Guys, with my new PC due to arrive soon, i wanna ask, Is there a way I can have an exact copy of my current PC on my newer PC?MEans that I have installed a lot of programs on my current PC and stuff. Is it possible that I am able to have exact mirror image of this PC on the newer one? is there a software avaialable for that?If the annswer to the above is NO, then I need to copy atleast the data on the New PC. How do I do that? I have a LAN cable, LAN ports on both PCs. If I connect it to both PCs, then how do I proceed next? Is network neighbourhood is wat I need?????
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How To Transfer Stuff From Old Pc To A New Pc?
- Thread starter boygr8
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The answer to your first part is No, you would not want to do that... hope you saved the installation files / CDs, because you'll need them. Mirror images only work when you are either installing the image on the same computer (e.g. in the case of reverting to an earlier backup), or are installing it on another computer with identical hardware. So it's useful for places like computer labs, where there will be 20 computers with the same config and same hardware (e.g. LAN card, cd/dvd drives) and the admin can just make one image and load that onto all of them, instead of manually installing each and every program on each and every computer. So in short, disk-imaging / ghosting will not work for you.
You can copy all the data, and the best means for you would be:
[*] If you don't have much data (say 20GB or less) and have a DVD-burner, then you can use DVD-RWs or DVD-Rs to transfer the data.
[*]If you have a wireless (or even wired network) setup, then transferring can be as simple as sharing the C: on the old computer, accessing it on the new computer, and then copying what you need. but you would need a wireless/wired router for this.
[*]If you have access to an external USB hard drive, you could use that. This would be especially useful if you have something like 80GBs to transfer.
[/list]So really it all depends on how much data we are talking about here.
You can copy all the data, and the best means for you would be:
[*] If you don't have much data (say 20GB or less) and have a DVD-burner, then you can use DVD-RWs or DVD-Rs to transfer the data.
[*]If you have a wireless (or even wired network) setup, then transferring can be as simple as sharing the C: on the old computer, accessing it on the new computer, and then copying what you need. but you would need a wireless/wired router for this.
[*]If you have access to an external USB hard drive, you could use that. This would be especially useful if you have something like 80GBs to transfer.
[/list]So really it all depends on how much data we are talking about here.
Veb,
There's no hard & fast rule regarding this, thanks to Windows' Plug & Play capabilities. I have successfully installed images (Powerquest DriveImage) across completely different PCs with every piece of hardware differing. There are a few hiccups when Windows loads for the first time but whenever I've tried this it has handled things nicely. There is no guarantee it'll work of course but by my experience the chances are pretty good so it's definitely worth a shot.
boygr8: There are lots of drive cloning apps out there. I have never shifted from Drive Image 5 (though it needs to run from DOS) coz it has worked flawlessly for me for years. If you're looking for a freebie check this out. It has a similar name to the one I use but they're not the same thing. The newer cloning softwares let you copy drives in realtime, even while you use the PC.
One more link.
There's no hard & fast rule regarding this, thanks to Windows' Plug & Play capabilities. I have successfully installed images (Powerquest DriveImage) across completely different PCs with every piece of hardware differing. There are a few hiccups when Windows loads for the first time but whenever I've tried this it has handled things nicely. There is no guarantee it'll work of course but by my experience the chances are pretty good so it's definitely worth a shot.
boygr8: There are lots of drive cloning apps out there. I have never shifted from Drive Image 5 (though it needs to run from DOS) coz it has worked flawlessly for me for years. If you're looking for a freebie check this out. It has a similar name to the one I use but they're not the same thing. The newer cloning softwares let you copy drives in realtime, even while you use the PC.
One more link.
well, I imagine that windows perhaps is smart enough to detect the new drivers and install them by itself. But do you really want to replicate all the clutter? A new PC is so nice in that in it's virgin state it runs nice and fast without all the temp files, fragmentation, and other similar crap slowing it down. How many programs could you possibly have that you can't reinstall them over a week?
