Setting up a new computer

[As-Ol-Joe]

Hey Y'all,

My computer finally died and I had to put it in the shop. It has been 4 weeks now and I called about it yesterday, they haven't even started working on it. Boy am I pissed. There are some programs on there that I have written and really could use now.

Anyway, since that one was getting old, I went ahead and bought a new computer. All nice and shiny. But it is such a pain in the ass to get all your websites and other programs reloaded on a new one.

I have been trying to keep up with thing going on here, on other peoples computers. But it just ain't the same.

[HookLine]

You got a bootable clone backup drive? Makes it a piece of cake to restore your comp to (more-or-less) as it was before the crash.

[As-Ol-Joe]

Going to start putting my programs on a external hard drive and hopefully won't have this problem again.

[HookLine]

Large, reliable external backup drives are dirt cheap these days.

No such thing as too much backup. I have several copies of everything on my comp, and do a full backup every few days.

[bourbonbob]

you could get a copy of norton ghost or acronis to clone the whole drive

[Husker]

Joe,

Depending upon how "old" your computer is, many times the "programs" are not going to be functional in the new box. Frequently, if upgrading OS's, if you had special utility and tool programs, and also games, many of them will not function properly on the new box. Not always, but many times this is the case.

Of the programs that are still functional, simply install from the original media (never toss it out). So if you had a genealogy program, simply reinstall it. Same with any other programs.

Then it is just a matter of getting the "data" built by these programs from your other hard disk, onto your new box.

H.

[Husker]

you could get a copy of norton ghost or acronis to clone the whole drive

Usually a bad idea, unless you restore this to a totally separate drive or partition. You never want to ghost from one machine (older), with much different hardware (and OS), onto a new machine, unless they are VERY similar (almost or absolutely identical).

However, instead of doing something like this, simply hook up the drive from the old system (assuming it was NOT the drive that died in that box. Hook that drive up as the secondary non-booting drive, and then you can simply copy data across at your leisure. If it was the drive in the old system that died, then you are pretty much gonna have to start over anyway, if you are without backups.

H.

[HookLine]

you could get a copy of norton ghost or acronis to clone the whole drive

I use SuperDuper. The basic version is free, and the full version is cheap. Works very well.

[Gimp]

If you want total data security, then use this device, its not the cheapest, but its fantastic.

I use it for all my media.

http://www.drobo.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow


You can put any sata hard drives in it, basically its like a raid but better. It automatically formats the hard drives and rebuilds the array if a hard drive fails. And when you look at it on your machine, it just looks like one drive.
So if your system fails, this is seperate, also if a hard drive fails its covered with data redundancy.

Worth every cent.

[Uncle Jesse]

4 weeks and they haven't started working on it? I'd take it to someone who wants your business.

[Gimp]

4 weeks and they haven't started working on it? I'd take it to someone who wants your business.

Agreed, that too!

[As-Ol-Joe]

4 weeks and they haven't started working on it? I'd take it to someone who wants your business.

Bought it from radio shack and it was still under warranty. Had to take it to them.

Warranty ran out on the 22nd, I got it there on the 15th.

[Uncle Jesse]

4 weeks and they haven't started working on it? I'd take it to someone who wants your business.

Bought it from radio shack and it was still under warranty. Had to take it to them.

Warranty ran out on the 22nd, I got it there on the 15th.

even so man, I can fix anything in 4 days and that includes catastrophic hardware failures. I'd kick those guys in the butt a little bit if I were you.

[Socrates]

The Radio Shack guys used to be pretty sharp - but that was many years ago. No longer true. Please make it clear to them you want to save the data from your old hard drive. It is no big deal to install it as a second drive on your new machine - very simple. Then once you boot up with the new machine and drive you can then search the old hard drive, copy over, save what you will. You can always return the old drive when you're done with it if need be.

Very simple. Call em quick before they destroy the old drive or destroy your hard earned data.