I'm building a new computer with a SATA hard drive and want to transfer about 2 1/2 Gb of files from my old machine which has an IDE hard drive to the new one and was wondering if anyone has ideas on the best way to do this.

I was thinking of getting one of the new flash / thumb drives to copy the files to, then transfering them to the new computer but most of the USB thumb drives I see aren't compatible with my version of Win98, first edition ( I don't have ME ).

I do have an Iomega ZIP 100 Mb installed on my Win98 machine but didn't really want to use it on the new computer, besides, I only have about 12 ZIP discs and would have to buy lots more....

Anyone have any iseas on how to transfer my files??

Thanks;

Dougie

shut down system. open up box and make the new HD slave. boot to command prompt. (if you haven't already) FDISK then FORMAT. Reboot to GUI. In windows explorer select all on C: (I'm assuming that's what you want to do). Paste to new drive. It's going to take a while to copy that much so start the process then go have lunch etc. It might be finished when you get back. there are other ways but I'm assuming that you don't have a Writeable CD/DVD drive nor a lot of pocket money to buy additonal hard/software to make the process easier.

most of MoBos support both sata and ide drives, so all you need is to plug the old ide drive to the new system and just copy what you need.

Is there a program that I will need in order to copy files from my old IDE drive to the new SATA drive if I temporarily put the IDE drive in the new computer?

I was just thinking that there are many very cheap DVD burners out there for less than $50. I could get one to install on the old Win98 computer just to copy my files. I do have a new DVD drive for the new computer, a Plexor PX-716SA/SW but it isn't compatable with my Win98 so I can't temporarily install it there to copy my files.

Thanks for all your responses

Dougie

You do not set a SATA drive up as master or slave, that's part of the beauty of the drive.

Dougie, you won't need any software to transfer file from one hdd to the other, just connect the old ATA drive to the IDE cable and you should be good to go.

A CD has a capacity of 700MB, and if your files aren't any larger than that you should be able to find a CD-RW that is compatible with you machine at a reasonable price. You will need software like Nero to transfer the files to the CD.

Another option would be to buy an adapter for the Plextor so that you can connect it to your IDE cable, here's one I found.

I wonder if this would work. Has anybody tried this. I came across it on the Toms Hardware website. It's called a " bridged USB cable ".

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/248

Doug

Nooooooo, U do NOT have to have a piece of special CD/DVD writing software such as Nero, DLA, etc. to write to a CD/DVD. The OS has it's own software, WMP9/1x could not write to any CD/DVD without it.
This is basically a copy/paste function. There are 2 basic ways to do so.
1) Assuming that U don't have any 3rd party software such as noted above AND a functional CD/DVD writer installed, this should work. Open the "Help and Support" app. in the Start menu. In the dialog box search "write cd", the simple instructions are noted to the right.
2) If you've already installed a 3rd party app. such as noted above then it, during it's setup, assumed the default app. for that function which means that #1 will probably NOT work. Then it's > select (files/folders) > copy > open the 3rd party app. > select it's CD/DVD file write function > paste in the files to be written area > engage the writer. Tip: Files that U want to write usually aren't going to be in any particular order. Hold down the CTRL key and select files with mouse, THEN release CTRL key and then File > Copy.
SATA drives. In the world of electronic wizardry not having to change jumpers on a particular drive may be an option. However, even IF it has the system files on it it isn't likely to be the selected boot drive as designated in the BIOS which means at boot time it's still a SLAVE drive.
BTW sweet cheeks, what are U trying to do there, copy files/folders or find several dozen ways to complicate a simple task?