Copying puter to puter?

[tony draper]

Nephews girlfrend has just got a new laptop, she would like to copy her work from the old lappy to the new,how does one go about this?
I never had a lappy, I would have just stuck the old hard disk in the new machine as a slave and copied across that way,obviously on cannot do this with a laptop.
Any help gratfully accepted, because it will be Drapes wot has to do it.
Thank you.

[freefallfun]

One way would be to use a cross over (regular straight through pin out cable will not work) CAT.5. UTP Ethernet cable between the Ethernet ports on each PC (I'm presuming that you have built in Ethernet ports as standard) then share the drive on one of your PC’s. From there you can drag / drop the files at your leisure across your 2 PC peer to peer network using Windows explorer.


Hope that helps.

Matt - FreeFallFun :ok:

[ORAC]

Assuming the new machine has XP, use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/crawford/november12.asp). You can use a null modem or ethernet cable or a CD burner.

[Front_Seat_Dreamer]

I find the best way to transfer data these days is to use some kind of USB memory stick/drive which is just a case of plugging it in then copying your data switching machines and moving the data to the new machine.

Novatech (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/Storage/a10b9c0d0e0x1y0z1p0s0n0m0)

Crucial UK (http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listbyattr.asp?attr=USB%20Flash%20Drive&cat=drives+storage)

Comes in handy at other times too.

[Blacksheep]

Digital cameras make useful USB transfer devices. Put a 256 card in the camera and you can move as much data as most people actually have. I have a spare card for my camera that has most of my data backed up for portability and another for transferring photos.

When you plug in the camera it appears in My Computer as a removeable drive. I then just grab the My Documents folder and drop it on Removeable Drive to copy everything over, then do the opposite on the other computer.

**************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

[Basil]

I've tried a USB-USB network cable which is OK - when it works :*
Very unreliable - or maybe it's just me.

As Blacksheep says, I also use a CompactFlash card in a USB reader.

[Wing Commander Fowler]

Have also used a USB laplink cable (LinQ) which I found worked well with Win98 but since swapping to XP and downloading the appropriate drivers has become unreliable to say the least. In fact one major annoyance is that everytime I connect the cable windows finds new hardware and has to reload the driver.... Then it needs the disc of course!!

Why is that Richard?

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Wing Commander Fowler,

Windows loves to have the install disk loaded in the computer's CD Drive.

The best way around that is:

With Win9X, load the CAB files on to the computer and then run the setup file from the folder you made on the hard drive. That way Windows will go right to that directory and get the files it needs. (If you already have Win9X loaded, you can change to location of the Windows CD in the Registry to point to the folder you created.)

With WinXP, you can make a folder and copy the contents of the XP CD to that folder. When WinXP asks for the CD, you can just point to that folder. (I have not found a way to get WinXP to go directly to the folder, even after you hack the CD Location.)

Take Care,

Richard

[Wing Commander Fowler]

Thanx Richard - knew ya wouldn't let me down.

BUT Damn that Microsoft outfit - they're not as clever as they think!!

:8

[Saab Dastard]

I bought a USB disk caddy (Lindy) and took the 4GB disk out of my old Win2K Tosh laptop (not difficult, remove 1 screw).

I then put it in the caddy and connected it to the USB port on my new WinXP laptop.

Copied over the files, checked all ok then reformatted the Tosh disk. I chose to use FAT32 so that I could shunt data to Win9x PCs.

Having a 4GB portable USB disk has been invaluable, as a backup device and as a transfer device.

Works best with USB 2.0 ports (speed) and need to be aware of 12.5mm (old) or 9.5mm (new) disk height. The Lindy model fits both.

SD