Copying Old Hard Drive to New PC - Comments Page 3

Added a Maxtor external HD to keep all videos/itunes/pictures off the internal drive for better performance.How do I go about when downloading new pics/videos/itunes,that it goes directly to the external drive.F:\, and not the internal C:\drive.Maxtor offers a run backup everyday,however,I do not want to back up ,I want to load it directly to the F:/ .Any help greatly appreciated

EDITOR'S NOTE: You can change a setting in iTunes to tell it where the music library shoulkd be stored. For individual downloads, you'll need to change the drive letter when selecting a folder to store the file.

Hello, I have a little problem. My computer crashed (mother board went out). Now I have a second pc with the same operating system. I want to save my data (pictures and other files) from my old hard drive. I installed this hard drive into the other computer as a slave. I can see the hard drive and access all the information but the one folder I have all the things on that I want to save. What can I do??

EDITOR'S NOTE: Are you saying that one specific folder on the old drive cannot be found, or that things are missing from it? If so, you should try a file recovery tool. See http://askbobrankin.com/recover_deleted_files.html

I have vista on my pc a the moment but i want to wipe the hard drive Could i transfer all my programs and files to another hard drive and have a new OS on my new hard drive wil the programs work from my old hard drive as a slave drive?

EDITOR'S NOTE: No, you'll need to re-install those programs from the original media. Blame the Windows registry.

I have just taken my old laptop's hard drive out and placed it into an external enclosure to use with my new laptop, however when I connect it I find that it is very slow and that I can't copy anything off of it onto my new laptop's HD, whenever I try it just starts up saying - 'copying 24 (or however many) items, (however many) minutes remaining and just hangs there making no progress. I tried with just one mp3 file and the same thing happens, I end up having to disconnect the old HD or Windows explorer stops responding, what am I doing wrong?

I replaced my old dell Optiplex for a newest Compaq, but I wan to use the old hard drive in my new computer because i have a lot of programs in it. I just connected the old hard drive to the compaq, but it does not recognize the drive. It does not do anything, it is like nothing conected, the new desktop just wait for any hard drive in a black screen.

I put the hard drive in the old desktop and it is working fine.

Do you know why is it happening?

Do you have any advice on how to transfer all my files (incl. Win Vista) from an old HDD to a new blank one? I've tried Acronis and Windows Easy Transfer but they only make backup /or require my new HDD to have Vista already preinstalled. It is worth noting that my laptop vendor never gave me the OS (which is installed in the old HDD) and I have since lost the recovery disk he gave me.

Are there any freeware software that could help me facilitate said migration? Thanks in advance.

Hi Bob, I have a "lot" of word documents that are on an older Windows 98 desktop that I would like to have use of again . I parked the old computer four years ago and don't know if this or the older older system will be a problem. Didn't find any comments that covered my issue. I have XP professional on my newer system.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You should be able to open the Word documents from the Win98 machine on the XP machine with no problem.

(How to transfer programs from old hd to new)
Just purchased a HP Notebook/laptop. I have XP on my desktop.. Vista is on the Notebook. I own MS Office Word 2007 on the desktop & to activate it on my notebook, I have to buy it. Is there a way to just keep the hard drive and access JUST the old hard drive through my notebook? Has pics and other documents as well on the older HD. Obviously, purchasing the MSOW 2007 again is out of the question, and the info on the one I have I've no idea where it is (unless I can find the key on my old HD). I'm getting rid of the desk top. Thanks so much, Cathie.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You can use the old hard drive as an external drive, connected via USB. See http://askbobrankin.com/convert_internal_hard_drive_to_external.html

I am trying to copy folders from my older PC running Vista 32bit to my new one running Vista 64bit. The new PC has a 60GB SSD as drive C and a 1 TB as drive F. The old PC has everything on one drive (C). I want to xfer folders etc from old drive C to new drive F using easy transfer, but it doesn't give me a drive choice. So how do I do this? SSD cannot hold all the data, nor do I want it all there anyways.
Thank you in advance Bob

My Sony VAOI died, would not power up....Had to send it to Sony and they sent me a brand new computer. They sent me the hard drive from old computer since I couldn't back it up with no power on the old computer.

Now what is the best way to copy some of the hard drive info such as pictures and e-mail folders to my new computer when the old hard drive they sent me back is not inside a computer?

Please go step by step as I am not a computer expert by any stretch of the imagination.

Thanks!