External hard-drive

kpwll

I have just bought a Buffalo Ministation Portable USB2.0 Hard drive unit as my poor old PC is on its last legs and the cdrom won't work and allow me to put all my files etc onto a disc.
Attached it to the tower and followed instructions, the installation completed but it doesn't tell me how to transfer the files onto it and I can't work out how to .

Would anyone have a really simple explanation of how I can use it please?

Thanks for any help offered.

Figment

WINDOWS key + E to open Windows Explorer ("My Computer")

You should see it listed with a new drive letter.

Copy/paste to create a copy, Cut/paste to move.

Peter999_2

Hi,
You need to use Windows Explorer to view the hard drive.

The quickest way to get into Windows Explorer is to keep your finger on the WINDOWS key (usually to the left of the space bar and looks like four windows) and press the E key. After a few seconds windows explorer should open.

Click on the COMPUTER button on the left hand side of the screen. The hard drive should have had a letter assigned to it, it is usually E:, F:, or G:. but could be any letter.

Find the files you want to copy, right click on them, choose SEND TO and then choose the letter of your new hard drive.

Hope this makes sense.

googler

Open a Windows Explorer window for whichever files or folders you want to copy (or move)

Open a second explorer window for the external drive

Select files or folders on the PC. You can select multiple files or folders by clicking the first one to select it, then holding down either Shift or Ctrl, and clicking a second. With Shift, the two files and all those between them will be selected, with Ctrl, only the two files. Click further files or folders while holding down Ctrl to select 3, 4, 5 etc.

Once you have them all selected, Copy or Cut them to the clipboard. Use Copy if you want to duplicate them on the external drive, Cut if you want to Move them to the drive. If you Copy them you will have two copies, one on the PC, one on the external drive. If you Cut them, your only copy at the conclusion of the operation will be the one on the ext drive.

To Copy - press Ctrl+C (Hold down Ctrl and press C at the same time)
To Cut - press Ctrl+X

Navigate to the ext drive window, and Paste your selected files or folders into it with Ctrl+V

There's other ways to perform the Cut Copy Paste commands, you can pick Edit Menu in the Explorer window, and select Cut Copy or Paste from the Menu, but I find the Ctrl key combinations the quickest

Does this help?

kpwll

Thank you so much, it's there under F Drive. I was expecting there to be a button saying copy files or something like that.

kpwll

Thank you to Peter999 and googler, my 'Thanks' button has now disappeared.

(It's just come back, must have been on a coffee break)

googler

Thanks button only appears when you're logged in, not when browsing when logged out