System Backup

[lotsofloot]

Hi Folks

Am in the process of changing my old computer (running windows XP) for a new one (running windows Vista). My plan is to copy the contents of the old hd to the new one via an external hd.

What I need to know is whats the best way of going about this. What software is best to use ? Its there any major pitfalls that needs to be considered.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Regards

LotsOfLoot

 

[shadowninja]

I just copied the files I wanted to transfer to the external HDD. There are probably cleverer ways of doing things, but this one is at least the most straightforward.

 

[trendie]

you would be surprised at the mount of junk you have accumulated over the years that you dont really need.

best option: copy all to external hard-drive as you say.
but dont load everything back. just reload only the things as you realise you need them.

after 6 months, I reckon 80% of contents on your external hard-drive will not be accessed.

 

[lotsofloot]

Thanks

I just copied the files I wanted to transfer to the external HDD. There are probably cleverer ways of doing things, but this one is at least the most straightforward.

 

[Hoggums]

If it's a PC rather than a laptop and you don't mind using a screwdriver there's no reason you can't plug your old drive into the new computer alongside the drive that's already in there.

Once you've done this it's then an easy and fast job to drag n drop files from one HDD to the other.

And if you are going to discard your old machine then leave the old drive in there for extra storage.

Do you have a home network - if so you can move files from one machine to the other over the network..

If both machines have firewire ports you can plug a firewire into either computer and that will act like a 400Mb/s network connection and you can drag and drop files to/from each computers shared files folder.

 

[Glenn]

If you are copying software (rather than just data) from your old drive then it may not run on the new PC because it usually needs to be installed properly in order to update the Registry.
Glenn