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Author Topic:  Advice on Transfer to External Hard Drive
Sonny Jenkins


From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
Post  Posted 25 Apr 2017 11:14 am    
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A few days ago we had a storm and a power surge damaged a lot of my electronics,,,phone system, TVs, modems, router, win7 desktop computer, amp (just bought and received a GK200,,,damaged it!) etc. The damage to computer seems to be to the NIKI (?) card,,,the card that connects to internet. Hard drive seems to be OK. I'm now using an older XP laptop. Several questions,,,can I transfer everything over to a external hard drive I have,,,if not all, how much,,,pictures, documents, drivers (kodak camera driver is no longer available and I have misplaced disc) until I can get another permanent computer,,,or can I remove the hard drive and install or transfer it to a computer in the future? Comments welcome!!!
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Dave Potter

 

From:
Texas
Post  Posted 25 Apr 2017 2:34 pm     Re: Advice on Transfer to External Hard Drive
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Sonny Jenkins wrote:
The damage to computer seems to be to the NIKI (?) card,,,the card that connects to internet
Not sure I understand that. PCs don't ususally require a "card" for network connections - connectivity is normally done via components built into the motherboard.

Quote:
Hard drive seems to be OK. can I remove the hard drive and install or transfer it to a computer in the future?
If you need to read and be able to copy/transfer the contents to a different hard drive or PC, there are inexpensive options available, like this that work well.

Note that I have no way of knowing is this particular model will work in your situation; you need to be sure the connections are correct for your hardware.
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Sonny Jenkins


From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
Post  Posted 25 Apr 2017 2:51 pm    
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Thanks Dave. When the Spectrum Cable people came out to replace the damaged components (cable box etc) the guy checked modem which was damaged and was kind enough to check computer which worked fine but would not connect to internet with the new equipment. He removed a small thin card, or board from computer I thought he called niki board(?),,,said it was damaged. I think I'd best take it to a shop to either repair or transfer to external hard drive. The computer is about 6 years old,,,and I am probably going to a nice size laptop
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Wiz Feinberg


From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
Post  Posted 25 Apr 2017 8:38 pm    
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Sonny Jenkins wrote:
Thanks Dave. When the Spectrum Cable people came out to replace the damaged components (cable box etc) the guy checked modem which was damaged and was kind enough to check computer which worked fine but would not connect to internet with the new equipment. He removed a small thin card, or board from computer I thought he called niki board(?),,,said it was damaged. I think I'd best take it to a shop to either repair or transfer to external hard drive. The computer is about 6 years old,,,and I am probably going to a nice size laptop


LOL; that board is actually called a NIC, which stands for "Network Interface Controller." It has a large network RJ45 jack that receives a network RJ45 plug from your modem or router.

Virtually all of the newer motherboards have a NIC built into the board. Yours must be very old if it needs a plug-in NIC board. New ones can be had for under twenty bucks, but you might need old stock for your 6 year old equipment. Everything regarding chips and plug-ins has changed in the interim.
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Sonny Jenkins


From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
Post  Posted 26 Apr 2017 5:51 am    
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Hey Wiz,,THANK YOU very much for that clarification!!! Could you enlighten me on how much of this hard drive can be transferred to external hard drive? I know pictures and documents,,,what about drivers? The drivers for my digital kodak camera are no longer available, and I've lost the install disc. Also can I access the external hard drive from my lap top and work in that venue as if it were my C drive? Or, is there a way to access the desk top hard drive itself from the laptop?
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Wiz Feinberg


From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
Post  Posted 26 Apr 2017 9:42 am    
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Sonny Jenkins wrote:
Hey Wiz,,THANK YOU very much for that clarification!!! Could you enlighten me on how much of this hard drive can be transferred to external hard drive? I know pictures and documents,,,what about drivers? The drivers for my digital kodak camera are no longer available, and I've lost the install disc. Also can I access the external hard drive from my lap top and work in that venue as if it were my C drive? Or, is there a way to access the desk top hard drive itself from the laptop?


