[dustman]

Hello,

I have a Dell Dimension Dimension 3000 desktop computer. I just bought a Dell XPS 420 desktop. I have heard that I can transfer data and files from the old computer to the new one with the right cable. I have a brand new, never used Belkin Cat6 Snagless Networking cable, (RJ45 Male/RJ45 Male, it looks like a glorified ethernet cable). The box offers little information as to what you can do with this cable, so I went online to look up its uses, and began to run into PATCH Cat6 cables, CROSSOVER cables, etc. I must confess my ignorance of knowing the difference, or which cable I need, or if there is a better, easier way to accomplish this altogether.

Also, again, forgive my ignorance, I was thinking of just pulling the hard drive out of my old computer and installing it as a second hard drive into my new computer, hopefully making all of my old stuff available that way. My old operating system is XP, my new one is Vista. Is XP actually in the old hard drive, so that I would end up with 2 operating systems and thus having problems, or ??

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dusty

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Hello,
I looked over the specs for both your computers. Your 3000 uses an IDE (PATA) harddrive, while you XPS uses a SATA hard drive. The two interfaces are incompatible. The XPS spec didn't list any IDE capabilities, so it appears you cannot slave the drive from the 3000 in the XPS.

You do have choices though. You can buy a USB enclosure for IDE type drives and place the 3000 drive inside... then transfer the data. Or, you can buy a USB PC to PC transfer cable that connects between both computers via USB and transfer data that way. Or you can buy a USB adapter cabling system and transfer data that way. Or, you can purchase an USB flash drive (they're cheap nowdays!). Or you can just burn your data to CD or DVD and then transfer that way.

[makai]

Hello,
I looked over the specs for both your computers. Your 3000 uses an IDE (PATA) harddrive, while you XPS uses a SATA hard drive. The two interfaces are incompatible. The XPS spec didn't list any IDE capabilities, so it appears you cannot slave the drive from the 3000 in the XPS.

You do have choices though. You can buy a USB enclosure for IDE type drives and place the 3000 drive inside... then transfer the data. Or, you can buy a USB PC to PC transfer cable that connects between both computers via USB and transfer data that way. Or you can buy a USB adapter cabling system and transfer data that way. Or, you can purchase an USB flash drive (they're cheap nowdays!). Or you can just burn your data to CD or DVD and then transfer that way.

[dustman]

Hello, Makai,

Thanks so much for the info! Dang! I sure wanted to add that drive to my new computer! : (

Have a great day!

Dusty

[Robert Tracy]

Or, you can purchase an USB flash drive (they're cheap nowdays!).

I've got a mess here. I'm so sorry.

I have a Macintosh G5 I use rarely, mostly for its Photoshop. I love the Mac and want to preserve it. I'd be all Mac if I could.

My Main system is:

Microsoft Windows XP
Media Center Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 3

Dell XPS DXP051
Intel 
Pentium D CPU 2.80GHz
2.79 GHz, 3.00 GB of RAM

Got an older machine:

Dell OptiPlex GX260 Tower 2.2GHz 512MB XP Pro

I'd like to go back to, but it's OS is XP Pro while my current is XP Home. I wonder if there's a problem there. Have a wired Home Network; my wife's 8 yr. old computer running XP is incredibly slow. How it hasn't died is beyond me, and she just accepts it, while I want to get her my current PC and she'll be delighted when she notices the speed she'll have. Like to take back my Dell OptiPlex, as it's been refurbished, for my own use and give her the computer I'm now using. I've got on my PC programs I would like to transfer to the Dell OptiPlex, such as Kaspersky Anti-virus, the WS_FTP Pro just to name two. I'll have to manually install Photoshop and FrontPage, and others.

Also I don't want to transfer my Email Outlook Express to the Dell Optiplex, as my OE is not functioning properly. Oh, I can send and receive just fine. But for some reason I have nothing in the Address Book, although I do have rules that work in one or two cases but the rest comes straight into my Inbox.

I'm sorry I don't really know what I'm asking. I know how to save the email I want to keep and how to save my wife's email and favorites and mine too although she uses IE exclusively while my default browser is Firefox. I guess I'm looking for the simplest, least expensive way to go about this. I was attracted to your answer

USB flash drive

I might be able to afford also a wireless Home Network system, as the OptiPlex doesn't have a network interface card or a USB network interface installed. And I'm only concerned here with issues I have in transferring files from computer to computer.

There are others that weave a tangled web of confusion, such as my having an external hard drive with countless duplicate files (and probably duplicates on my PC too) I have to deal with in time. But I suspect that I'll find the answer to that in another post here at geeks to go!

I tend to make matters much harder than they are. So, again my apologies. And my gratitude for anyone who would take the time and interest in looking at my post and replying.

Best Regards,

Bob

P.S. I'm pretty ignorant although all I've done in setting up our machines I've done myself (and don't know how I did it), but to go wireless this looks good from Amazon, but what about the possible neccessity of having a USB wireless network adapter? We are with Comcast cable. And with the exception of Linda's old PC, the two others I mention might already have this wireless network adapter?

Edited by Robert Tracy, 27 February 2009 - 01:04 PM.