I have an ACER Aspire notebook, A315-53G, and my power charging port is acting up and has to be positioned just right to charge. In the Philippines I could get it fixed for cheap. Here, in SoCal, I’m thinking it through. My wife won a new ACER notebook (better than mine) and we haven’t used it. I thought it might be better to migrate the data, etc., to the new noteboook and use it while I assessed repairs (or made a personal try). So I read up and there’s an app (PC Mover) for $60 that will do it all for you over the Wifi. There’s a statement that if you use normal cables to transfer you might burn out one of the computers(don’t ask me, I dunno). I wondered if this is a reasonable way to do the migration, because manual transfer may be beyond my ability to keep track of it. At 71 I have new limits I don’t know about yet. Thanks in advance.
Will the new computer run all your software (the old stuff)? If yes, then install all your software on the new computer. Then move the hard drive from the old system and put it as drive D (second hard drive) in the new system. Depending on the software, you can then copy the data over with no problems.
See what a shop would charge to do it all. It is maybe 2-3 hours (guesstimate)? Also consider a new (internal or external, both recommended) backup hard drive if you do not want to keep using the old drive or system.
If this is a laptop, then there isn’t necessarily any place to add the drive from the old system.
Copying stuff and installing the software is pretty straightforward on the same network, but if that seems challenging, getting a local shop to do it is a good solution.
Also consider a new (internal or external, both recommended) backup hard drive if you do not want to keep using the old drive or system.
For $50 you can buy a USB-C based external 1TB drive.
Plug it in to the old system, copy everything from that system to the drive.
I’d plan on that taking a while - probably a few hours depending on how much stuff you have.
Once everything is copied to the external drive you can shut down the old system, unplug the drive, and plug it into the newer system and copy stuff over.
And as a bonus you now have an external drive that’s a backup of everything.
If you go with the cheaper external drives (non-SSD based), you want to avoid jostling them while they’re running.
But if it’s sitting on a desk/table, that’s usually not a problem.
Another option is a 500G or 1TB thumb drive.
I’d look for a name brand or something with 1k+ positive reviews. There are people who make thumb drives that say they’re good sized, but when you try to use them their actual capacity is tiny. You shouldn’t have that problem with a big brand name - but there’s lots of fly-by-night operators out there. I think bestbuy only has name brands - while amazon has name brands and scams (and probably some that are not name-brand but might be fine)
If this is a laptop, then there isn’t necessarily any place to add the drive from the old system.
External, USB based drive enclosures are available.
And not too expensive.
But I’d probably just get a complete drive rather than take the existing drive out and put it in an enclosure. (The $ for the person to put the drive into the enclosure is probably more than just getting a complete external drive and DIY’ing it.)
If this is a laptop, then there isn’t necessarily any place to add the drive from the old system.
What’s stupid is that I’ve seen pictures of the insides of laptops that clearly had SPACE for an add-in 2.5" hard drive or SSD, but I couldn’t find any statement - from anyone - on whether they had a CONNECTOR for one.
Which is why my current laptop is a slightly-newer model of HP Elitebook than its predecessor. I was able to confirm the presence of that second connector, before buying.
But I’d probably just get a complete drive rather than take the existing drive out and put it in an enclosure. (The $ for the person to put the drive into the enclosure is probably more than just getting a complete external drive and DIY’ing it.)
I’m confused… if you buy a complete external drive, what are you DIYing?
If you’re taking the existing drive out of your computer, why would you pay someone else to do the much simpler and faster job of putting it in an enclosure?
The cheap route is to buy an external enclosure and do that yourself… (but first LOOK at the existing drive in your computer; see if it’s a 2.5"-wide rectangular box https://assets.rockpapershotgun.com/images/2018/10/Crucial-B… , which may be either spinning disk or SSD, or a circuit board with connectors on one end https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Intel-Op… , which will be an SSD; they take different enclosures)… if you don’t feel up to that, then the cheap route is probably to buy a complete external drive.
You don’t want to copy any programs from the old to the new computer. That is just asking for trouble and instability on the new computer. Instead, I’d recommend re-installing the programs on the new computer.
How you do that depends on how you purchase the originals. In the old days, when you actually owned a copy of the software, you could just pop in the installation floppy disks, or CDs, or DVDs and install. These days, you might need to connect to the software company’s web site, remember your login information, then see if you can install again without having to re-purchase the software.
Your data can be freely copied from the old computer to the new one. If they’re both connected to your home or work network, you should be able to set up the computers to see each other and copy directly. I wouldn’t worry about wired or wifi. Either will be fine and you won’t blow up your new computer unless the network is blowing up everyone’s computer.
If you don’t know how to make sure the computers can find each other on the network, bribe your 14 year old whiz-kid grandchildren to help you. Money will work fine for the bribe. As long as you know how to Zelle it to them.
if you buy a complete external drive, what are you DIYing?
Moving the data.
The cheap route is to buy an external enclosure and do that yourself…
Two requirements for that:
1> you are comfortable opening up your computer/laptop, removing the drive, and putting it into a different box. (most people aren’t - I’m assuming the OP is not based on what they’ve already said)
2> you are OK with the machine that’s having the drive removed be no longer functional (because it no longer has a hard drive)
I haven’t done what you want to do in a while, but you have plenty of ways suggested to do this. But as I recall, the hard part was knowing where each program put its data. So that you can put it back into the right directory structure so the newly re-installed programs can find it. You may have to do some research on each program to know where it’s looking for its data to be stored.
No one has mentioned cloning. That is the way I’d do what you are trying to do.
I want to thank everyone for their responses. I found where I could get the program cheaper, considered doing it myself, but don’t have faith in my abilities. It’s complex enough to use the program. I have to look up words and things I don’t really know.
Yes, I don’t know how to clone. I was in the Philippines and had access to an ace tech cheap. I think that’s what he did cloned to an outside drive then transferred that, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to learn more.
Thanks in advance.
