Computer help

[abunaitoo]

My computer started to make a noise this morning.
Sounds like the hard drive.
It's old so I went and got a new one.
Was on sale.
Old and new are Dell. Win 10. Desktop.
I have no idea how to load a new computer.
I'm thinking save all folders, files, bookmarks, on a flash drive, and load it on to the new computer.
I know it can't be that easy.
After all they charge around $100.00 to do the samething.
Any help out there?????

[Land Owner]

So long as the new hard drive came with a functional Operating System that boots up, your plan to save the previous files and folders on a flash drive and transfer them, is a good plan. I have a 1.5 TB (terabyte) external hard drive used to regularly back up from the hard drive. It was easy to set up in SETTINGS==>UPDATE & SECURITY on a Windows 10, Hewlett Packard (HP) tower.

On the other hand, if the new hard drive is unformatted and void of previous programming, IDK how to help you turn it into the primary hard drive complete with an Operating System...

[Three44s]

It sounds like it is running however as the new machine is set with Windows 10.

Three44s

[farmerjim]

Network the two computers to move the files in one step. If you don,t have a home network, you can use a crossover cable to network them.

[Land Owner]

farmerjim - would that "network cable" be the same as the one between computer and printer? Can a printer connection to the old computer be temporarily routed to the new computers for this transfer?

[StuBach]

In my experience with PCs you might be better off just manually transferring files yourself via flash drive or external hard drive as you mentioned.

Migration tools are great if you have a boatload of files stores all over your computer but they also tend to grab legacy files you don’t need/want coming into the new system. Better to manage your data yourself if it’s a manageable amount (photos/docs/desktop).

Also, if your not doing a lot of computer swapping or high network stuff, why invest in the cables when a little data spring cleaning might be good anyways. You can always keep the old computer hard drive and if you find something you need later just have someone pull the data for you.

If you do use a migration tool make sure you look at the options closely and only select the migration of things you want coming over. No point in migrating every old printer driver you ever had when it’s pretty quick to just install the new one you need (if it’s not plug and play).

[John Wayne]

I'm certainly not a pro but I would check and clean the cooling fan.

[farmerjim]

farmerjim - would that "network cable" be the same as the one between computer and printer? Can a printer connection to the old computer be temporarily routed to the new computers for this transfer?

Many of the printers are networked, but that is through a switch. I have 5 desktop computers networked in this room and can share and move files between all of them. To network 2 computers without a switch, a crossover cable reverses the 1st an 3rd and the 2ond and 6th wires. Why 5 computers? 1 is Linux mint, 1 Linux Ubuntu, 1 is windows 10, one is windows 7, and one is win XP.

[metricmonkeywrench]

I didn't want to mess with linking the two computers (space issue) so I went out and bought an external housing for the old computers hard drive, it plugs in like an external (back up) hard drive and i was able to transfer the necessary files for the wife unit immediately and the remainder of the files at my leisure and it allows me to scrap the old computer.

Its still there but shortly afterword's we bought a formal Back up drive that comes out quarterly to back up what we have.

[Handloader109]

If you bought, (and you SHOULD HAVE if you didn't ) SSD solid state drive. Most have a program to transfer files. I found a program on line that will mirror my hd. I bought same size drive last year, but program will make partition if you get larger capacity drive. hooked it up and it did about 150gb of files in a couple of hours. I ran it for about a week just to make sure, then disconnected old drive. ssd is super small and starts up in seconds vs minutes.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

[Rcmaveric]

Its actually pretty easy. Personally I would plug the old hard drive into the new computer and copy all the data over.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

[jim147]

I see you have it fixed but for anyone else there are several free clone and backup programs that can be used to to copy all the files from on hard drive to another.

[Scrounge]

My computer started to make a noise this morning.
Sounds like the hard drive.
It's old so I went and got a new one.
Was on sale.
Old and new are Dell. Win 10. Desktop.
I have no idea how to load a new computer.
I'm thinking save all folders, files, bookmarks, on a flash drive, and load it on to the new computer.
I know it can't be that easy.
After all they charge around $100.00 to do the samething.
Any help out there?????

Newish Dell's come preinstalled with a program to move your data and settings to a new machine. Not sure if it will get the non-Dell programs that are installed. I'd already moved stuff to a new drive before I found it.

[Traffer]

abunaitoo,
Depends on your level of computer savvy. There is nothing wrong with copying your files and folders to a usb drive or something like that. Make sure you have them all. Check all the places you may have stored them.
For someone like me networking would be the way but if you don't understand how to do that just skip it and download to a flash drive or something. That way you will have them in two places just in case.
When you are done ...IF you want to open your old computer and play with it ...hey, that's how many folks learned.
If you need any other tech advise just ask.
It would be foolish in my opinion to pay someone for something as simple as transferring you files.

[pertnear]

Any 3rd party software will have to be re-installed.

abunaitoo, good luck & I'll say a prayer for you...

[lar45]

I'm certainly not a pro but I would check and clean the cooling fan.

+1 to what this guy said.

Disconnect everything, take it outside and blow it out with compressed air.
If it still makes noise, replace the cooling fan.

When you say you bought a new "Hard Drive" did you get an actual hard drive? Or did you get a whole new tower with all the parts in it?

[DougGuy]

Its actually pretty easy. Personally I would plug the old hard drive into the new computer and copy all the data over.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

Likely the old machine uses IDE interface for the drives, and newer ones will not have an IDE connector. Using a USB flash drive is the best course of action short of taking it to someone for them to copy files over.

Abunaitoo you might look in Craigslist and find a PC tech/repair guy or girl to come to your location and do this if the files are really valuable paying for a house call is not out of the question, and they would likely know how to search for hidden stuff better than you would, Windows likes to bury things so you can't get at them.

[Ole Joe Clarke]

I just bought a 2TB spinner and a plastic box with a connector to plug into my wife's computer. She is moving a lot of stuff because the HD on it is full.

Gonna get another box and hook up one of the old drives I have for a backup.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

[Huskerguy]

The noise you heard is likely one of the fans, there could be two of them.

I have learned to not store everything on the computer's hard drive. Get a good external HD and put everything on it so you always have it no matter what happens to the computer. Then everything is just drag and drop. Just make sure you keep both updated if you do go back and fort between the C and external HD.

[Big Tom]

If you are up to some technical work, you can connect the new hard drive (most likely SSD) to the old PC, and use a free tool like Samsung's to copy your old hard drive to the new disk (you can also buy a brand new SSD for about $100 if you don't want to mess with the one from the new PC).
With that approach, you will not have to re-install software or copy data and have the same setup like on the old computer. Downside is that it will require some technical work...