Transfer

[hopper]

My old computer is thinking about giving up the ghost, I have years of angling club letters, business estimates and all the usual stuff we pack away in files, pictures
what is the best way to get all the information from my old computer to my new laptop.

[Harpo]

I'd bypass the laptop and put it all on an external hard drive.

This will keep your laptop free for saving new things and you can then access any old pic info via the external drive. Amazon/pc world etc sell them

Oh and you need a USB to USB lead to transfer data over from one device to other whether it's a laptop or a drive

[Wildfisher]

As Harpo said back it up to an  external hard drive.

[hopper]

Right I have an external hard drive with two leads coming out of it that plugs into the side of the old computer it's after that where do I go to load op the external driver
cheers

[Harpo]

On the pic, go into

Start
And you should see a option for control panel or computer or drives
When you click on that you will see the drive showing and how much space it has

It's a simple case of copying the file, right click on mouse and paste into drive folder

Easier to do than explain!

In fact, it's on this
http://youtu.be/Lluk26qiNXw

[Yardbent]

My old computer is thinking about giving up the ghost, I have years of angling club letters, business estimates and all the usual stuff we pack away in files, pictures
what is the best way to get all the information from my old computer to my new laptop. ..

i am surprised that these days people are still not aware of data loss catastrophe - i'm no PC wiz but on my PC are irreplaceable family photos and details of all my sensitive docs, letters, and Income Tax returns

I bought 2 external HDDs and back-up all changed data every 2 days
and store the HDDs in separate locations

i use Karens Replicator ..............which adds/deletes files to mirror whats on the PC for folders i specify
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp
easy to use and fast

store your stuff on 2 external HDDs, copy over the folders you now use to your new laptop
work on them - and backup often

john

[Wildfisher]

i am surprised that these days people are still not aware of data loss catastrophe -

My guess is most people don't backup. I have an external  2TB USB3 drive connected permanently and backup software that runs a full back up each day followed by incremental backups every 2 hours. Old backups are archived  for a week and automatically deleted when they expire. 

[hopper]

so, can I just not plug in the external driver and a couple of clicks and the whole lot flies over to the external or is that just me looking for the easy way out.

[Fishtales]

so, can I just not plug in the external driver and a couple of clicks and the whole lot flies over to the external or is that just me looking for the easy way out.

Connect with the USB cable and look for the drive in My Computer and open the old drive in Explore then drag all the relevant folders across.

[toms dun]

I think I must have been unlucky I used an external hard drive to save all my photo's too, only had it 6 months and the input jack to the hard drive pushed right inside so lost the connection also lost all my photo's the company  was seagate they said they could replace the hard drive but they don't repair they just send you anew hard drive thought i could re solder the connections later so didn't bother sending back finally got around to having a look and found connections so small my electric soldering iron although for small electronics was still a sledge hammer to crack a nut so I have a hard drive that's useless and have still lost my photo's now back up with discs  and SD cards so I don't know what I would
Tom