Starting from scratch feels good since windos runs better with fewer apps.But setting everything up from ground up is a pain as well.For me, If I do not ghost HDD to new PC, that means trying to find out passwords for sites that I registered in past but never entered password twice due to "remember me" feature and browser bookmarks various other browser settings. And setting out up MS Office just the way I want, recreating tons of filters and configuring outlook + Nokia phone to talk to each other so many things take way too much time. Rebuilding search indexes with Copernic or Google / Mocrosot search is another pain. I usually prefer to ghost images to new PC so that things keep working just the way they are.
QUOTE(vebmetal @ Mar 25 2007, 04:31 PM) [snapback]84743[/snapback]
well, I imagine that windows perhaps is smart enough to detect the new drivers and install them by itself. But do you really want to replicate all the clutter? A new PC is so nice in that in it's virgin state it runs nice and fast without all the temp files, fragmentation, and other similar crap slowing it down. How many programs could you possibly have that you can't reinstall them over a week?[/b]
You're assuming there _is_ clutter. The original poster wanted a quick fix and all I'm saying is that it's possible, so more power to him if he wants to go that way.
As for me, I have been updating the same XP image for years. The trick is to backup the image after a fresh install. You can then totall eff around with the system , try new software (even malicious crap sometimes). After a few weeks of playing around with new programs I know which ones are needed and which aren't, so I restore the 'virgin' image, install everything I want and create a fresh updated image. I note down any tweaks I make to my usual programs so those are made once again to the virgin install (along with spyware/virus sweeps just for the heck of it, Windows updates, defrag, registry cleaning & registry defragging) and it all gets backed up. The only thing to be careful about is that user generated data like office files or source code & other stuff like music, pix, etc needs to be stored on a separate partition and backed up conventionally using a DVD burner. You keep a few previous disk images that you can go back to if you create an image after installing something that you don't like later.
This system has worked beautifully for me and I highly recommend it. You always have a fast 'virgin' system & since I'm trying out new software all the time it's great to know the whole thing will be up and running again withing minutes no matter what goes wrong, including a complete hard disk crash! If I were to start installing everything I have from scratch & get it to the fine-tuned state it is in right now, it would, without any exaggeration take me well over a fortnight.
The only time to start from scratch is when you upgrade the OS and going by how incredibly messed up Vista is, it's going to be a few years before that happens!
well, I imagine that windows perhaps is smart enough to detect the new drivers and install them by itself. But do you really want to replicate all the clutter? A new PC is so nice in that in it's virgin state it runs nice and fast without all the temp files, fragmentation, and other similar crap slowing it down. How many programs could you possibly have that you can't reinstall them over a week?[/b]
You're assuming there _is_ clutter. The original poster wanted a quick fix and all I'm saying is that it's possible, so more power to him if he wants to go that way.
As for me, I have been updating the same XP image for years. The trick is to backup the image after a fresh install. You can then totall eff around with the system , try new software (even malicious crap sometimes). After a few weeks of playing around with new programs I know which ones are needed and which aren't, so I restore the 'virgin' image, install everything I want and create a fresh updated image. I note down any tweaks I make to my usual programs so those are made once again to the virgin install (along with spyware/virus sweeps just for the heck of it, Windows updates, defrag, registry cleaning & registry defragging) and it all gets backed up. The only thing to be careful about is that user generated data like office files or source code & other stuff like music, pix, etc needs to be stored on a separate partition and backed up conventionally using a DVD burner. You keep a few previous disk images that you can go back to if you create an image after installing something that you don't like later.
This system has worked beautifully for me and I highly recommend it. You always have a fast 'virgin' system & since I'm trying out new software all the time it's great to know the whole thing will be up and running again withing minutes no matter what goes wrong, including a complete hard disk crash! If I were to start installing everything I have from scratch & get it to the fine-tuned state it is in right now, it would, without any exaggeration take me well over a fortnight.
The only time to start from scratch is when you upgrade the OS and going by how incredibly messed up Vista is, it's going to be a few years before that happens!