Has anyone got any recommendations, other than to copy/paste?
Microsoft kindly offer a feature called "Windows easy transfer" that searches through your old PC (running Win XP) and picks up things like "my documents, photos, downloads, email, etc" and then you can then either back it up to an external drive, transfer through a cable, or transfer through a network connection.
So there I am running the WET software, and approx 7 hrs later it tells me that it's finished. I unplug my external drive and connect it up to my new Win 8.1 machine. Run the WET software to extract the files from my external drive only to be told that Win 8.1 doesn't support this file (or words to that effect).
I googled the error message and among the various websites I found this.
pureinfotech.com/2013/07/22/microsoft-removing-windows-easy-transfer-in-windows-8-1/
I found some other info suggesting to use Laplink. So I start again and manage to get both PCs talking to one another through the router. I run the Laplink software on both PCs and follow all the instructions, and finally off it goes and does its magic - ie transferring data from one PC to the other. This will take approx 36 hrs!! What?? It's only 160 GB of data. So after seeing that only 2.5 GB of data had been transferred in something like 2 hrs, I aborted the program.
So, unless anyone has any suggestions for some software (preferably free) it looks like I'll be copying and pasting to my external drive, and then repeating the process to the new PC.
I did make start tonight and it *only* took approx 2 hrs to copy 150 GB of files to the external drive.
So much for the bank holiday weekend and getting loads of other chores done. But instead I've been trying to sort the new PC out.
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Connect the old disk to the new PC as a secondary disk, then drag & drop?
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The cabling in the new pc doesn't match the hard drive of the old pc.
The hard drive in the old PC is a 200 GB Maxtor 6Y200PO ATA 133.
The hard drive in the new PC is a Toshiba DT01ACA200 2TB SATA.
Therefore wouldn't I need something to convert from SATA to ATA? Also the power supply cables are different too.
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What's inside your external disk caddy? Can you swap that with the old drive?
Or buy a new caddy for the old disk from Maplins or similar. Last time I bought one it was only about a tenner.
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Otherwise this is the chappy, I should think you'd get it fairly easily in the UK
www.ebay.com/itm/Pata-IDE-To-Sata-Hard-Drive-Adapter-Converter-3-5-HDD-Parallel-to-Serial-ATA-/380674892444
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 21 Apr 14 at 02:13
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>> What's inside your external disk caddy? Can you swap that with the old drive?
It's a WD My Passport. No chance of swapping over drives.
>> Or buy a new caddy for the old disk from Maplins or similar.
I was thinking something along those lines myself. IIRC someone at work used to have one.
I've also got another external hard drive (full of data, so couldn't use it for the transfer). I might take the lid off and see what type of drive is inside and whether I can temp swap the Win XP drive into it.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 21 Apr 14 at 02:24
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Good luck. Its a hell of a job however you look at it.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 19 May 14 at 01:56
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Given that one of the features of Laplink is allegedly "lightning fast transfers" it might be worth hopping on to their support page, as they offer, in office hours, a free live chat service to help.
It would be shame to spend forever on alternate solutions if it turns out to be a ticky box somewhere to make it run at proper speed, or some such malarkey.
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Interesting link VXF, yet more reasons to avoid Win 8.x . Oh how I laughed the other week at work when I tried to copy my user account to a different Win7 laptop at work using WET, and found that you can't transfer between 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the OS! aaggghhh
anyway:-
IDE to SATA converters - I've got two and they both appear and disappear from the PC's BIOS on a minute by minute basis. YMMV but a waste of time IMX.
3.5" USB-IDE caddy - yeah a low risk option although Maplin presumably charge £££s for such items.
Laplink - not tried it but maybe worth persevering as a cheap option. My alternative variation would be to use a direct ethernet cable connection between the two machines - but again this is a cheap option but potential time bandit:-
windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/connect-two-computers-crossover-cable#1TC=windows-7
I doubt if you'd need the cable to be crossover on a newish PC, it should auto-detect.
Another plan would be to get a big cheap USB flash memory stick and use that - not yet super cheap for 128GB but maybe a useful long term data bucket:-
www.hotukdeals.com/deals/grixx-usb-3-0-flash-drive-128gb-for-36-98-7dayshop-1881452
or if 64GB will do:-
www.hotukdeals.com/deals/pny-wave-attache-64gb-usb-3-0-drive-just-18-88-with-code-egg10-mymemory-1883662
Both of these are USB 3.0 so should be pretty fast copying to the new PC at least (assuming it has USB 3.0)
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Actually this is a better link on how to create an ad-hoc network directly between two PCs (OK example is wireless, but same process wired)
windowssecrets.com/top-story/setting-up-a-temporary-ad-hoc-network/
still a fair amount of faff though!
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Thanks for the advice guys. It seems copy/paste was the quickest method to an external drive, and then copy/paste from the external drive to the new PC.
Most files now transferred over from "My Documents" on my old PC to the new one. The new PC even recognised videos, music, and pictures and asked me if I'd like them to be put into the "My Music, My Pictures, & My Videos" directories.
When I did a check of how many files were on the external drive to what got copied across, there were a couple of files short, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. After all said and done I've still got the data on my old PC hard drive and if I ever find out which files are missing I can still recover them at a later date.
Although my new PC is blisteringly fast on performance, it's let down by not having any USB 3 ports. My external drive is USB 3 ready and it would have speeded things up a little quicker during the transfer process.
