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How to move files to a new hard drive

post #1 of 7
1/6/04 at 3:06pm
Thread Starter 
I need some help, My mother has a new computer and wants to move her old files to it.
Old system is windows 98se no ethernet conn on it. New system is windows XP home and has most conn on it.
What would be the fastest and easyest to do this?
Thanks up front for any help you can give.
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post #2 of 7
1/6/04 at 3:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaisooba
I need some help, My mother has a new computer and wants to move her old files to it.
Old system is windows 98se no ethernet conn on it. New system is windows XP home and has most conn on it.
What would be the fastest and easyest to do this?
Thanks up front for any help you can give.
Remove the drive from the old computer. Install it as a secound drive on the new computer. Do the copy "D" to "C" by directory thing and then deinstall the drive from the new computer and reinstall it into the old computer.

Seems like a lot of work; but it is actually pretty simple.

Edit: I "read" into this that both units are desktops. If not, please ignore my advice.

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post #3 of 7
1/6/04 at 4:00pm
Just another quick option in case you do not feel comfortable opening the new computer:
  1. Buy and install an ethernet card in the original computer. Cost is about $6.00 on sale. Ethernet Cable about $2.00 on Sale. Then network computers for easy transfer.

That way both computers stay intact, and you can choose to transfer only what you want.

Later KP

On second thought Gary's advise is also good. What I usually do when I buy a new desktop is to install the old hard drive into the new computer as a second drive and just leave it there for backup.
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post #4 of 7
1/6/04 at 5:04pm
Thread Starter 
Thank you both for the input. Yes they are both desktop units.
If I do the hard drive swap do I need to do a slave and master setup or just install it and read off the other drive?
Ethernet card sound nice also I'am not sure what way to go!
But thank you for the help!!
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post #5 of 7
1/6/04 at 5:55pm
Many people set the first hard drive jumper to Master and the second to Slave. (I set both of mine to cable select). You should have at least one empty drive bay and at least one unused plug when you open up the computer.

Then in the bios setup make sure you include the second hard drive in the boot sequence. Then boot up as normal and you will have access to the second drive. If you have questions I'm sure someone will help out.

Later
KP
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post #6 of 7
2/4/04 at 9:50am
I'm in the process of doing the same type of transfer (Win98 to XP).

What about the registry keys for the installed files? Do I need to worry about that? I'm mostly concerned about transferring Visual Studio and SQL Server over.
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post #7 of 7
2/4/04 at 7:54pm
if you are just moving some files install an ethernet in the machine and transfer them that way.
or burn the files to the cd
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