easy transfer cable, but I'm pretty sure a cross-over network cable will be cheaper. (Assuming the machine has a network port.)

--A