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thrillseek

Computer Geek Question...

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Aww, have a sense of humor! :P

Anyway, USB ports are specifically for data transfer so I am sure that you can do that with USB ports on two separate computers, although if the computers have ethernet cards, those would probably be much faster. (Of course in that case, you would have to have a special "cross-over" ethernet cable to go between the two.

B|


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I'm not aware of any, but I'm sure somebody has written some software for direct, PC-to-PC connection via USB ports. PC Anywhere is way behind the curve if they haven't done it - try them.

OTOH, Ethernet cards are dirt-cheap, 10x faster than USB, and the software you need to make them go is already part of your operating system (Mac, Win9x, Win2k, XP).

You could get a couple of used cards from a surplus vendor for just a few bucks. Download the peculiar drivers from the card vendor's website, plug 'em in, and follow the instructions. PC Anywhere goes for about $60, IIRC. You can get Ethernet cards for almost nothing.

As was mentioned earlier, you'll need a crossover Ethernet cable for a direct connection, but it's easy to set up, or just use a small hub. There are tons of how-tos for this on the Web.

mh
"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

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Humor you say? How about this? Found it on a 404 and made me laugh.



Naughty!!!

hehehe
"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

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Ok, they have it listed for $40, but I'm sure you could find the same thing for closer to $30.
As mentioned before, if this is a one time shot, this might not be a bad idea. Or buy your favorite computer geek a 6-pack and have him put the old hard drive in the new machine.

If you're going to want to transfer stuff again in the future, you may just want to buy a pair of cheap network cards and a cross-over cable. That'll cost you 50 or 60 bucks probably. If it's a half-way new machine, it probably already has ethernet card built it. If you're planning on getting high-speed internet access in the near future, I'd go ahead and buy the cards now - you'll want them then.
it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

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You best bet is USB to USB, the cable comes with soware, very easy to use, it looks like EXPLORER, and the transfer is very fast. Now, if your systems have USB 2.0 cards, you gonna love it, you can get those cables for around $30.

I love those, when I do jobs on the side ;)

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My initial remarks were based on the assumption that you wanted to keep the existing machine together.

It was remarked that you could get a nerd to gang the drive into the target system, assuming that the drives are IDE and can be jumpered. This would be easiest and fastest of all.

If an IDE channel is open, verify that the first IDE drive in the target system is set to Master. Set the source drive's jumper to Slave, install it in the target machine and boot up. The drive will be identified with a drive letter. Using Windows explorer, drag the source drive letter (or selected folders) and drop it on the target drive letter or folder.
"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

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That'll cost you 50 or 60 bucks probably


Shouldn't cost any more than 30 to 40

Yeah, probably, if you buy the cheapest nic you can find.
I haven't actually paid for a network card in a long time :)
it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

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I suggested the serial connection because it is the easiest to set up. If you go the ethernet route, the hardware is easy to connect, but then you need to set up ip addresses and subnet masks that will allow the two machines to communicate. And if you don't know what I'm talking about that that will be difficult for you.

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Boy there sure are ways to skin a cat;)



That's right, no one has mentioned wireless lan or IR.

I don't use it myself, but my understanding is that the networking in WinXP is pretty foolproof. Basically, if you stick a card in it and put it on a network, it will figure out how to get a local address, etc., either using DHCP or automatically configuring an unused private network address (192.168.x.x)...


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That's how it is *supposed* to work, it doesn't always do that, especially if you have a firewire card, since it will try to bridge to that as well as the NIC and create a clusterfuck.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Yeah, I've done that before. Twice I've seen people's networks fucked b/c of the bridge and where windows was expecting to find a connection. Took the bridge off and they worked.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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