port-to-port transfer

trying to rescue 7G or so of files from dying laptop over to new one. was planning to dump everything to flash drive then upload it seperately, but having screwed up the drive purchase (other thread), it's now occured to me that this is prolly silly aniwes. can't i just plug one PC into the other?

what's involved doing that? do i just string USB to USB and hope for the best? will one PC see the other's HDD as an external drive, or would i have to do some complicated master-slave setup to get it to work?

i can do some fiddling (adjusting settings, installing software if necessary) on the good PC, but little beyond drag and drop on the dying one. should i stick to the intermediary flash idea?

 

http://ezlan.net/direct.html

 

what a great overview! alas, even the "easy" ones seem to involve too much fiddling with the source (bad) PC. flash drives just involve plugging in and then drag and drop, right? (embarassed to say i've never yet used one)

or do i even need to install a "driver" for it to see the flash drive? in which case, i suppose it's no worse trying to install a "network" driver (option 3). but seriously, i don't think i'll succeed at either.

 

Flash drive is probably your best option. When you plug it in, the driver is installed for it, but other than that yes it's just drag and drop. Good luck!

 

heck, i haven't moved since 1994! Have you seen my waistline?!

but yes, thanks for the advice. i know it in principle, but i'm not beyond screwing up when the time comes, so it's good to be reminded!

now back to this "driver". when you say it will install itself (mcsmc), do you mean presto magico everything's ready to go, or do you mean there's a bit of a process with popups saying "install?" and maybe even an installation disk?

i don't recall one in the package, so i guess w7 is supplying a default one?

as a recap (other thread), my screen is TOTALLY DARK and it takes me a lot of work with a spotlight just to FIND THE CURSOR. it will be the absolute limits of my ability to LOCATE the D: or E: drive and click "yes" to something. if i get popups asking me to fiddle with the drivers or the control panel, it's game over.

 

Yes, depending on the computer, it may take up to 20 or 30 seconds for the flash drive to appear as another drive listed in "My Computer". Assuming you have 1 hard drive (C: ) and 1 optical drive (D: ), it would be assigned E: .

You will have to locate the files on the C: drive, right click to copy, then navigate to the new (flash) drive, open it and paste.

Have you considered just getting an external enclosure and taking the drive out of the comp? You could use it as an extra storage drive for any comp in the house.

 

Files can also be transferred via the internet.
Here are a couple of applications that will do the job, they are not free but do give a test period.

http://download.cnet.com/Auto-FTP-Manager/3000-2160_4-10227202.html

http://download.cnet.com/FTP-Synchronizer-Professional/3000-2160_4-10488450.html

This one is FREE and i have used it, not the fastest but definitely the cheapest.

http://download.cnet.com/FileZilla/3000-2160_4-10308966.html?tag=dropDownForm;productListing

 

what kind of "external enclosure"? it's a laptop, remember -- i figure you have to really know what ur doing to hook up the drive sans case. (i do not)

my original plan was to upload everything to adrive or mozy or something, then DL it back to any new PC i bought. now, however, since the screen dying on me, i don't think i could pull that off. at home i have a slightly visible (via spotlight) screen but no wifi; out on the road i have wifi but no way to SEE the screen. short of carrying my own LAMP into starbucks/public library/wherever.

i did try a series of flashlights -- including some halogen thing geared for firefighters -- but they just didn't work.

i am still tempted to do that for the SMALLER files, tho -- addy book, banking, minor correspondence -- as an emergency measure. perhaps even just EMAILING them back to myself. but for the rest of the files (about 7G worth), it rly won't work over dialup.