Best way to save data from old PC?

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• LION8TIGER Posts: 8,484

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  01/10/13 - 05:53 #2

  Yes that would do the job or depending how much you have a flash drive/memory stick may do.

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• Si_Crewe Posts: 40,202

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  01/10/13 - 08:14 #3

  I find one of THESE things pretty handy.
  Course, if you actually plan to make use of the old HDD as an external HDD then you can just buy a suitable case and take it from there instead.
  
  Hard part is often knowing where to look to actually get all the data off an old PC.
  It's easy enough to find all the stuff from your "My Documents" directory etc but it's easy to forget about stuff like emails, contacts lists, internet favourites, save-game files etc.

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• neo_wales Posts: 13,625

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  01/10/13 - 08:46 #4

  Keep the PC and plug the base unit into your TV so you can browse the internet on a big screen. Most modern TV's have a PC monitor connector on them. You can then transfer files to your new laptop.

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• Smiley433 Posts: 7,883

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  01/10/13 - 13:56 #5

  vicsmoxey wrote: »

  My plan is to replace it with a new laptop in the near future, either Windows or Mac, not sure yet.

  
  Are the file systems compatible? i.e. can you copy for example music files from the old PC onto a USB flash drive or USB hard drive, plug the drive into a Mac and everything can still be read?

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• chrisjr Posts: 33,282

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  01/10/13 - 14:31 #6

  Smiley433 wrote: »

  Are the file systems compatible? i.e. can you copy for example music files from the old PC onto a USB flash drive or USB hard drive, plug the drive into a Mac and everything can still be read?

  Macs can read and write to FAT32 file systems. They can read but not write to NTFS file systems.
  
  So shouldn't be a problem.
  
  http://guides.macrumors.com/Drives_and_Filesystems

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• oilman Posts: 4,529

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  01/10/13 - 20:16 #7

  Backing up to Cloud e.g. Dropbox is a good way of doing it if you have a fast enough broadband.

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• oilman Posts: 4,529

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  01/10/13 - 20:19 #8

  Si_Crewe wrote: »

  I find one of THESE things pretty handy.
  Course, if you actually plan to make use of the old HDD as an external HDD then you can just buy a suitable case and take it from there instead.
  
  Hard part is often knowing where to look to actually get all the data off an old PC.
  It's easy enough to find all the stuff from your "My Documents" directory etc but it's easy to forget about stuff like emails, contacts lists, internet favourites, save-game files etc.

  
  
  If you are using outlook you can back up files to a .pst file and then save this.
  
  To save favourites etc, I normally start at theC:\Users directory and just copy the whole lot.

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• Smiley433 Posts: 7,883

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  01/10/13 - 23:22 #9

  chrisjr wrote: »

  Macs can read and write to FAT32 file systems. They can read but not write to NTFS file systems.
  
  So shouldn't be a problem.
  
  http://guides.macrumors.com/Drives_and_Filesystems

  
  Thanks for that, I've never been a Mac user so wasn't sure.
  
  Obviously if the OP has documents/workfiles created in software that is not available on a Mac, then that could cause issues if there is no compatability or file conversion available.

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• PsychoTherapist Posts: 2,688

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  02/10/13 - 00:11 #10

  chrisjr wrote: »

  They can read but not write to NTFS file systems.
  

  
  With this, they can write to NTFS drives also:
  
  http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/

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