Best way to transfer files from one PC to Another??

I should be finished assembling all the part for my new PC build next month and now I need to figure out how to transfer my old files to the new PC.

My current PC is running Windows XP ( i think its professional ) my new PC will be Windows Home 64 Bit. Old Hardrive is small 120 or 140 Gigs.. new one will be a 1TB.

I am most concerned about my old pictures, videos, game files, some software programs, favorite files and my password manager program...

Whats the best way to do this. I am also considering buying an external drive as a back up. Should I get that first and transfer all the files to that and then upload to new PC? Is there a good program that helps me do this..

I am a novice as this is my first PC build and transfer..

Thanks in Advance.

If you are wanting to copy most or everything over the easiest is probably pull the drive from the old PC.
Install it in the new PC on the second SATA port (or an EIDE one if its older), You may need to unplug your optical drive if this is SATA and you only have two ports.
ensure you are still booting from the new drive and just copy the files between drives.

Easier to do than to explain tbh.

Alternatively if both are still working just connect both to your router/switch and copy across the network - will be slower though.


Personally for backups I use a drive caddy and just plug a hard disk in to that - windows 7 already has the tools for handling backups which should be adequate for home users. (this would also make copying drive to drive simple)

80,000 floppy disks.

<snort>
Caveman.

Use the 3-1/2" ones with the hard shell and you'd only need 2970 of them.

Now, if you had a Zip Drive.....

You can also use a DVD burner and make some coasters... er, backups of the files, and then read them in the other computer.

But I'm with Gob. 8 inch floppies are seriously awesome.

/I wish I still had mine, just to have braggin' rights.
//I hadda go look. Yes! You can still get them, and the drives too!
///Craziness...

I haven't done this in a long time with normal user tools, but going from memory there are a couple of options besides manually copying everything (if you could do that, you wouldn't be asking here).

Microsoft makes a tool called Windows Easy Transfer. The idea is you run the tool on the old PC and it spits out the data somewhere, then you run the tool on the new PC and it suck in the data from that same somewhere. You can network the two PCs together or use a USB external harddrive big enough to hold everything. As your old system was less than 150 gigs, I would go that route since external hard drives with that capacity are not expensive, and then you have an external hard drive to make backups and stuff.

If memory serves, this tools moves data and some system settings, but not whole applications. You'll have to reinstall applications. I think it tells you which apps it detected so you can reinstall them, but it doesn't do that for you.


Alternatively Laplink makes a commercial tool that supposedly moves apps and data from XP to Win7 called PCmover. It purports to do this in a fairly automatic way, but I haven't used it to migrate to Windows 7 (I did use it once a long time ago to do an XP to XP migration for someone else). But its kind of expensive in the sense that while it only costs about $30, it can only be used to do one conversion for that $30. But it does claim to move apps. Keep in mind if the app doesn't run under Windows 7, no tool can really fix that.


To be honest, when I jumped from XP to Win7 I just virtualized my old XP system and ran it under VMware, because much of the stuff I had on the old system wouldn't run under Win7 at all.


Whatever you do, I would caution this: don't assume whatever you do actually worked perfectly, especially if you're not a pro (and even if you are: I do this also). Assume the process missed something, something you aren't going to realize is missing until weeks or months later. Take the old hard drive out of the old system and stick it into the new system as a D: drive, and keep it around for a while. That way if you discover something missing, you always have a chance to grab a copy from there. Once its gone, its gone. That's another reason why I kept a virtual image copy of my old XP system (and I still have it now, years later).

Pfft. If you're not going to transfer using a portable hard drive, thumb drive, etc, and you have both machines on the same network, you can just copy stuff over the network.

On your old machine:
Navigate to the CoH folder.
Right-click on it and select Properties:




Navigate to the Sharing tab.
You may need to enable File Sharing.
You'll see a link for share files/folders.
Click on it and when it warns you, just OK it.
You should then get a screen like this:

Check both the check boxes and click OK or APPLY.

You may get a screen like this:

Just say OK to it.


Once shared out, you'll see that the icon for the folder has changed.

Now, just because it's shared doesn't mean you can get at it.
If you have a software firewall, other than the Windows Firewall running, you may need to add a rule or, if just for short term, disable it.

Can't show you how to do that because there's dozens of versions of dozens of programs out there and they're ALL FRICKING DIFFERENT!

