Need help moving from one Laptop to another

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marc Reinig
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Marc Reinig

I have a laptop with a 10GB drive running XP Pro (Dell Inspiron 2500). I
just bought a new laptop, with a 40GB drive, running XP Home (Dell Inspiron
8500)(I could upgrade to to Pro if necessary).

The old laptop's drive is 90% full. Ideally I want to connect the two
computers on the net, run a program, select old computer and new computer,
press a button, and have the new computer now have all data and programs and
function just like my old computer except faster, etc.

Then, I plan to reformat the old drive, reinstall XP and give it to my son
to take to college.

However, life is not so easy.

If it were a desk top, it would be much easier. I could put the disk of the
new computer in the old computer and make some sort of disk image, but the
laptops only take a single hard drive. I tried with disk image and a PC
Card adapter, but disk image didn't know how to access the hard disk on the
PC Card when it dropped to DOS to do the work. This was an old adapter that
I use for making backups to a hard disk, but I can't find a manufacturer or
drivers for DOS mode.

Any help would be greatly appreciated since I have many non MS programs and
data that would really be a pain to have to reinstall all the programs and
try to correctly move the data, etc.

I must be missing something really fundamental here. It shouldn't be that
hard, should it? Is it? ;=)

Thanks in advance,

Marc Reinig
System Solutions
 
Marc Reinig said:
I have a laptop with a 10GB drive running XP Pro (Dell Inspiron 2500). I
just bought a new laptop, with a 40GB drive, running XP Home (Dell Inspiron
8500)(I could upgrade to to Pro if necessary).

The old laptop's drive is 90% full. Ideally I want to connect the two
computers on the net, run a program, select old computer and new computer,
press a button, and have the new computer now have all data and programs and
function just like my old computer except faster, etc.

Then, I plan to reformat the old drive, reinstall XP and give it to my son
to take to college.

However, life is not so easy.

If it were a desk top, it would be much easier. I could put the disk of the
new computer in the old computer and make some sort of disk image, but the
laptops only take a single hard drive. I tried with disk image and a PC
Card adapter, but disk image didn't know how to access the hard disk on the
PC Card when it dropped to DOS to do the work. This was an old adapter that
I use for making backups to a hard disk, but I can't find a manufacturer or
drivers for DOS mode.

Any help would be greatly appreciated since I have many non MS programs and
data that would really be a pain to have to reinstall all the programs and
try to correctly move the data, etc.

I must be missing something really fundamental here. It shouldn't be that
hard, should it? Is it? ;=)

Thanks in advance,

Marc Reinig
System Solutions
Click to expand...
If you clone from one drive to the other, you'd have to reinstall windows
before it would run on the new computer, and that would be problematic as
you have an oem version, and two different versions of XP. It's probably
doable, but it would be a pain in any case. And you'd have all the old
drivers, orphaned files, and other junk from the old computer on the new
one.

If you try to move programs over without cloning the drive, the programs
wouldn't run until you reinstalled them anyway because you wouldn't have the
registry entries, etc.

You could use the files and settings transfer wizard to move (aha!) files
and settings, but you'd still have to reinstall programs.
 
If you clone from one drive to the other, you'd have to reinstall windows
before it would run on the new computer, and that would be problematic as
you have an oem version, and two different versions of XP. It's probably
doable, but it would be a pain in any case. And you'd have all the old
drivers, orphaned files, and other junk from the old computer on the new
one.
Click to expand...

The original computer has a comercial XP Pro, not an OEM version. I can
install a new XP Pro (non OEM) on the new computer if that is a problem.
The problem is how to prep and or clone the disk.
If you try to move programs over without cloning the drive, the programs
wouldn't run until you reinstalled them anyway because you wouldn't have the
registry entries, etc.

You could use the files and settings transfer wizard to move (aha!) files
and settings, but you'd still have to reinstall programs.
Click to expand...

Exactly, so isn't there an easier solution?

Marc Reinig
System Solutions
 
Marc Reinig said:
The original computer has a comercial XP Pro, not an OEM version. I can
install a new XP Pro (non OEM) on the new computer if that is a problem.
The problem is how to prep and or clone the disk.


Exactly, so isn't there an easier solution?

Marc Reinig
System Solutions
Click to expand...
The easiest solution is likely to be installing all of your programs.
Anything else you try is probably going to create problems that you'll
struggle over. A fresh install is a bit time consuming, but less painful in
the long run.
 
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