Transferring Files from Old to New Computer

[OpticalOrange99]

My old computer is a HP Pavilon running Windows XP Home Edition SP2 (32-bit).

My new computer is a Dell XPS running Windows Vista Premium Home Edition (32-bit).

I wish to transfer quite alot of files from my old computer to my new one (Documents, Games, custom-made art, etc.)

There is too much data for my 800MB CD-Rs and I am all out of DVD-R(W)s. My sister has a USB key but it doesn't hold as much as a DVD-RW would (4GB) so it would take many tries to get all the data onto the new computer.

I tried the Windows Vista Easy Transfer Wizard. I lack an Easy Transfer Cable, any external media devices or a network; so none of the options were applicable to my situation.

I hope someone could outline a way I could accomplish this transfer without having to buy any of these things. My friend gave me a computer "interconnector" (its a cable that I plugged into both PCs ethernet ports) and he said that it would do the job of transferring the information from my old PC to my new one.

I'm not sure how he intended me to use this "interconnector". He mentioned "Sharing" or something. If anyone could please explain how to use it I'd be grateful. I googled "Computer Interconnector" and found nothing relevant. I'm not sure if that's the actual name of the cable or what.

My harddisk is about to fail in my old pc so I hope I can get a speedy reply. I have quite a lot of data from over the last 5 years on my HP so I hope it doesn't fail on me before I get an answer to this problem.

Many thanks in Advance.

 

[raybay]

The easy transfer cable is cheap, and is the easiest, safest way for the new user to do it.
Use recovery software and burn it to disc.

 

[Char_X]

you can use Acronis True Image to back up Documents, Games,E-mails,personal settings and then restore them to a new computer.
www.acronis.com

 

[OpticalOrange99]

Thanks for the help guys. My friend just showed me how to network the two and I made a shared folder, put everything into it and then transferred it all; all 30 Gigabytes of it . It took all night but it was well worth it.

I networked it through a Netgear DS824GT router but I'm having some trouble with another aspect of the router. I think I'll make a new topic about it. I can't get the Wi-Fi to work with the Wirless USB Adaptor 2.0 and my new Toshiba Laptop. I follow the instructions to the letter and it doesn't work.

I think I'll put it under this subforum "Storage and Networking" as I think you could kinda call it networking... maybe not.

EDIT: Wait my brother got it working. So, thanks once more for your help guys.