old desktop downloaded music and other. new desktop...how do i get files from old to new?

Question

i believe that most of the downloaded files are stored in the hard drive atleast thats what ive been told. there is so much that i downloaded from sites like ares and limewire...never burned copies.and dont want to have to redownload. can i connect both desktops with ethernet and open them up to file share?some one told me that too!

Answer 1

If you got a lot of stuff really the most efficient way is to just pop the old hardrive into the new computer for a temp basis....transfer your files then move it back to the old system.

it should take all of 3 min to swap the drive in and you'll get decent tranfer speed to the new drive

Answer 2

There are mulitiple ways of getting info from your old system (hard drive) onto you new computer. The first, which I really think is dumb unless you have a large capacity hard drive is to copy and paste all of the files onto an external hard drive. This will take some time! Secondly, you can attach two computers using a parallel cable. It plugs in the back of both computers and will let you share files from one to the other. Third, networking. If both computers have a networking (etherlink/ethernet) card then you can attach it either by direct networking; which requires you to buy a special cable that will only hook two computers together at a time, or by hooking the computers to a network with a hub or router. Lastly, you can take the hard drive out of the old computer and put it into the new and just drag and drop the info that you want onto the new hard drive. This method has a draw-back; you cannot access any information (files/folders) that are located in your "My Documents or Settings" from the old hard drive.

Your best bet is...if you have any kind of internet (other than dial-up) you will have a network card. Either by direct connection or router/hub connection, that would be the easiest. Just plug (network) the computers together and set them both up using the "Networking" wizard that is built in. Click start, control panel, networking and internet connections, then setup or change a home or business network. Once you have ran this on both computers you are ready to start moving info from your old to new!

Thanks,
Charlie

Answer 3

The computers can be connected via ethernet, if you are using a router then you need two straight-through cables, share the harddrive on the old system and access it from the new one. If you do not have a router then you can still connect them via ethernet with a cross-over cable, wires one and three and two and six are crossed over. If you are going to use the cross-over cable you will need to hardcode the IP addresses into the systems to get them to talk to each other. To hardcode the IP addresses, you will need to access the network configuration in the control panel in Windows. If the new system is XP, there is a File and Settings Transfer Wizard that you can use making the job easier. In Vista I believe the program is called Windows Easy Transfer.

The first link talks on how to do the transfer, the second link is to download the program itself, if needed. According to Microsoft, that program only works for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista only. For older systems or none Windows based you will need to use the network/harddrive sharing method mentioned above.

Answer 4

The above answer is good , Also Consider sharing drives and Transfer The Files Via A LAN Network if you have one .