Sonny;
First, I recommend buying an external USB hard or solid state drive of equal or greater capacity to the one in your existing computer. When you plug it in and it is recognized by the computer, you can begin copying any or all of the files you want to save from your existing C drive to this external backup drive. Unless you have newer USB 3 outputs, it may take a very long time. Play music or go for a walk around the city.

Regarding your drivers, as long as you have the downloaded driver installation files, you can reuse them after getting the computer repaired. You can only install them again if you have the same operating system as they were designed for. If you get a newer operating system, those drivers may fail to take, or may not work properly. A lot has changed in 6 years.

Finally, you cannot access the external drive as if it was your active C drive. It will only be a backup storage space as long as you copy and paste, or drag and drop files to it. However, a "C" drive can be cloned onto a new larger internal hard or solid state drive which can replace a failing hard disk. But, your operating system files should be pristine, all temporary unneeded files deleted and any malware removed prior to cloning a boot disk.

Your computer tech can advise you about any upgrade path. There usually isn't one from XP computers.

If you buy a new Windows 10 laptop, you can plug in the USB backup drive and access files that you saved to it. You may be able to open and even install some saved programs, depending on if they allow you to run them in XP mode. Some will work and some won't. The best files to save are documents, music and video files. As regards documents, if they were created in a particular program, you must install the same type of program to read or edit them. If you used Microsoft Office for XP, it may or may not install under Windows 10. If not, you'll have to settle for LibreOffice for these documents.

To sum up, a lot has changed since Windows XP. Windows 10 is the current flavor and it is not very good at looking back to older hardware and software. It can sometimes be forced into installing or recognizing older stuff, but not usually as well as the newly released versions of those items.

You can save files to another drive, but cannot boot from it unless it is an exact clone of the existing C drive. If that is the case, it can only boot from the same or identical hardware. You cannot take a C drive from an old PC and successfully boot a new Windows 10 motherboard and processor from it.
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Richard Sinkler


From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
Post  Posted 26 Apr 2017 9:49 am    
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I have hard drives that have become "un-bootable". Both desktop and laptop. Every one, so far, has been able to be read. They just won't boot. I guess it depends on what kind of damage was done.
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Sonny Jenkins


From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
Post  Posted 26 Apr 2017 12:03 pm    
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Hey Wiz,,,THANK YOU SO MUCH for that very extensive and concise information,,,everything I needed to know and then some,,,you are a REAL asset to this forum.

Actually the computer that was damaged is a win7,,,the laptop I'm using now is XP. I may try to find a used Win7 laptop to replace the damaged computer with. I remember I tried Win10 one time and didn't get along with it too good

Thanks again my friend!!!!
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Scott Duckworth


From:
Etowah, TN Western Foothills of the Smokies
Post  Posted 27 Apr 2017 4:17 pm    
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Sonny, you might look at Dell's refurbished site. They might have some Win 7 laptops at a good price.
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Carl Kilmer


From:
East Central, Illinois
Post  Posted 28 Apr 2017 4:05 am    
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Sonny. here's a good place in Texas to replace your computer.
https://www.discountelectronics.com/?utm_source=organic&utm_medium=email
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Dave Potter

 

From:
Texas
Post  Posted 28 Apr 2017 4:38 am    
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Carl Kilmer wrote:
here's a good place in Texas to replace your computer.
https://www.discountelectronics.com/?utm_source=organic&utm_medium=email
That's an interesting one, and right here locally for us. First time I ever saw a computer store with a pawn operation.
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Sonny Jenkins


From:
Texas Masonic Retirement Center,,,Arlington Tx
Post  Posted 2 May 2017 5:58 am    
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I ordered one from www.discountcomputerdepot.com standard free 1 year warranty. Plus talked to them and rec'd info regarding the specific computer I'm getting,,i.e.age, origin etc. Decided to bite the bullet and go the win10 route. Hope it is better than it was when it first came out.
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Carl Kilmer


From:
East Central, Illinois
Post  Posted 2 May 2017 6:13 am    
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With them, they'll make it the way you want it.
You can get the HD's, Memory, Disc Drives you want
and on some you can even change the OS and add WIFI.
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