my mate's just gone and bought a new PC and he wants to transfer all his files across from his old one (obviously several gigs worth of data). the new pc has a super-ata interface and his old one is IDE so he cant put his old drive in as a second drive in the new pc.

is the only way to do this by burning cds and filling up his 256mb memory stick or is there another way? he doesnt have any networking leads or owt either :headvswal

 

cheers for any help!

The new PC will defo have an IDE interface as the CD or DVD drive will connect through that. Try disconnecting the CD drive and connect the hard disk to it. Make sure the jumpers on the hard disk are set to something like 'master' or 'single drive'

like he said, and its serial ATA not super :p

err heh heh i knew dat! cheers Xav i will give it a go.

*pokes his head in looks in shock at stuff he's never touched before and slowly slinks out again* :rofl:

or crossover Cable, or via Switch/hub/router on same network if he has such things

So the new machine ONLY has SATA, no IDE for CD or whatever ?

 

If that's the case then you've pretty much ruled out all the options. Go network would be my answer (of course!).

my advise is get a crossover cable, connect the two together via windows workgroup and copy accross that way. easiest solution without opening anything up

Usually the mother board has ide interfaces as well as SATA(SERIAL ATA)You can connect the second drive on the ide connector as a secondary master or secondary slave as long as the jumpers are set right, you could then check in the CMOS to see if it sees the H/D---thats one way!!

Another way ,which will cost, is to buy a usb external hard drive ide caddy only a few £££

Here:--

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/cat/Hard-Drives/subcat/Caddies,-Coolers-&-Accessories

 

There are more ways still!!!!!!

 

Chaz :hyper:

just because you have a SATA interface it doesn't mean you won't have IDE too, most mobos will have both.

 

but as the others said, networking is far more practical and advisable!

none intrusive copying, doesn't void the warranty either

bin the data, after a few weeks you realise you don't miss it anyway ;)

thanks for the response guys. i think Mike Groves is the closest :rofl: (it's true!)

i simply shoved the old hdd into the cd-rom's ide connection and copied over to my heart's content. mission accomplished. i only need to get a decent vga card for him now (brand new 3.4ghz 2gig pc and its got a crappy ati x550 card which was worse than his old 9800. no agp port on m/b, only pci-e) will try and convince him to invest in a sexy x850.

A cross over cable is only a fiver mate! Saves taking anything apart .

£5 for a cable, lol they saw you coming mate ;)

Well actually I've got a cupboard full of them as I do it for a living! but I doubt Dave has somehow. :hyper:

If you're stuck i could come over and set it up for you seeing as you're in leicester? :)

 

PM me your moby number if you want me to pop round some point on sunday?

cheers for the offer Nick but its all sorted now - managed to put the hdd in place of the cdrom and copy the files directly from drive to drive. appreciated mucka :)

No probs matey, glad you sorted it :D