Transerring data from 1 laptop to new one

Sicard

My old Compaq Presario with Vista has got lots of films and music on it and tomorrow I'm getting an HP Envy W10. I got a usb to usb cable. The old has usb2 and the new usb3. Is this okay to transfer?

TIA

John_Gray

Best to use an intermediate USB Flash Drive, or a USB External Hard Drive.
That also gives you a backup!

If there is a lot of data the copies to/from the device will take longer than you ever thought possible...

If you really want to use a USB-to-USB cable, you will only need to do one of the two copies, but it will take a long time since it will run at the lowest speed: USB 2.

Stupefied

If it's under 15 gigs you could always put it in a Google Drive and then sync it when you get the new one. It'll be a 'leave it on overnight' job but otherwise effortless.
Obviously assuming you've got decent unlimited broadband.

peachyprice

Or you could use dropbox.

John_Gray

Or OneDrive, or....

AnotherJoe

As suggest,ed also by the first reply my big concern is what your question implies, that you have no backups

:eek::eek:

So yes buy an external disk and use that for the transfer and also for regular backups.

davetrousers

Buy HDD caddy,
Put old HDD in it
Plug via USB into new PC
Copy and Paste
Old Hdd now serves as a backup

Sicard

I'm back to Gozo on Wed and have an external hd there so don't really want to get another. I got my HP Envy today and hooked up to old laptop via usb but don't know how to link the two. I can get them to see each other. On old lap it says Netgear, being the Envy's hd, and the new lap says xxxx-PC but the only folder showing is Temp and nothing else. When I try to click and drag nothing happens. The folder on old is 78gb. Is there an idiot's guide on how to do this? I'm going to give old lap to grandkids in UK.

TIA

Stupefied

Are they both on the same wifi network. If so you can share the folder(s) on the old one and then copy them over wifi. Again not the quickest, but it'll get the job done over night. Either that or connect them with a network cable, you need a crossover cable (unless you've got a hub or a switch).

I can't help with the USB method, I've never done it that way.

Here's how to share a folder. You need to enable network and sharing, but Windows will prompt you to do it.

http://lifehacker.com/5808814/how-to-share-a-folder-over-your-network-for-beginners

cookie365

USB to USB needs a special cable called a bridging cable. You won't have one, and it's not a sensible way to do it anyway.

Use the instructions @Stupefied linked to. If you can't figure it out, and won't pay for an HDD, go to Tescos and buy a cheap USB memory stick and waste an afternoon manually copying stuff over in stages.

agrinnall

Sicard wrote: »

I'm back to Gozo on Wed and have an external hd there so don't really want to get another.

If you only have one external HDD then it's a good idea to invest in at least one more anyway so that you can have multiple backups on separate devices, preferably keeping one of them off site.