10th April 2007, 4:38 PM
Quote:Ah I see. Your problem in setting up a direct computer to computer connection is you don't have a direct cable. You need the one that "reverses" midway through.
Crossover cable? Ah... yeah, the two I have here are just normal ones I guess, for connecting the ethernet port to the wall for internet.
Quote:Your other option is to use a router. In this way you can simply connect both computers to the router and after setting up that connection, turn on file sharing and select the needed files.
That would mean waiting a month before I can do anything, essentially, if I wanted to do that.
And even then, would WinME and Vista be able to see eachother on a network?
Quote:I'm suggesting hooking two hard drives into the new PC and copying files directly. It's the fastest way to go.
Yeah, I just did that. With ideas 1, 2, and 3 failed (900MB at a time on the flashdrive would take FOREVER on my old PC's slower USB speeds, DVD-RW discs are not reliable it seems and also take a long time to both burn and copy, and ethernet... yeah, discussed that), I had to do it...
I knew that this motherboard model supports four IDE devices and four SATA devices (among many other things). The two HDDs are new, so they're on SATA; the DVD-RW drive is one one IDE line. It didn't even include a cable for the second IDE line. Unfortunately, that other IDE line is in an extremely inaccessible location on the motherboard, in the bottom righthand side right underneath a big bundle of wires and the twisting floppy drive cable... and they install sideways (into the side of the motherboard essentially), instead of being vertical plugs like the IDE ports are on my old computer. I eventually gave up on trying to get the stupid cable into that port and instead unplugged the DVD drive and used that one. So, after some experimentation and a lot of moving around the two cases, I ended up using a spare power lead to connect the two HDDs, still in my old computer, to my new one -- in the old Dell's case, the two internal 3.5" HDD bays are in a rotating cage you can turn out of the case, making it possible to connect them to IDE and power leads from the other machine when both have their sides off and are facing eachother... :) (the new case isn't so nice; the HDDs go inside, no rotating cage or sliders or anything... oh well.)
... hey, it's probably easier than unscrewing the two HDDs from the old PC and then having to re-attach them after the transferring was complete! :)
(what, no one cares? Oh well.) Yeah, so now I've got the two computers next to eachother, facing in opposite directions, with their sides off, and have seven HDD partitions (four new, three old) and no CD/DVD drive listed. :D At least I managed to get a power lead to them so I don't need to have both computers on just to use the drives...