Just got to now sort out my emails (converting OE to Outlook) and install my software.
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Not sure if this is relevant, but a step up from Easy Transfer:
www.microsoft.com/windows/en-gb/xp/transfer-your-data.aspx
Should come up on an XP system automatically.
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Thanks Stuartli, but I already tried Laplink and it said that it would take approx. 36 hrs to transfer 160GB of data. In 2 hrs it only managed to transfer something like 2½GB of data. I cancelled the transfer as I wasn't waiting that long for it to do its magic.
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>> Although my new PC is blisteringly fast on performance, it's let down by not having
>> any USB 3 ports. My external drive is USB 3 ready and it would have
>> speeded things up a little quicker during the transfer process.
>>
In the unlikely event the new machine is a desktop you can add USB3 ports for about a tenner:-
tinyurl.com/mwsfjgu
I wanted memory card readers as well as USB3 on my old Dell desktop so added one of these the other week:-
tinyurl.com/n6wemq7
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>> In the unlikely event the new machine is a desktop you can add USB3 ports
>> for about a tenner:-
Thanks for that. I know I've only got one space PCI slot, but will have to check what type it is.
>> I wanted memory card readers as well
No spare front panel slots unfortunately. In the PC box was a voucher for something like £7 off a USB one. Usually £11.99, but £4.99 with the voucher. I already have an old one kicking about somewhere though.
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>> Thanks for that. I know I've only got one space PCI slot, but will have to check what type it is.
It will need to be PCI Express to support a USB3 card. I assume you know that. All it will need is a PCI-Express x4 slot.
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I'm liking that USB 3 thing to replace the redundant floppy, only problem is I have no spare SATA cables. MB has 6, all in use. (2 x IDE drives, 3 x SSD, 1 x DVD). I think I have a PCI board somewhere which I got for eSata, wonder if that had any SATA ports on it?
Is it any good? ( don't want the card readers but would like the USB3 ports.
EDIT: Just re-read it, it uses PCI-E, have loads of those free...
Last edited by: smokie on Sun 27 Apr 14 at 08:51
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Spamcan - looking at the picture it is has a PCI-E cable and another cable which I presume is for a USB 2 header on the mb - can you advise whether that one is essential and if so confirm it's USB2? I don't seem to have any USB3 headers on my mb anyway, there are just 2 USB3 ports on the back. I have 2 x USB2 headers, both in use, but can disconnect the one driving the front USB as the ports are bust...
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The 4 USB3 sockets are connected to the mobo via the PCI-e expansion card and umbilical cable
The memory card sockets are connected to the mobo via the usual 5x2 pin USB2 header and are independant of the USB3 (I didn't bother connecting them at first)
The USB 5V 2A 'charging socket' - the one to the right of the memory card sockets - has a 4 pin Molex power connection (only 2 pins used) which I choc-blocked into the 5V supply to the optical drive - haven't actually tried charging anything from it yet.
I don't yet have a USB3 memory stick so I haven't had chance to see how fast it goes.
HTH
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I used Laplink to transfer files from an XP Pro system to a Windows7 set up and it was achieved in about 60 to 80 minutes.
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So you transferred 160GB data in about 60 minutes over USB2? Impressive.
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>> over USB2
Or ethernet cable.
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I was being a bit sarcastic. Assuming you only have a 100Mbit/s Ethernet connection (maybe you've got Gigabit Ethernet on the new machine but unlikely on the old one) and there is 10% overhead for the protocol used, transferring 160GB would take around 4 hours.
USB2 of course has more bandwidth than 100Mbit/s Ethernet.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 24 Apr 14 at 11:30
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>> I was being a bit sarcastic.
>> ...
>> USB2 of course has more bandwidth than 100Mbit/s Ethernet.
Isn't USB 2.0 = 480Mb/s = 60MB/s = 216GB/hour in theory, so 160GB doesn't look too bad?
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Maybe you were being a bit sarcastic. But I've never actually mentioned the GB involved - it was you who brought up a figure of 160GB, presumably out of thin air.......
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>> - it was you who brought up a figure of 160GB, presumably out of thin air.......
I originally mentioned it and maybe Rob thought you were comparing like for like. No mention from you about the amount of data you were transferring so plausible to think that.
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You appear to be completely PC savvy VxFan, I can't see any reference to the network.
Presumably (maybe wrong on my part) this is a home operation why not share the drives between the machines and move them as necessary?
I use a NAS to move files between phones, laptops and PC and it's usable. If push comes to shove I'd use a USB stick as others have suggested. Without knowing more about your network setup I'd keep it simple...
Last edited by: gmac on Sat 26 Apr 14 at 21:31
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Indeed it was the cross reference to your 160GB reference VxFan. You said it was going to take forever and then it was said it could be fast. I was saying I doubted it would be that fast with a volume like 160GB of data.
And I'd have said use networking too (PC to PC) but the SMB2 protocol is very inefficient. Copying a few big files is okay. Many GB of small files is rubbish. All down to the overhead of the SMB protocol. Better at SMB3. And obviously only going to be fairly fast over GB Ethernet. And your old PC is unlikely to have even one GB Ethernet port. My PC has two which can be combined - but the NAS has only one.
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Diverting slightly from the subject, this may prove of interest to those who wish to stick with XP or XP Pro at least for a while and continue to use WindowsUpdate:
tinyurl.com/pdlm4q3
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Transferring files from Win XP to Win 8.1 - No FM2R
