What do I need to network my two computer towers?

Question

I dont know what parts I might need or where to start. The problem Im having is One of my towers wont read the mouse or keyboard so I want to get all my inportant info like pics and ect to my other comuter with having to spend anymore money. PLease help. thanks

Wow this is my first time on Yahoo answers. I never thought I would get this much fedd back. Thank you all very much for your time and help.

Answer 1

Have you tried a different mouse and keyboard on the errant computer? ~

Answer 2

Since you can't get to the computer with the files you want, you probably can't turn on file sharing to allow your other computer to access the files, even if they were networked. One thing you could do is take the harddrive out of the one computer and put it into the working computer. The hard drive will probably have a wide, flat cable connected to it. You'll need to unplug it, open up your working computer (while it's off), and plug the hard drive into an identical-looking cable in there (you may need to temporarily unplug a CD drive). Once it's plugged in (there are two cabes - the wide thin one, and another with 4 red/yellow/black wires), you can boot up your computer. If all was successful, the hard drive will show up as another drive on the computer (D: or E: or something like that). Then you can copy the files. Then shut down the computer, unhook the hard drive, and return everything to how it was at the beginning.

Answer 3

Open the non-working tower and take the hard drive out of it.

Open the working tower (with the computer off) and unplug the two cables from your CD drive. Plug them into the hard drive from the other tower.

Boot the computer and you will be able to see the other hard drive in place of your CD drive. Copy over any files you want from that drive.

Then finish, remove the second hard drive and reconnect the CD drive.


There are ways that you could connect the two towers together, but if you can not use the keyboard or mouse on the second computer there is no way to configure it to connect.

Answer 4

Well, the real answer to your problem is to try fixing the broken computer. Probably just needs drivers reinstalled.

But, to network the two computers, all you'll need is a router, which you may already have. Just create a folder on the desktop of the computer you're moving stuff to, and alter the properties to allow sharing on the network, and make sure to allow other users to alter files, so that you can properly accept all files from the other computer.

Answer 5

Sounds like you need a KVM Switch to me. Using a working set of Perifferials. (( Excuse the spelling )) 1 working mouse, 1 working keyboard, etc., You can operate 2 towers. Just keep one tower turned off while you're working on the other one. Hope that answers your question.

Answer 6

Hold on..you need to back up a little....firstly, the tower is the case and only holds the interior. Tower = house walls, floor and roof. You need to NETWORK you 2 pcs and this gets techie. If you are not tech. minded at this stage, it is earier to have one tower holding both hard drives (storage devices) providing you have a MOTHERBOARD that supports more than one.
It is earier to just use one tower and its contents (which is one whole computer) and burn to disc and or use the one you want the data to go to as YOUR COMPUTER. You can't link two computers (towers) unless they are networked.

Answer 7

option 1
A crossover cable and a network card in each machine

Option 2
2 network cables, a hub/switch and a network card in each machine

Option 3
Wireless network cards in both machines

Answer 8

The eye of sauron, of course!