XP to 64 Bit Vista Migration

[stevieg882002]

Greetings, all,

My ten-year old 40 GB Pentium 900MHz has finally given up the ghost.

I purchased a new H-P terabyte, 8 GB Ram, Intel Pentium E6300 (2.8 GHz), Vista Home Premium 64-bit.
My question is what products or methods would you guys recommend as the best and most efficient and safest to migrate files from the 32 bit XP to 64 bit Vista?

My initial thought was to re-install, rather than migrate as much as I can. For example, MS Office 2003. Nevertheless there are documents and such that I would like to retain and hence migrate. Using a flash drive occurred to me for some files though this may be less than optimal.

Kindly advise.

Thanks in advance.

s

 

[Scotteq]

If the older PC still works, then you can network the two and use the transfer utility to move yoru data over.

If not: Does the older hard drive work? If so, then consider adding the old HDD as an internal or external drive. Win 7 will be able to read the contents, and you'll be able to retrieve what you like at your convenience. Or, you may use the transfer utility to move it all at once.

If the older hard drive doesn't work, you're going to need a professional data recovery service.

 

[stevieg882002]

Scotteq, greetings,

Thanks for the prompt response. The old PC is still working actually and even after ten years I have a half-gigabyte of space on the disk. By the way, the new computer has 64-bit Vista, Windows 7 will come later.

A bit more advice if you do not mind:

Would I have to physically network the 40 GB disk to the new computer or is there an XP utility I could use? Possibly the Network Wizard.

Also, do you foresee any issues going from 32-bit XP to 64-bit Vista?

Thanks again for the advice.

Stay well.

bye,
s

 

[Scotteq]

Your data will be fine.

And you should be able to plug them into each other (or each into a router, if you have one in the house) and go from there. Most users here would go this route and decide what they do and don't want to move on a more case by case basis. But there are some utilities that do teh same thing.

Microsoft have a little app and cable you can buy, if you like: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/get/easy-transfer.aspx

I'll grab a couple tutorials off the net for you, while I'm at it:

http://www.cnet.com.au/xp-to-vista-how-to-transfer-your-data-339292483.htm

http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/guide/79/how-to-transfer-your-data-from-xp-to-vista

 

[stevieg882002]

Scotteq, greetings and salutations,


Most excellent!! I thought it would be more difficult. The procedure you outlined is almost identical when I upgraded tp the 40 GB machine from a mighty 2GB. Two million characters!?! What, I would never need that much.

Which reminds me, I seem to recall when PC programs were written in Pascal to economize on disk utilization.

bye,

s

 

[Scotteq]

2B!!

If someone told you then you could have 8GB on your keychain, bet you'd have laughed at them!

 

[Jonmor68]

My first computer with a hard drive had 10 meg, yes 10 meg, I thought it would last me forever after being used to using twin 360kb floppies and 512kb of ram.

 

[stevieg882002]

Hey, guys,

Thanks for all your kind and generous assistance. I think I am going the automated easy transfer route. I am going to run don to Radio Shack for a USB cable. The XP machine is USB 1.5. This is not a problem, just slower, right?

Since I have your attention, I am planning to use the old XP machine for Linux. Is it best to totally reformat the disk, post-transfer and then install Linux, or is there a more effective techique?

As always, thx in advance.

rgds,

s