I Made the Switch to my New PC!
I got all my data switched over to my new PC. Thank you very much for all your suggestions, I found them very helpful.
Click here to see how I did it. Warning: boring technical details.
I took my new PC for a test drive through the blogosphere last night. My old 600x800 screen had trouble with blogs that didn't fit in that size window. Now I can read all those blogs easily. There are a couple of blogs that used to crash my browser, I've got to visit those, hopefully I can safely go there now.
I upgraded to Internet Explorer 7.0, I love the new tabbing feature.
Veronika wrote a beautiful tribute to her son Brandon who passed away shortly before Christmas.
Imran won a blog award!
So did Barb over at Skittle's Place!
Gem is going to be profiled on a humor blog. She needs your help picking her funniest post.
Thank you for all your support! I got six comments (again)yesterday, so six minutes for today. Thank you and have a great day!
Please spread the comment cheer to all of the exercisers!!
Sunflower * Veronika * DeeJay * LadyBugCrossing * Gem * Nicole * Renee
Chocolate Help Needed!! For every comment I get Lynda will eat .01 ounces of chocolate. She needs more chocolate people! Surely you can appreciate her predicament. Comment today!
Please pick out your best rant and email me a link to it (please put the word rant in the title). If you can't find one, I'll try to find one for you, wouldn't you rather pick it out yourself? I'm having a blast reading all your rants.
Accepting comments from old friends, new friends, strangers and those just passing through. Thank you for your support.
Home Email me
Click here to see how I did it. Warning: boring technical details.
I looked into sharing my files over a network. My husband said he spent a couple of weeks a few years ago setting up a network. He ultimately did it, but it took a long time. My husband and I are both IT people, but neither of us are experienced with supporting desktop apps or networks. My technical experience is with IBM mainframe business apps, my husband's is with corporate ERPs. We have the core competencies to hack around and figure things out a little quicker than your average Joe, but no formal training. So I looked for another solution. So I googled transferring to a new PC.
I found that Windows XP comes with a Files and Settings Transfer (FAST) wizard. The wizard will find your files, all your settings (favorites, display, email, etc.)and your outlook pst files. So that solved part of my problem, the manual transfer. I still didn't decide on a way to get the data there.
I looked into a direct connection between both PCs. My new PC didn't have a 9 pin or 25 pin parallel port. Out of the 30 odd extra cables we had accumulated I could find no configuration to connect the two PCs. I checked the Internet and I found a crossover cable that has USB 1.1 on one side and USB 2.0 on the other with a bridge in between. I considered this option, then I found a better solution.
I could buy an external hard drive that is USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 compatible. I thought this was the best solution because I could then use the external drive to backup my data on my new PC. So I went to Staples and bought a 40 gig drive for $50. I love how cheap storage has become. I wasn't out of the woods yet though.
First I had to download the drivers for the new hard drive on to my old PC. That went well. The next step was to get my data on the external drive. The directions for the XP FAST wizard says to start the process on the new PC first, then go to your old PC and start the process with an XP CD. You can either use the XP CD that came with your new PC, or the wizard will burn a new one for you. I had the XP CD, so I chose that option. I wasn't out of the woods yet though.
My old PC could not read the XP DVD (the directions call it a CD). Now what! Oh yeah, I could let the FAST Wizard burn me a new one. I wasn't out of the woods yet though.
I couldn't figure out the drives on my new PC. They don't seem to list correctly in Windows Explorer. I tried to burn a new copy of the XP CD for a couple of hours without success, then another idea came to me. I could burn a copy of the XP CD onto my new external hard drive. So I did that. When I plugged the hard drive into my old PC I had no problem starting the FAST wizard. It compressed all my data and settings onto my new hard drive (took about 4 hours because of the slow data rate on a 1.1. USB port). Next I connected the new drive to the new PC and told the FAST Wizard on the new PC where to find my data. It moved it over without a hitch. I wasn't out of the woods yet though.
I couldn't get my email to work. I couldn't send or receive messages. I went back to Google and spent an hour or two figuring out that Norton Anti-Virus interferes with Outlook mail. I spent another hour trying to fix it. Finally I could receive mail, but I couldn't send it. WTF? Obviously, I wasn't out of the woods yet.