Once you have that though we need to get some info from this machine:
Click on the Start button and right-click on My Computer (or if you have a My Computer icon on the desktop, right-click it there).
Select Properties



This brings you to the system properties screen.




Click on the Computer Name tab.

What you're looking for is "Full Computer Name"
Write it down.


Now, in some cases, the NETBIOS name (which is what the computer name actually is) doesn't work for navigating networks. Sometimes it's a security thing, sometimes the network isn't set up right, etc etc.

So we're going to go after something that pretty much HAS to work.
The IP address.

Click on the start button and click on Run.
When the Run screen comes up, type in CMD.
(Alternately, Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> Command Prompt)




When the command prompt comes up type in IPCONFIG
Then hit the ENTER key on your keyboard.




You should get an output something like this.
The thing you're concerned with is the IP Address line.
Copy that value down too.




Now head over to your computer and open up a file browser.
In the address line, type in \\THENAMEOFTHEOTHERCOMPUTER
Then hit the Enter key on the keyboard.



If that doesn't work, erase what's in the address line and try \\THEIPOFTHEOTHERCOMPUTER


Once you see the City of Heroes share, browse into it.
Highlight everything inside there.
Right-click and select COPY
Browse back to your local system (C:\ or whatever).
Create a folder called "City of Heroes" as a place to store the files.
Browse into that folder, right-click and say PASTE.

Go get yourself a soda. Depending on your local network speed, it may take a few minutes or an hour or more.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Why don't you install the older drive into the new computer? Not as a primary/OS drive. Then when you have your new pc running you can just drag the info from one drive to another. What Arcanaville said about keeping the older drive handy for a few months is excellent advice.

With a few exceptions, you'll have to reinstall your programs (and/or drivers) onto the new computer anyway, so make sure you grab the latest versions and save them on the old drive. Then you don't have to scrounge about for 'em later, assuming you install the old drive into the new machine.

Externals can be handy if you regularly move around a HD's worth of information. I like to buy enclosures and put internal drives in them to save few bucks. But I use them as back ups and don't remove them from the enclosures often. If you just have to move a few gigs worth of info, use discs or USB thumb drives instead. Easy and cheap to replace. If you don't have the space or the connections for your old HD in the new computer, an external enclosure for it is an excellent idea. Once you get all your important data (and wait a few months) you can wipe that drive and use it as a clean back up.

As far as photos and files go, having a back up is a solid idea. Two is even better. I prefer to have the OS and programs run off one drive while my music/art/photos/etc are all on their own drive that gets backed up regularly. Less chance of something important being lost.

the do make for 15.00 usb to ide/sat cables for people that want to connect an old drive to a new pc.

Thanks for the advice.. the old drive is very old I really want to get the stuff off that drive... I dont think installing it into a new PC is the answer. Im actually thankful it lasted this long.

While the old drive is ~120Gb, the question is how much *data* do you have?

Personally... >.> I have an external NAS, two 750Gb HDs mirrored in it. Anything I want to keep gets copied there, and can be accessed by any computer (with the password) on the network.

Programs - you'll probably need to reinstall for them to actually work properly in most instances. For things like that password manager, see if it has an "export" function - it'll probably create a small file, copy that over, reinstall the program on the new system, import that file.

Yes, it'll possibly take a while.

For things like browsers, etc, by the way, I tend to head over to ninite.com - creates a custom installer for you to download and run with (for instance) firefox, 7zip, Malwarebytes, Pidgin, etc - you pick and choose, it installs. Tend to use it any time I set up a windows system or VM.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Get an enclosure for your old drive with a usb/firewire connection. They're pretty cheap nowadays.

I bought a cheap (under $20) SATA/IDE to USB Adapter a few years ago. I can connect any IDE laptop or desktop HDD or a SATA HDD to the adapter and then connect it to my computer using a USB cable. It's not an enclosure, just the bare drive lying on the desk with the cables connected to it.

I use it regularly when I run across a system so full of malware or viruses that I can't get any removal tools to run correctly. I can slave it to my main computer and run removal tools on it, then put it back in the computer it came from and run them again from there. I also use it to recover files from the drive in a computer that won't boot so I can put them on a disc for the person that owns the computer. I think I saw four or five of them laying on the workbench at the Technology Office when I was there Monday.

I haven't found a drive it won't work with yet.

I wonder how long it would take to save that information if you were storing it on an audio cassette like my first computer did......