Backing up and transfering a mirror of your PC to a new PC
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[Deleted User]
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Ok guys, so my PC is on its last legs and I'm looking for some sort of backup device where it copies everything (within reason, such as files, folders and e-mails from Windows Mail/Outlook) from my old PC and would allow me to get a new PC and install everything on that.
Any recommendation?
Any recommendation?
0
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It sounds like you just need to backup your PC data.
You could just attach the old hard disk to the new PC via a USB to SATA adaptor. That would be the quickest way to move the data across.
www.dropbox.com = the ultimate way to backup your personal files such as photos , docs etc watch the video on there site .
Use the sync built into Google chrome browser to sync your bookmarks and settings .
Your emails when using www.outlook.com are stored server side so you can log in from any PC .
These two are all you need !
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/products/features/windows-easy-transfer
it's built in to win 7 (and presumably win 8,)
it transfers:
accounts
music
documents
pictures
music
email
favourites
videos
and apparently more...
there's more than one way of doing it. if your old computer is up and running you can do it over the network. if it's not you can just plug the old hard disk in with a £5 usb cable.
except that for a relatively modest 200GB it would cost $199 a year. for dropbox. and take 19 days to upload over ADSL2+
so not perfect.
I was thinking about something like this: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/9126239.htm
But clearly there's no "Plug it into the old PC. Everything on to the back up. Plug into the new PC, install" thingy.
I'm so computer illiterate it's almost funny!
This will then set about backing up your PC to the USB drive in the background. It will take a while to complete the first back-up but after that it can do incremental back-ups where it only copies new or changed files.
When you get your new PC just install all the programs you use from scratch then plug up the USB drive, install the Seagate software on the new PC and use that to Restore the data that it copied from your old PC onto your new PC.
I have a Seagate network drive at home that does something very similar. It's not exactly the sharpest tool in the box but it does a reasonable enough job and doesn't impact too much on whatever else I happen to be using my laptop or desktop machines for at the time.
Undertake a WET (Windows Easy Transfer) of your files such as My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc onto a USB from your old machine and then use WET to transfer them to your new machine
Wet wet wet!:D
Anyway didn't you read it's already been suggested!
True but I always feel it's a waste of time to repeat information.
Not for large amounts of data.
OP i have a NAS box set up on my wireless network here. It's a useful way to back files up. You could just as easily get an external drive, but I find it's useful having a networked drive, so everyone can take advantage of it.
I do try to stay out of windows though, this is mainly a Mac & Linux household with minimal booting into Windows.
Unless the two computers are identical if often doesn't work cloning the drive from one and restoring the image to another. Different hardware requires different drivers so there may not be the correct driver set in the clone image to allow it to boot on the new PC.
Also a clone image will contain all the garbage that any installation picks up over time. Very often it is better to do a clean install of the operating system, all the software you use and only restore the user data.