I just got a new hard drive from dell. I already installed the Windows XP OS. Now I have a few questions:

1. What is the easiest and quickest way to copy everything from the old hard drive to the new hard drive? I know I can copy files and folders onto a few CD-R's but it is too time consuming. FWIW, I have the Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0

2. For AOL users, how do I copy all "my favorite places" shortcut over to the new hard drive? Or do I have to go and type each and every site again?

A couple of my friends have suggested getting the Norton Ghost? If so, where can I get it for cheap?:p And how does it work? I know a lot of you guys out there are computer geniuses so help a brother out.

TIA!

 

Is this a new computer or just a new disk?

 

ask joey.. he is the comp nerd... lolz... he helped u with PS...

 

I already told him about the Norton Ghost...I don't know what else to tell the poor guy

 

Same laptop, just new hard drive.

 

:thefinger

 

In that case, Ghost is your best bet.

 

Told ya...

 

Thanks!

Now can you explain how it works and where can I get it for cheap?

 

LOL

 

If Ghost supports your CD burner, boot from a floppy and run Ghost. Create an image of your hard disk and save it to the CD. On the new disk, load the image from the CD. Pretty easy if your drive is supported. If not, you'll need to connect both hard drives to the computer at the same time and do a disk to disk clone. If you were here, I'd connect both of your disks to my space computer and do it that way. You can get adapters that let you connect 2.5" laptop hard drives to desktop PC's IDE and power.

 

he's never gonna figure it out without someone doing it for him

 

well ghost is better for mirroring the drive, not copying the files. the best way to do it is to setup the old drive as a slave and then just copy the files over. someone had posted this same thing about a week or two ago, might try a search on that because he had some probs with it and there were some good suggestions made. also the favorites folder is in C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Favorites folder in xp. just copy the contents of that folder to the new drive in the same path. well the old drive will not be C.

EDIT: forget the favorites thing, i just reread that.

 

I guess that's why they pay me the big bucks.

 

Yea...that's true... i guess that's why installers make so much

 

That's why I need to be rich so I can have people work for me.

BTW mr. know-it-all, what's so hard about what mdaniel said?

 

Ghost is going to do an image of your old hard drive... you're better off (imo) to just burn yer **** to a CDR and copy it back as you need it. Installed programs won't work this way, but any documents you have etc.. they copy back just fine.

 

windows xp has has a "files and settings transfer" wizzard, goto start/programs/accessories/system tools it should be in there, that should be pretty easy to use but not all that powerful

if u wanted every single last file on your old drive, plug both drives into your computer, goto run and type in cmd, then type

xcopy old_drive:\*.* new_drive: /E

replace old_drive and new_drive with the drive letters as they appear in my computer

 

agree with both above...when i got my new Dell last month, i had to transfer everything from my old hd to the new one quick...i just reset the jumpers, 1 for master, 1 for slave, went into Windows Explorer, and just copied everything over...piece of cake!!

 

why don't you just hook up your old hard drive to the secondary IDE, this way you have both the old and new hard drive on the new computer. make sure to boot up from the newer hard drive, and basically just copy everything from the old hard drive to the new hard drive that way?

 

Setup a FTP server on one of the box and transfer it that way or use Ghost to be on the safe side that way u get everything, then just use ghost explorer to manually copy the files u need out. When u do ghost it make sure u split it up into 650 mb chunks so u can burn it or transfer the image over to your new machine via ftp and then run ghost explorer

 

If this PC is going to be connected to a network, you can park the info from your old drive on a netowrk drive. From there, copy it back to your new drive. Just rememvber to delete the info from the network drive or the Netowrk guys will kill you.

If you do the CD route, zip the directories of info you're trying to move. It'll save you a lot of time.

 

i have ghost.....:p .. i use it alot in the office.. cuts the work load in half, more then half only a few mins... the program is small too.. it fits on a 3.5 floppy disk...

 

in that case, you'll have to do it for him then.

 

believe me... it's been done b4...

 

hhahaha