Transfer Drive Contents?

I have a friend who has a refurbished computer being shipped to her with a blank, 10-gig hard drive. She would like to transfer the contents of her old, 2-gig hard drive to the new computer as she has many files that she needs to retain. The old computer does not have a burner and the files are several hundred megabytes in size. I have some Seagate software that I used when I purchased my new hard drive, which is designed to use the COPY command to transfer the files, but it has been quite some time since I have done anything similar to this.

What would be the easiest way to transfer the contents? I do have 2 spare NICs, a hub, and a length of cable that I could use to network the old computer to the new and transfer the contents but there must be an easier way.

Thanks for the advice,

Jeff

The easiest way would be to down load the disk utility from the manufacturer of the 10gig drive, and use its own setup to copy all the files from the smaller drive to the new one. All you have to do is hook in the 2 gig either as a slave or just as simple put it on hte secondary channel.

can u clarify that the "old" 2g drive was used on the refurbished machine and as such u want to use a 10g in its place OR is the 2g (containg data) from another (old) machine ?

also what are those "large files" u want to copy ?

EDIT : are u hoping to copy a full working copy of windows over OR just the files (ie docs etc) over?
FtF

If what you want to do is to transfer everything from the old drive, and totally ignoring the legality of transfering an operating system, hook the old drive and new drive up as slave/master and use partition magics drive copy..you can transfer entire disks, partitions, etc. If you just want to transfer her files exclusive of the O.S., hook it up as slave in the new machine and create a folder "old drive contents" and drag and drop whatever you want

If you are talking Win98 or 95 on the old drive,
then do this:

First, install your drive as a slave/secondary drive to your
existing hard drive. Be sure to jumper both of your drives
properly. Clean out your .tmp files and Temporay Internet Files.
Create a Win 98 Startup Disk as follows:

1.Double-click on My Computer
2.Double-click on Control Panel
3.Double-click Add/Remove Programs
4.Click the Startup Disk tab in the dialog box
5.Click Create Disk, and follow the instructions

Restart your computer in MS-DOS mode and using FDISK,
partition and format your drive.
Transfer the system files to your new drive using the SYS command.
You can transfer the system files
by opening a DOS session under Windows 98 and type:

sys d:

Close the DOS window and double-click on My Computer again.
Double-click on Control Panel and then System. Click on
Performance tab and Virtual Memory button. Click on "Let me
specify my own system memory setting" and disable virtual
memory.

Restart Windows 98 and on the Taskbar click Start, then Run and
type:

xcopy c:\*.* /e /h /k /r /c d:

and click OK. This command line copies all your files to the new
drive. If your existing drive is fairly large, this operation could
take some time. Do not power down your system during this
operation.

Once this operation is completed, shut down Windows 98, turn
off your PC, and change the jumper settings on your drive so that
your new drive is the master/primary and the older drive
is the slave/secondary drive.

Place your Win98 Startup Disk in the floppy drive and turn on the PC,
At the A: prompt, type Fdisk and select option 2 to make the
primary partition on your new disk drive the active partition, then
exit Fdisk and reboot.

Windows 98 should boot from the new hard disk. Double-click on My
Computer, then Control Panel and System icon. Click on Performance
tab and Virtual Memory button then Click on "Let Windows handle my
system memory setting."

Thanks MaddMaxx and all for the help...very good!

Thanks Again!

Jeff

even easier solution, get your hands on a copy of drive copy...

or ghost...

With reference to MadMaxx's post, its safer to just install the new drive on its own while messing with Fdisk and Format. Only put the 2GB drive in when the 10GB is ready to accept data...seen too many people fdisk/format the wrong drive like that :D No offence meant MadMaxx, just trying to prevent a possible problem...