How to connect laptop to desktop at home for data transfer?

Answer 1

I hate when users blatantly plagiarize information... especially that which is outdated... usb 2.0 has been here for two years. (last response above mine)

Onto the question. If both of your computers use your internet at home (simulataneously) i.e. you have a wireless network setup, or both are plugged into your broadband modem/router then you are already set up to transfer files. All you have to do is run the Network Setup Wizard on both computers. Open up My Computer, on the right click on Network Places, then on the right click on Setup a home or small office network.
Run through the setup on both computers (if your laptop connects wirelessly to the internet just click ignore disconnected hardware when you get to that screen) make sure that you name the network the same name on both computers (i.e. MSHOME) enable file and print sharing. ANd just go through all of the prompts until the wizard finishes. (you don't need to create a network setup disk) From there all you have to do is locate the folder that contains the files that you want to transfer. Right click on that folder, click Sharing and Secuirty, allow it to be shared on the network. You will now be able to access that file from My Computer, then Network Places, just click on the folder. Voila!

Answer 2

I forgot the specific name but there is a wire on which USB ports are present on both the ends, just plug it in to your PC & Notebook and they will be recognized as removal devices on each other. Transfer all you want. If you dont get that wire (Which is a rare case) you can also you a USB Flash drive.

Answer 3

I read on the newspaper about this gadget called the..hurricane?! i think. it's a usb connection which is double-ended. so. just connect one to desktop and the other to the laptop..voila!!! you may start moving data.

Answer 4

Data Transfer Is a Flash With FireWire

Anyone who connects a digital video camera or an external disk drive to a PC owes a debt to Apple Computer. Apple developed FireWire, a high-speed method for connecting computer peripherals. After Apple made the technology available to other companies, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers adopted it as an industry standard with the official and more boring moniker "IEEE 1394." Sony came up with yet another name--"i. Link."

By whatever name, the technology represents an easy way to connect high-speed devices to a PC. Although Apple and a few enlightened PC makers build machines with FireWire ports, most don't. But it's relatively cheap and easy to add FireWire to a desktop and even easier--but a bit more expensive--to add it to a laptop.

The advantages are many.

Connecting a FireWire device to a PC is identical to adding a device to the Universal Serial Bus ports included in all recent PCs. In both cases, users plug a cord into a socket and can "hot swap" devices. In other words, users don't have to turn off the PC or the device to connect.

The big difference between FireWire and USB is speed. FireWire operates at up to 400 megabits per second, or about 50 megabytes per second, whereas the current version of USB transfers at a slow 12 Mbps, or 1.5 MBps.

USB is fast enough for a mouse, keyboard or printer and adequate for digital cameras and scanners, but it's far too slow for transferring data between a PC and a digital camcorder or for connecting an external hard drive. It's also a limiting factor for external CD read/write, or CD-RW, drives.

A future version of USB, called USB 2.0, will run slightly faster than FireWire at 480 Mbps, but it's not here yet. The likelihood that PCs will eventually have faster USB ports is of little consolation to someone who is now in the market for a fast and easy way to connect an add-on device.

Users can add FireWire to a desktop machine by plugging a 1394 "host adapter" card into an empty PCI slot on the motherboard. Adding FireWire to a laptop is as easy as inserting a credit-card-size adapter into the PC card slot.

Maxtor loaned me a $49 1394 PCI Host Adapter Card along with its $399 80-gigabyte 1394 External Storage hard drive. The only difficult thing about the installation process was taking my machine apart to install the PCI host adapter.

Windows ME immediately recognized the 1394 card and automatically loaded the drivers for it. I then plugged the Maxtor external hard drive into the FireWire port and, without having to install any software, the drive immediately worked. It was that simple, and, as regular readers of this column know, I rarely use the words "PC" and "simple" in the same article. Many FireWire devices have two sockets to enable users to "daisy chain" one device to another. I plugged in an external LaCie CD-RW drive into the hard drive and it, too, worked right away.

I then plugged in a Sony digital camcorder, that, like all DV camcorders, has a 1394 port. I had to spend $29 for a special cable, but, again, connecting the camcorder to the PC was a breeze. Life around PCs is rarely this good.

When I ran Microsoft's Movie Maker software, it immediately recognized the camcorder and allowed me to control the camcorder from the PC. FireWire transmitted the software's rewind, fast-forward and play functions directly to the camcorder and quickly transferred the video from the camcorder to the PC.

My next move was to get a copy of Studio DV Video editing software from Pinnacle Systems. This $89 home video editing software comes packaged with a three-port 1394 card and a cable, which makes the software a very good deal considering that it would cost at least $78 to buy the cable and card separately.

So, thanks to FireWire--or whatever its name is--I'm now a virtual Frank Capra, making movies on my camcorder, editing them on my PC, storing them on that 80-GB external hard drive and distributing them on CDs. It's a wonderful life.

Answer 5

you can use a hub, router or a switch. A cross over ethernet cable, or a crossover USB cable.

wown.com has some step by step guides.

Answer 6

All u need is a hub and 2 ethernet LAN cables.