Best method of transferring all harddrive files?

[gregb]

I will be constantly on the move for 3 months after september and while i will be leaving my outdated packardbell computer system with my old man i`m wondering how can i save all my programs/files/shortcuts for transferring in the future?
is it just a matter of putting it all on floppys or disks,then uploading when i get the new one?
thanks

 

[sh33n]

You can't really "save" program files and the like, most are quite complicated and will require the inital installation disc to be reinstalled.

You could try Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, these basically take an "image" of your hard driver and everything on it which can then be restored, but doing it onto different hardware will probably cause problems.

 

[BadBadtz]

Personal documents, e-mails, favourites etc you should save down to CD.

Software you cant and you would probably be better off installing newer versions when you decide t get a new machine anyway

 

[Evil_Weasel]

Not sure this fits what you want to do, but another option...

Every time I got a new computer, and wanted to get to all the files in the old computer, simplest thing to do was take out the hard drive from the old computer and then attach it as a second 'slave' hard-drive in the new computer. Hey presto, instant access to all my old files!

If you want the old Packard Bell to carry on working for your Dad, then I guess this isn't an option though, unless you use something like Norton Ghost (as mentioned above) and create a copy of the disk.

 

[gregb]

Thanks for that lads,it`s mostly music files,photos,vids etc.
as said it may be wiser to start again with newer versions of some of the other programs.
will try the norton ghost.