media transfer from copmuter to computer

[omghaxcode]

I just got a new hard drive which I'll be using for personal photos and I'd like to migrate all my old photos from my old computer to my new hard drive which will be in my new computer. Is there a painless way to do this?

 

[lakedude]

I just got a new hard drive which I'll be using for personal photos and I'd like to migrate all my old photos from my old computer to my new hard drive which will be in my new computer. Is there a painless way to do this?

Painless and free. Interested?

Are you only wanting the pics or everything on the old hard drive?

Is the new HD already in a computer?

Does the new HD already have an OS installed?

 

[omghaxcode]

the only things on the old hdd are pictures.

 

[lakedude]

If both hard drives are already installed in computers you can network them together to transfer files.

You could burn a CD/DVD with the pics on it (but that might cost $0.10).

You could hook up both hard drives in one system (making sure to boot from the correct one for that system).

You could use a USB memory stick.

You could use an external HD or put one of the drives in an external enclosure.

 

[lakedude]

You could upload your pics to "the cloud" and download them back to the new PC...

 

[lakedude]

How many MB worth of pics are we talking about here?

 

[lakedude]

If under 700MB you can burn a CD.

If under 4.7GB you can burn a DVD.

If under 25MB or so you can Gmail them to yourself...

 

[omghaxcode]

20GB

 

[lakedude]

Is the new HD installed and does it already have an Operating System? Or do you have a bare drive that you plan to put in a new system someday? Are both drives SATA drives?

 

[lakedude]

Do you have a small hub, switch or router?

 

[lakedude]

What OS are the 2 systems?

 

[omghaxcode]

both are Windows 7 and share a connection through a router

**edit** the new HDD has no OS. it is just a backup HDD supplementing my Samsung 830 256GB SSD.

 

[lakedude]

both are Windows 7 and share a connection through a router

**edit** the new HDD has no OS. it is just a backup HDD supplementing my Samsung 830 256GB SSD.

Ok there are a few things you can do.

1) Since they are both W7 and hooked up to the same router a file transfer can be fairly easily done on the network by putting both systems into the same "homegroup".

2) If you don't want to fuss with the network you could burn 5 or so DVDs (which might be nice as a backup as well).

3) Or you can put the old drive in the new system (maybe in place of the optical drive, if you don't have extra cables) and just copy the files over.

Number 3 is the fastest and fairly easy except for having to physically remove the drive.

Number 1 would involve no messing with hardware but then you would need to do a little network setup.

In case you decide on #1:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/homegroup

 

[lakedude]

In case you don't already know...

Most people use only use their networks as a means to access the internet. The internet is a bunch of other people's computers and networks on the far side of your router.

Everyone also has their own Intranet (notice slightly different spelling from internet), which are all the computers and devices on the network on the home or local side of the router. Your local intranet is most likely many times faster than your outgoing internet connection. In fact it is likely that your intranet is faster than the hard drives in question, especially if you are on a Gigabit LAN.