hardfile to hardfile

[langdoguk]

Hi , how hard is it to transfer from one drive to another , one is in my pc and the other is a new one , I don't have another pc to put it in do a normal transfer , can I put both in the one system and transfer it over.
limited knowledge here , is it quite easy?
thanks Craig

[ahofle]

Easiest:
If the computers are on a network together, just map a drive to the other computer and copy the files.

Pain:
You can take the hard drive out and put it in your computer, assuming you have an appropriate extra connector.  It should show up as a drive letter after you restart and you can copy the files.  Just make sure your computer doesn't try to boot from it (verify the order in your bios).

Depending on how much data you are transferring, you could also just use a USB flash drive to copy from one computer to the other.  You can get a 2 gig one for around $30 now.

[langdoguk]

I've only got the one computer and 2 drives , would adding the other drive just come up as eg: d drive , then just copy c drive to d drive , sounds ok just thought I would check.
I want to use the old drive for something else later not just add a drive.

 

[ahofle]

Yeah that's the basic idea.  Again, you should be careful that your bios doesn't try to boot from the new disk (you can specify the boot order in the bios).  If that happens it will throw all kinds of 'new hardware found' msgs (assuming the new drive has windows and a boot sector installed on it).  If it's just a drive with data on it, then you have nothing to worry about.

[langdoguk]

the new drive is formated , should that be safe enough ?
do I need to worry about master and slave drives just to transfer ?

thanks Craig

[ahofle]

Well if it's freshly formatted and empty, don't worry about the boot thing then.  Throw the drive in (set the jumper to 'CS' or cable select -- that's usually the default anyway), boot into windows and you should see the new drive in file explorer and you can just copy and paste to it.

[N8]

Yeah if you have it hooked up just go into disk management in windows.  right click on my computer > manage > Disk management.  If your drive shows up then windows is recognizing it.  If not then you need to check jumper settings.

edit- ahofle beat me to it.

[langdoguk]

Thanks , it worked , a lot easier than I thought 
was just a bit worried so thought I would get some advice first.
cheers