[RESOLVED] Transferring Everything to a New PC

[MartinLiss]

I'm going to get my wife a new PC for Christmas and I want to transfer almost everything from her current PC to the new PC. The tricky part is that her current PC has XP Professional and the new one will have XP Multimedia and I want to keep it that way. Any suggestions on the best way to transfer everything else?

[Hack]

Does your wife have specific folders for specific items (like Word docs in a WordDoc folder, ExcelDocs in an ExcelDoc folder, etc), or does she have her documents all over everywhere (like my wife does)?

I recently got my wife a new PC, and after reorganizing everything in a reasonably logical fashion, I just burnt her data folders on to a CD, and copied them to her new PC.

She has a couple of specific pieces of software that I had to install as well, but basically it was just a PC-to-CD-to-NewPC thing for me.

[-TPM-]

I've never had the need for it but you could try:
Accessories > system tools > file and settings transfer wizard

[MartinLiss]

She has most of her documents in My Documents but probably not all of them. I was planning on purchasing a cable to do PC to PC transfer of data. I was also hoping to have to avoid installing anything. Do you know of any software that will help me do any/all of that?

[MartinLiss]

I've never had the need for it but you could try:
Accessories > system tools > file and settings transfer wizard

I'll look into that. Thanks.

[Hack]

If she has any type of specific commerical software that she uses, that will have to be installed so the proper registry entries will be made.

I found this through Google.

[-TPM-]

She has most of her documents in My Documents but probably not all of them. I was planning on purchasing a cable to do PC to PC transfer of data. I was also hoping to have to avoid installing anything. Do you know of any software that will help me do any/all of that?

If you want to do a pc - pc network connection you'll need a crossover cable. You'll just need to set IP's on both machines and then share a folder.

[Harsh Gupta]

or you can probably use a Laplink cable, a parallel cable or a serial port cable (you will be having one, so no need to buy another) and connect the 2 PCs and use "Direct Cable connection" through Start->Programs-> Accessories->Communications->Direct Cable connection wizard

this is on 98. probably same on XP too.

[-TPM-]

or you can probably use a Laplink cable, a parallel cable or a serial port cable (you will be having one, so no need to buy another) and connect the 2 PCs and use "Direct Cable connection" through Start->Programs-> Accessories->Communications->Direct Cable connection wizard

this is on 98. probably same on XP too.

In XP you setup Null modem cable connections is an option under new network connections (advanced). You'll probably find that a network crossover cable is easier to find than a null modem, costs less and is faster. You will need a NIC in both machines though.

[Harsh Gupta]

In XP you setup Null modem cable connections is an option under new network connections (advanced). You'll probably find that a network crossover cable is easier to find than a null modem, costs less and is faster. You will need a NIC in both machines though.

sorry, i cannot comment on the speed issue because i have no relevant experience regarding that, but no NIC will be required with my suggestion. plus you can use already available serial/parallel cable. so i think mine is atleast cost effective.

[-TPM-]

sorry, i cannot comment on the speed issue because i have no relevant experience regarding that, but no NIC will be required with my suggestion. plus you can use already available serial/parallel cable. so i think mine is atleast cost effective.

As I said you'll need two NIC's, but most new computers have them.
Well the max serial Baud rate is 115200 bits per second, or 115.2Kbs, or 14.4KBs. Where as A NIC will operate at 10MBs, 100MBs or even 1000MBs.
Null Modem cables and serial cables are not the same, the pin outs are different and usually serial cables are male - female. Pin outs here: http://www.zytrax.com/tech/layer_1/c...tech_rs232.htm

[si_the_geek]

..Do you know of any software that will help me do any/all of that?

LapLink is good at it, and I think the (very old, but usable) DOS version is Freeware now.

[Muddy]

Firewire Harddrives are good for this. Danz Retrospect software seems to do a good job of finding all the non application documents when I run backups to my firewire drive. I think it even gets the Outlook pst file ...

[dglienna]

If you don't have a router, now might be a good time to get one. That way, you can share files between two (or in this case, 3) machines. Get the old and new one online, and copy the old drive's contents to a folder on a new machine.

That's what CompUSA does when a customer buys a new machine.

You could also put the old drive into the new machine as a second drive.

Plus, they could share the Internet connection. If you have DSL, you'll need a DSL router that can log on to the DSL modem. If you have cable, then just about any router will work.

[visualAd]

How much are you going to transfer? If its less than 700Mb it and you have a CD-RW, cutting a disk might be the easiest option.

[Hack]

How much are you going to transfer? If its less than 700Mb it and you have a CD-RW, cutting a disk might be the easiest option.

That is what I suggested in the first place (even if it were greater, then you would just use a 2nd CD), but he doesn't want to have to run any installs.

[DaveBo]

Or get an external USB DVD writer (I'm thinking of doing this myself soon)
and you'll have 4.7GB to write-read,
plus, you'll have an automatic backup of the files to stash away.

Or, get one of those USB hard drives, they're like 100+ GB nowadays
at less than $1 / GB!

[-TPM-]

Or get an external USB DVD writer (I'm thinking of doing this myself soon)
and you'll have 4.7GB to write-read,
plus, you'll have an automatic backup of the files to stash away.

Or, get one of those USB hard drives, they're like 100+ GB nowadays
at less than $1 / GB!

I've found that the best way to get a USB HD is to buy just the case ( ~$20) and add your own HD. It usually works out to be a lot cheaper, especially if you have an old HD your not using. Marty could also just stick the old machines HD in to copy it over...

[MartinLiss]

Thanks for all the input.

[MartinLiss]

I bought a USB 2.0 Link Adapter ($19.99) and was able to transfer everything I needed using the windows-explorer-like side by side screen it produced. I did make one mistake however and that is I tried to transfer the Outlook.pst file from the old PC to the new one (without saving a backup copy of the one on the new pc), the file transferred as zero bytes. When I tried to run Outlook I got an error message saying "Unable to open your default e-mail folders. The file "C:\<blah>\Outlook.pst is not a personal folders file. I tried uninstalling Office and reinstalling but the pst file was untouched so I got the same error message. I then deleted the file, uninstalled and reinstalled and when I tried to open Outlook it told me it couldn't find the file. I don't understand that. Shouldn't installing Outlook create a default pst file? As a last hope I restored the zero-length file and tried to use the scanpst.exe (I think that is what it's called) to repair the file but it told me that it was too small to hold any information. Does anyone have any ideas?

[visualAd]

Its a problem with the default data file. If you open outlook and ignore any errors. Then follow these steps, you can create a new one.

• Goto Tools->Options
• Click the Mail Setup tab.
• Click the E-mail accounts button and select View and Change accounts.
• You can then create a new Outlook data file by clicking the button.
• Back on the Mail setup tab, you can add and remove data files. You can go here and remove the one which is corrupt.

[dglienna]

If you still have it on the old PC, then run Outlook, and export the PST file. Then transfer it to the new PC, and import it.

[MartinLiss]

It seems that the problem was that the link adapter couldn't handle pst files for some reason. Once I copied the old file to a disk and then copied it from there to the new pc everything worked fine.