For the next couple of hours I diagnosed my email problem. Nothing seemed to fix it. I thought maybe there was a unique problem with my ISP and I should narrow my focus to Roadrunner problems. I typed my outgoing email server name into Google: smpt-server.rochester.rr.com, Google asked me if I meant to type smtp-server.rochester.rr.com. Aha ! I had a typo in the server name that I couldn't see for some reason. I fixed the typo. I was finally out of the woods!
I found that Windows XP comes with a Files and Settings Transfer (FAST) wizard. The wizard will find your files, all your settings (favorites, display, email, etc.)and your outlook pst files. So that solved part of my problem, the manual transfer. I still didn't decide on a way to get the data there.
I looked into a direct connection between both PCs. My new PC didn't have a 9 pin or 25 pin parallel port. Out of the 30 odd extra cables we had accumulated I could find no configuration to connect the two PCs. I checked the Internet and I found a crossover cable that has USB 1.1 on one side and USB 2.0 on the other with a bridge in between. I considered this option, then I found a better solution.
I could buy an external hard drive that is USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 compatible. I thought this was the best solution because I could then use the external drive to backup my data on my new PC. So I went to Staples and bought a 40 gig drive for $50. I love how cheap storage has become. I wasn't out of the woods yet though.
First I had to download the drivers for the new hard drive on to my old PC. That went well. The next step was to get my data on the external drive. The directions for the XP FAST wizard says to start the process on the new PC first, then go to your old PC and start the process with an XP CD. You can either use the XP CD that came with your new PC, or the wizard will burn a new one for you. I had the XP CD, so I chose that option. I wasn't out of the woods yet though.
My old PC could not read the XP DVD (the directions call it a CD). Now what! Oh yeah, I could let the FAST Wizard burn me a new one. I wasn't out of the woods yet though.
I couldn't figure out the drives on my new PC. They don't seem to list correctly in Windows Explorer. I tried to burn a new copy of the XP CD for a couple of hours without success, then another idea came to me. I could burn a copy of the XP CD onto my new external hard drive. So I did that. When I plugged the hard drive into my old PC I had no problem starting the FAST wizard. It compressed all my data and settings onto my new hard drive (took about 4 hours because of the slow data rate on a 1.1. USB port). Next I connected the new drive to the new PC and told the FAST Wizard on the new PC where to find my data. It moved it over without a hitch. I wasn't out of the woods yet though.
I couldn't get my email to work. I couldn't send or receive messages. I went back to Google and spent an hour or two figuring out that Norton Anti-Virus interferes with Outlook mail. I spent another hour trying to fix it. Finally I could receive mail, but I couldn't send it. WTF? Obviously, I wasn't out of the woods yet.
For the next couple of hours I diagnosed my email problem. Nothing seemed to fix it. I thought maybe there was a unique problem with my ISP and I should narrow my focus to Roadrunner problems. I typed my outgoing email server name into Google: smpt-server.rochester.rr.com, Google asked me if I meant to type smtp-server.rochester.rr.com. Aha ! I had a typo in the server name that I couldn't see for some reason. I fixed the typo. I was finally out of the woods!
I took my new PC for a test drive through the blogosphere last night. My old 600x800 screen had trouble with blogs that didn't fit in that size window. Now I can read all those blogs easily. There are a couple of blogs that used to crash my browser, I've got to visit those, hopefully I can safely go there now.
I upgraded to Internet Explorer 7.0, I love the new tabbing feature.
Veronika wrote a beautiful tribute to her son Brandon who passed away shortly before Christmas.Imran won a blog award!
So did Barb over at Skittle's Place!
Gem is going to be profiled on a humor blog. She needs your help picking her funniest post.
Thank you for all your support! I got six comments (again)yesterday, so six minutes for today. Thank you and have a great day! Please spread the comment cheer to all of the exercisers!!
Sunflower * Veronika * DeeJay * LadyBugCrossing * Gem * Nicole * Renee
Chocolate Help Needed!! For every comment I get Lynda will eat .01 ounces of chocolate. She needs more chocolate people! Surely you can appreciate her predicament. Comment today!
