Woo-woo! No sticking, rebooting, dead stops, etc.
I have been working with an antique computer using Windows Millennium and doing my web pages with FrontPage 97. I am now out of the Dark Ages and into the light, and with good virus protection too. I have to transfer a bunch of stuff from my old machine to the new one, but I am hopeful that will work pretty smoothly. This new machine comes with an enormous Hard Drive too, so hopefully I will never have to dump good picture files again.
Update: I 've got the data transfer going, but apparently this takes a looong time when you have as much stuff on the ol' hard drive as I do. No matter -- I can watch TV and go for a coffee while it grinds away. The down side is that I may be on "dial up" for a couple of days until I get it all sorted out, so if you have sent me an email, give me a couple of days to respond. After I get the stuff transfered and backed up on the new machine, I will look into adding the old computer's hard drive to the new computer if there is acutally a slot in the new machine for that. My fear of doing such a major "head transplant" on the front end is that I will screw it up and lose everything and have no data backup at all. Right now I am sticking with what I know how to do -- copying files from one computer to another.
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I have been working with an antique computer using Windows Millennium and doing my web pages with FrontPage 97. I am now out of the Dark Ages and into the light, and with good virus protection too. I have to transfer a bunch of stuff from my old machine to the new one, but I am hopeful that will work pretty smoothly. This new machine comes with an enormous Hard Drive too, so hopefully I will never have to dump good picture files again.
Update: I 've got the data transfer going, but apparently this takes a looong time when you have as much stuff on the ol' hard drive as I do. No matter -- I can watch TV and go for a coffee while it grinds away. The down side is that I may be on "dial up" for a couple of days until I get it all sorted out, so if you have sent me an email, give me a couple of days to respond. After I get the stuff transfered and backed up on the new machine, I will look into adding the old computer's hard drive to the new computer if there is acutally a slot in the new machine for that. My fear of doing such a major "head transplant" on the front end is that I will screw it up and lose everything and have no data backup at all. Right now I am sticking with what I know how to do -- copying files from one computer to another.
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3 comments:
I'm all for making a backup and then transferring, but you should also consider taking your hold hard drive and moving it to the new machine.
It's a very simple procedure.
(1) back up critical and other files
(2) power down machine and unplug
(3) open case
(4) degauss yourself by touching the removed metal case panel
(5) pull out the power cable to your hard drive. This will have a white cap at the end and four multi colored wires coming out of the cap and heading toward your power brick / fan.
(6) Pull out the long flat thin (2 in wide) cable next to where the power cable was. This bus runs from the motherboard to your drive and might hit your CD drive along the way.
(7) unscrew the mounting screws holding your drive in place
(8) on the back of the HDD where the cables came in, there will be a jumper (3-4 pairs of gold wires with one or two clips that fit over two of them). Use tweezers or your fingers to take the jumper and move it to the CS position (there will be a label or a guide on your HDD). This means "Cable Select" and tells the computer wether the drive is the master, the slave, or lets its position on the cable determine.
You can set your new HDD to Master, this one to Slave as well.
Install the drive into your new machine, scew it into an empty drive bay if there is room, install the bus, the power, then power on your machine.
At the first boot your BIOS might auto detect the drive, but it never hurts to follow the prompt to "Enter Setup" ... you can usually just exit and save settings... and voila... you now have a computer with two hard drives.
This comes in very handy, as your can tell your OS to set up another page file on your old drive (virtual memory), as well as programs like Photoshop.
It also allows you to burn your old files again with your new equipment and get at your old files easily.... or just wipe the drive and have a place to store junk.
Drives don't last forever, but having an extra hard drive is always a bonus. I use them for backups and such, extra scratch disks for Photoshop, page files for the OS, and internet downloads that are large and get burned to disc once they are done (movies).
It's one of those things like changing your own oil that you can do without being an expert and should probably learn sooner or later.
Cheers.
Congratulations, PB, as this is your lucky day. You've just been tagged to play the Eight Random Facts meme. Click here for details. Enjoy!
Even if you don't do the brain transplant, it's good to take out the hold HDD and keep it in a box, just in case. Even if you donate your old machine (really, who'd want it? I've tried the donation route and never found success) you can pick up an old used HDD at one of those local fix-it shops for like $5 to replace your drive.
I'm sure all that data is worth more than that to you, plus security you're taking against identity theft.
:c)
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