My daughter dropped my BF's laptop and whether she caused the problem or not.......our repair shop said the computer is toast. The data is salvageable but right now we can't afford another laptop. Is it possible to transfer all his data to my laptop (a dell) ? Or would it be better to get a passport external hard drive and transfer the data to that until we can afford a new laptop for him? I'm open to suggestions, but keep in mind we're on a kind tight budget for now.
Anonymous2009-10-12T07:04:27Z
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+1 for Mickey T's answer. Buy a drive caddy and a new laptop, you then have an external USB drive which is in fact your old drive and therefore you can treat it as you would any other mapped drive (like a USB stick for example).
Applications will not go across unless you use clever software of which there is plenty available. Norton Ghost springs to mind.
If the laptop IS useable, you can transfer stuff over the network.
To do this:
1. Create a single folder (for ease) containing all data you want to transfer. Don't forget your favourites folder!
2. Connect both laptops to the router, wired or wirelessly it doesn't matter.
3. Go to windows explorer, right click on the folder containing all your data, and choose 'sharing and security'. Set this up to share, I'd do it with a password and as read only if your router is also connected to the internet.
4. Go to your new laptop, and in windows explorer again, from the top row select tools, then map network drive. A pop up box appears, choose a drive letter (I always go with z: or similar so as not to confuse things).
5. In the folder option, type \\youroldlaptopsname\yourdatafoldersname - so for example \\mylaptop\mynewfolder
5a. If you don't know what your old laptop's name is, go to start, run, type "cmd" and you get a command line. Type hostname - this will return your laptops name.
6. Once mapped, the folder with all your old data in will appear as the z: drive in windows explorer. Copy, paste, enjoy!
Until you can afford it, just take the hard drive out of the laptop and store it. If you need the data right away then you will need to use a external hard drive and then copy the info there.
Well it depends, can your laptop have enough hard drive space to hold all of his data? Do you have a spare external hard drive? If you have enough hard drive space on your laptop, then transfer it. But keep in mind that if something goes wrong with your laptop, you can possibly lose it. But that's the same with the external. There is no "guarantees"
You can buy an adapter to connect it's drive to your USB port. Obviously you have to remove it from the broken computer but that's only a minute's work with a screwdriver. Here are a couple of adapters that I found online: http://www.cooldrives.com/mimiandstsah.html http://www.usbgear.com/ss-cgs-25k1.html
The second one is a drive caddy so instead of just getting the data out you'll have turned it into a handy external USB drive - plus it's cheaper than the first option. There should be a variety of adapters available that will join a mini SATA drive to your USB port.
data can be transferred a lot of people think installed games/programs can be transferable when most will not transfer. You two could use a passport external hard drive. You get a lot more bang for your buck by getting a desktop.