Info swap utility needed.

[Staz]

My stepdaughter just ordered a new Dell. I know, I know. But befor you tell me that it is best to build them one, don't! These are high maintenence people and will hold me responsible for tech suport and warrenty service for the rest of my natural life. So please no coments about how I should not have let them order a Dell. With that out of the way, on too the meat of this thread.

Does anyone know of a utility that I can use to transfer all of their programs and files over to the new computer? I don't mind pulling the hard drives and putting them into the other machine. Or I could do the swap over an ethernet conection.

Any help anyone?

TIA
Maurice

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by Staz

My stepdaughter just ordered a new Dell. I know, I know. But befor you tell me that it is best to build them one, don't! These are high maintenence people and will hold me responsible for tech suport and warrenty service for the rest of my natural life. So please no coments about how I should not have let them order a Dell. With that out of the way, on too the meat of this thread.

Does anyone know of a utility that I can use to transfer all of their programs and files over to the new computer? I don't mind pulling the hard drives and putting them into the other machine. Or I could do the swap over an ethernet conection.

Any help anyone?

TIA
Maurice

Partition Magic will let you select certain portions of disks. Norton Ghost has a 'clone' feature I like...it allows you to simply copy a whole drive verbatum.

[cloasters]

I understand selecting a Dell, absolutely! If it's gotta be a brand name box, Dell is the way to go. I hear that their support isn't as deluxe as it used to be--but what is?

The only possible problem with transferring what's on a hard drive to the new Dell's HDD, other than doing it correctly of course, is that Dell may well have it's own custom version of a MS OS--just for that particular model of Dell.

This makes recovering the machine from a disaster much easier, of course. But an off the shelf version of XP or whatever may simply not work.

[Staz]

Nope Dell uses a standard copy of Win XP home. At least on my laptop they did. You I even got the disk for it.

But her old machine is Win ME. Anyway I found this. I was just hoping that someone new of a freeware program that could do the same thing.

Dell offers the service of having someone come over and set up your computer and transfer all of your old software but they want $229 for it. I may have to shell out $29 for that program if I can't find anything for free or cheaper.

[Daniel ~]

Dare I suggest a GenTech comparison? ":O}

[Staz]

Sorry Dan.

Dell strikes again with it's predatory techniques. My hopefully never future son-in-law works for Cox Cable. They have set up a deal with Dell to give all of their employees the cheapest most striped down POS Dell has. Or they could pay for an upgrade themselves and Cox would finance it through a payroll deduction.

So it had to be a Dell.

Anyway. Anyone know of a better or cheaper option than the one above. I checked and Gen Tech doesn't sell anything that will do it.

[Daniel ~]

Thanks for looking, couldn't ask for more than that! ":O}