Taking my documents from old computer to new?

[BMWST?]

timely post.
I assume you a windows user.I just got a usb external hard drive courtesy mr Fly Buys.I just t plugged it in and of course the laptop knew it was there almost straight away,then you find the "back up and restore centre" in the control panel and click on that an d follow the prompts.When the backup and s restore program opens there is a link to "windows transfer" which is prolly what you are after.
It prolly took about an hour or two so to backup about 9 gb.An external hard drive is cheap and good to have in case of hard drive failure,loss of computer ,virus etc.Mine is only a 500 gb one but unless you got a stack of movies i think that would do most people

[Ronin]

timely post.
I assume you a windows user.I just got a usb external hard drive courtesy mr Fly Buys.I just t plugged it in and of course the laptop knew it was there almost straight away,then you find the "back up and restore centre" in the control panel and click on that an d follow the prompts.When the backup and s restore program opens there is a link to "windows transfer" which is prolly what you are after.
It prolly took about an hour or two so to backup about 9 gb.An external hard drive is cheap and good to have in case of hard drive failure,loss of computer ,virus etc.Mine is only a 500 gb one but unless you got a stack of movies i think that would do most people

+

From an old Xp machine?

Actually, best trick we did for a client who has legacy software was to virtualise their old drive and run it on their windows 7 machine.

[Gremlin]

how much data are you talking, i normally just use a USB stick, and make sure everything is on the new one before you start deleting,

What he said, it's the easiest way.

Remember, even with external USB drives, keep two copies of data if it's valuable. Don't use the small USB sticks for backup, they're quite volatile (lose information reasonably easy). External USB drives contain the same equipment as the computer hard drive, so are just as likely to fail, hence the keeping of two copies.

For the transfer, any stick or hard drive would work, unless you have mountains of info, then the external drive would be better as they hold much more (up to 2000gb, as opposed a stick holding 16gb ish).

[Usarka]

Ynot, did this make sense or did it fly over your head. Techy types assume a certain level of understanding when discussing these things..... I have a few friends who would have read this thread and gone "WTF?" then drunk a bottle of tequila and passed out hoping they'd magically fixed it overnight (but in all reality would have stood on the new laptop while playing sir-drinksalot with a broom and a rubbish bin).

[p.dath]

Am going to buy a new laptop,want an easy way to take my documents from old laptop and put on new one thus my pics etc aren't lost,what's the easiest way(bloody shop wants $100 to do)for a total tech loser I am,also same way to transfer my favorites,then I want to eradicate all my cookies etc as will sell laptop cheers folks.

If it is a Windows machine, then it will be coming with Windows 7. Windows 7 ships with a tool called "Windows Easy Transfer". It will transfer your documents, emails, Internet Explorer shortcut, some application settings, etc. The old machine can be running anything from Windows XP onwards.

It can do a transfer via the network or USB memory key/drive.


It works well. It's free with Windows 7. I'd use it.

[Hitcher]

Duck Smuth will sell you a 1TB external drive with a USB3 connector for about $135. Once you've transferred your data, you can use that as a backup drive.

[ynot slow]

Cheers people,going from xp to windows 7,so all sussed.

[mashman]

A guy at work has one of these things... although his has bluetooth and takes SD cards amongst other things. I might invest in one.

[Tigadee]

Borrow a teenager, they will sort it while fixing your Sky TV, group texting their mates, playing playstation and cleaning out your fridge.

Careful, they may give you the "ID-ten-Tee" look...

Or get a USB stick. If I can do it anybody can.

Ah, anybody can get a USB stick but can they use it? That's the $10 million dollar question...

[p.dath]

A guy at work has one of these things... although his has bluetooth and takes SD cards amongst other things. I might invest in one.

I just bought a pair of these for work. Funnily enough, although the items are only $25, the cheapest shipping option was $30 ...