I am seeking advice in order to help a friend. She has a DELL DIMENSION 300 with issues. I am going to replace it with a 4400. The issue is I need to know how to transfer certain files as in photos and emails from one tower to the other before I reload the OS onto the 3000. It is important that she retain this info. I have a feeling that the HDD has issues as opposed to the other hardware. Simple steps in sequence please.
install old drive in place of rom drive. enable to view hidden files in windows explorer. copy & past the documents folder & favorites from documents & settings\user name to new hd documents & settings\user name. check in application data\microsoft for address book & copy it to the new documents folder. goto local settings\application data\microsoft\identities & copy identity to new documents folder.
At this point I do not know whether the issue is the hdd in the 3000 or the hardware. The only way to know is to install the 3000 hdd into the 4400 and see if the system is now stable. She is not very tech savvy and her description of her issues is unclear to me. Your transfer steps are beyond me. But thanks for trying. I can give her the 4400 as a stable tower with a larger hdd. From there she will download what she needs, photos, emails, ect. That is the extent of my help I can provide. I will then vbring the 3000 here and see what its condition is. Worst case I will reload the OS and keep it as a spare. programs go in later. If I give her the 4400 as is, I will need to install her printers, and scanner. But of course she will not have photos, ect on the hdd. If I can get the 3000 to be stable without reloading, then I can give it back to her. only time will tell.
transfer steps are straight forward & easier than you realise 1-open my computer on the 4400 2-select by left clik tools in menu 3-select folder options 4-select view tab 5-select show hidden files & folders & untick hide extensions for known file associations & untick hide protected operating system files 6-follow what ddp has said all files you require are in C partition on the 300 drive,i assume he says place 300 drive in place of dvd because of cabling differences,on reboot of 4400 the hdd will show up or place 300 drive in an external housing
you're doing it wrong. if you use those copy-paste solutions, you'll likely end up with partial contents of folder, missing folders, and lots of other problems. Microsoft OS's typically hit errors and quit part of the way through an operation, while telling you everything went perfectly to plan.. Copy/paste is NOT a backup solution! use dd (dd rescue), or partimage. Those programs will backup your system correctly, skipping bad sectors on the hard drive, copying corrupted files, preserving installed programs, co/decs, drivers, and so on. In other words, this is the right way to do it. I've also heard good things about easeus todo's backup software. All of the above is free and/or open source. And, you can use those with windows if you like. Question... why don't you just swap hard drives? why transfer? You want to put the stuff on a drive with the (presumed) added space of the 4400? You can put the other drive as a slave. Whatever the case, it is good practice to maintain a system backup. Apparently you don't have one... so get one.
6-follow what ddp has said all files you require are in C partition on the 300 drive,i assume he says place 300 drive in place of dvd because of cabling differences,on reboot of 4400 the hdd will show up or place 300 drive in an external housing in regards to imaging i agree to create a couple of backup image files once the 4400 is up & running
First my friend is not very tech savvy. I am a bit better to a point. I hesitate to swap hhds only because I do not know if the 3000 hhd is the issue or if the issue lies elseware or if there is even an issue at all. Her descriptions are not always easy to understand by phone. I wont know until I run the tower myself and see what it does or does not do. If I am sure the tower is the issue I can swap hdds and see if the 4400 will play nice with the 3000 hdd. I have swapped hdds I have "PREPARED" for DELL among several models vintages both as is and reloaded with a fresh XP rewrite. I need to run my resource cd in some cases.
Why don't you use something like macrium reflect you can download for free backup all the photo's, emails, music, videos, program setup files ready for re- install after recovery and backup to ext hdd or dvd's. Then after os re- install then recover and re- install any programs needed. You could also back up using files and transfer settings wizard to external media and choose what to backup and recover the settings to new install. Use the manufacturer's disk tool for your hdd to determine whether the hdd is on it's way out, using the long or extended test if 100's or thousands of errors which are unrecoverable then hdd is probably gone but backup first before running the tool.