Please pick out your best rant and email me a link to it (please put the word rant in the title). If you can't find one, I'll try to find one for you, wouldn't you rather pick it out yourself? I'm having a blast reading all your rants.
Accepting comments from old friends, new friends, strangers and those just passing through. Thank you for your support.
Home Email me
Labels: Blog Friends, Exercise for Comments, Rant
posted by Barbara Miers at
12/28/2006 03:37:00 PM
Explore Family-Friendly Network
26 Comments:
Ooh, very exciting on switching over!
We need to get more commenters over here. Your treadmill time is slackin'!
I'm glad you got all switched over. I'll have to look at the boring technical stuff when we get my new computer... it looks like we're either waiting for this to die or for Vista to come out and get debugged.
I'm kind of used to the Christmas Eve thing. My body wakes up at 5:30 automatically to catch Santa.
We've got more snow...I've already shoveled the driveway 3 times and DH said it didn't look like I did anything...he didn't see the 4+2+2 inches I took off each time!
HI! Here's a comment!! Everyone needs to eat chocolate!
Remembered to stop by today to cheer you on :)...
Mr. Fab - Yes, I do need more comments!
Renee - If you get a new computer remember to have a transition plan before you pick one out. We still have no snow. This must be some kind of record.
Mrs. Mogul - Thank you!
Iris - Thank you, that is so nice of you.
Hooray! There's nothing like a new computer!!
Where did you get it? What kind? I'm looking and leaning toward Dell. ??
Marie - Thank you, it's fabulous!
Joe - I got a Dell.
I didn't even look --- I'll take your word for it. :) I really don't understand much more than how to turn my computer on. And that's hard. :)
Andrew - It was painful to go through, probably painful to read too.
Congrats on the big switch! Thanks for the link! Happy New Year!
As someone who has such difficulty with technology... consider me impressed with your switch to a new PC. And get moving on that treadmill!!
it was refreshing to see you have WTF in your vocabulary!! being influenced by prepubescent maleness?
Skittles - Thanks - Happy New Year!
Jake - I'm glad it's over! Thanks for your comment support!
Suzanne - I learned WTF from my blog friends, but I have noticed a shift in my son's language that I'm trying to nip in the bud. For instance, he doesn't like to play his sax anymore, last night he called it a suckophone. Not appropriate. I wonder where he's learning all this language?
Exercise and Chocolate. You, up on the treadmill! Lynda! Eat!
Good job! I knew you can do it:-)
I use IE7. You can visit many blogs at the same time.
Sunflower
Suldog - Only 9 minutes today!
Sunflower - Thank you! I like IE7, it makes visiting blogs a lot easier!
So happy to hear your new PC is treating you well. IE7, huh? Wow - I need to upgrade there myself. I still haven't switched this blog over yet either. Blogger keeps telling me it's "not ready" for me yet....hmmmmm..
Guess I'm just a dinosaur.
Happy New Year, Barb to you and your family! Have a great one.
Glad it all worked out for you , Barbara!
Happy New Year!
Margie
Carol - Yep, tabbing is great, saves so much time. Happy new Year to you!
Margie - Thank you, Happy new year to you as well!
Congratulations on the switch and thanks again for the comment. I can't believe how much weirder I am turning out to be since posing this question.
Nicole - I have a friend who loves vampire movies, that's weird.
YAY! Congrats on getting up and running! That's great! Enjoy the new PC -- I bet it's LOTS faster! Huh?
Melli - It is so nice. I thought the internet was getting slow, turns out it was my PC.
Wow! I'm impressed that you figured out the whole moving files thing. Sounded pretty hairy (yes, I read every word - - I'm geekish like that).
Guess what? I got a new PC too. But my moving is going to be very limited as I like a nice clean PC. I'm going to use CDs and be pretty selective!
I would like to network my PCs together though, and I made one lame attempt at it. Of course it didn't work. I'm waiting until after the New Year to give it another shot . . .
Anita - My husband was concerned that I was moving over all the same "crap" that slowed down my old PC, but I haad too much non-crap mixed in with my crap, it was too big a job to sort. Have fun with your move.
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