transfer hard drive to hard drive

bwatt00

I am coping stuff from a guys hard drive i got from work on to one i just purchased both the same hard drive external usb ones,well he said approx 7/8 hours time frame to transfer all info from one to the other,well he was doing it at work when not busy and i would say he was more like 11 hours,well he did about just under 400gb i am looking at 450gb to mine,well i started yesterday around 2:00pm in the afternoon and its been going ever since through the night and still today and only about 80gb has been done so far.
Anyway tell me how come he was able to do it so fast and why this is taking so long?i am using my desktop pc he used his latop.
Will it effect the hard drives being on so long and working all this time at this rate i will be at this for days yet,it seem to be very slow and i dont want to stop and use my latop now as dont want to miss any stuff out as not sure well sort of some stuff i might miss to transfer if i start again.

albertross_2

Are you using usb 2 or usb 1/1.1?

bwatt00

usb1 what is the difference is there a big difference in speed,also how can i tell if my laptop has usb2 i know my desktop does not have it.

neilwoods

All depends on the what the external drive is. Usb 1.1 / 2

USB 1.1 about 12mb a sec
USB 2 about 480mb a sec

Or could be a SATA drive

right click my computer, choose properties, then click hardware tab and then the device manager. scroll down until you see Universal Serial Bus controllers and expand the list of controllers. If it says enhanced somewhere then you have USB 2 otherwise it is 1.1

bwatt00

no idea on sata drive?but it has 2.0 usb,but i know my desktop does not have usb 2.0,how can i tell if my laptop has 2.0 as maybe i can stop doing this and change over to my laptop but would need to make sure its got it first as this just seems to be taking ages to do on my desktop.

albertross_2

if the laptop is less than 3 years old, it is probably usb2

what are you trying to achieve? How are you copying>?

bwatt00

transfering movies from on hard drive to the other and music,all going at same time as was thinking it be done last night while at work but still nowhere near,i just copied to other hard drive and also droped file into hard drive,how can i tell if laptoop has usb 2.0,i cant remember how old it is maybe around the 3 yrs age not sure/

albertross_2

google the model, it will appear in the specs.

bwatt00

Well i used my laptop and wow so much faster so laptop must be usb 2.0 now i need to know see my desktop can i upgrade it to usb 2.0?not internal but external is this possible is there such an item that it a hub or something is plugged into a usb on my desktop its converted and becomes usb 2.0 if so what kind of item am i looking for?and they best places to get such an item as i plan on doing this often i need to get my desktop upto speed.and i think now needs usb 2.0

neilwoods

What copy of windows are you running, and also do you know model your pc is. Am assuming it was bought & not put together by yourself.

It could be a matter ur drivers need updating or installing.

look at microsofts site.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/learnmore/jones_02august05.mspx

If not buy a USB2 controller card, simple to install, plug into empty PCI slot and install drivers.

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/43545

bwatt00

Its an older compaq computer i have and windows xp,i would rather not be going inside my computer.