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Lack of clues

  • Jul. 17th, 2005 at 11:20 AM
me topsy
I'm rather embarassed to admit that I've never really known how to move data from one computer to another particularly well. I haven't had many computers (only 3 until recently), and the one that I had previous to the two I have now died, taking its data with it. So I simply abandoned files or rebuilt them or pulled them off of discs that hadn't died as well rather than transfering them over. And quite honestly I must have a lot of crap on my computers, cause a lot of stuff just wasn't worth saving/transfering over I guess, or I would have done that.

At any rate, this lame way of moving from one computer to another needs to stop. I don't want to hang onto old computers in the "hope" that someday I can rescue the data on them. I want to transfer over my data and programs and all that good stuff and just be done with it.

But I still don't really have a clue of how to do this "easily". Can I link computers up to one another and transfer the data directly that way? Obviously computers are made to network and share data, but all of my experience in this field has been awkward to difficult to impossible due to the computers involved. I must be able to, but I've never done that myself so I'm not sure -how-, especially as one of the computers I have is VERY old and not at all normal or standard. I know I could copy stuff over to the server and then bring it back again, but with the dividing of MurkSouth and MurkNorth, I don't know the best way to do that any more, save just copying stuff over onto my own personal directory (which may in fact be the best way ... dunno!).

Anywho, I lack basic clues here (which really makes me feel very stupid, which I hate) and if there are peoples who could pass me clues, I would appreciate it.
  • Mood: confused lacking clues

Comments

( 13 comments — Leave a comment )
[info]kathrynt wrote:
Jul. 17th, 2005 06:44 pm (UTC)
Copying stuff to ~mimi is exactly what I would do under the circumstances. I dunno so much about the MurkNet topology though, so Anna or Dara can probably give you a better answer.
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[info]spazzkat wrote:
Jul. 17th, 2005 07:20 pm (UTC)
Transferring without being on the network
This solution will cost a little bit of cash and might not work on the older machine but it's pretty simple.

Check the machines for USB connections. They look like this: http://www.georgianc.on.ca/it/tips/usb.htm.

If the machines you want to transfer files between have USB you can buy a USB frob (like this: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000CA2GY/ref=pd_ts_pc_7/102-6519158-0573707?v=glance&s=pc&n=3151491).

Then you just plug it in to one machine. Put the files on it. Plug it into the other machine and transfer the files.

They come with varying capacity. The more you spend the more you can get on one. And they work on any machine with USB. Mac or PC.

iPod Shuffles do this as well. I actually use mine for this more than playing music.

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[info]king_chiron wrote:
Jul. 17th, 2005 07:36 pm (UTC)
Re: Transferring without being on the network
If you decide to go this route (rather than using the Murkworks network), let me know, we have a flashdrive you can borrow.
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[info]agrumer wrote:
Jul. 17th, 2005 07:55 pm (UTC)
Re: Transferring without being on the network
If one of them’s very old, it probably doesn’t have a USB port.

Plain old iPods can also do this, not just shuffles. And since Meem’s gonna have an iPod soon, that could work. Except the iPod will need either a USB or a Firewire port, and the old machine might not have either.
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[info]mamishka wrote:
Jul. 18th, 2005 02:20 am (UTC)
Re: Transferring without being on the network
Yeah, the PC is sufficiently old that it doesn't have USB connections, and I think it's even missing some of the normal connections that it should have. I know Dara looked at it once and was all "What the hell??" ;) But having back up info should using the network not work so well is great. Thanks!
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[info]annathepiper wrote:
Jul. 17th, 2005 07:24 pm (UTC)
The division of MurkSouth and MurkNorth means very little so far as your ability to access the network is concerned. Lodestone, newmoon, and door are still the computers in charge of helping you talk to the Internet, even though they're actually physically up here at MurkNorth. :) So in terms of moving your data off old computers and onto the one you currently want to use, the location of the computers isn't something you need to worry about.

What I would do if it were me is very likely to do exactly what you thought--using lodestone or newmoon as an intermediate copy point. Move stuff off computer A onto one of those servers, then move stuff off the server down onto computer B. This is exactly what I did when I pulled all my personal files off my previous laptop and put them onto this one.

(This is, of course, assuming that both computer A and computer B are able to talk to lodestone and newmoon.)
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[info]mamishka wrote:
Jul. 18th, 2005 02:24 am (UTC)
I just recall that at one point there was a "staging" area on Scouter that I was told to use to move stuff/backup stuff and I didn't really know how to access it and Dawn-Marie set it up for me and of course now that connection is totally gone and different. So I guess the question is, is there going to be any problems if I move stuff back and forth from my account to my computers? Will I go over our bandwith quota? Do we still have a bandwidth quota? Will I have enough space to move files over or will that be a problem? I'm also wondering about computer programs. There are some programs that I have on my computer that I "inherited" and as such I cannot reinstall because I do not own the discs. Will these be transferable in this fashion or will that not work?
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[info]annathepiper wrote:
Jul. 18th, 2005 02:35 am (UTC)
We still have a "stagingarea" share--only now it's on kimo, since scouter was retired from use. Dara says however that unlike door, newmoon, and lodestone, kimo is not accessible to you since it's not a machine that talks to the net at large. So you'll need to use newmoon or lodestone.

We have oodles of space on both newmoon and lodestone, so that won't be an issue. Neither will bandwidth.

This'll only work for documents and personal files and such--not for programs. You could copy over the actual physical files, but then you would have no guarantee that they would be configured right to run on the new computer. It'd be more trouble than it's worth.
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[info]annathepiper wrote:
Jul. 18th, 2005 02:37 am (UTC)
P.S. Disclaimer on the programs thing--if one or both of the involved computers is a Windows machine, at least, trying to transfer programs over would be more trouble than it's worth. If one or both of the involved computers is a Mac, I'm clueless in that respect since I have no Mac experience. I defer to [info]spazzkat or other folks with Mac clues in that case.
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[info]agrumer wrote:
Jul. 18th, 2005 04:04 am (UTC)
If it’s a Mac, then like 90% of the time it should be no problem.

What I did last time I needed to move to a new computer was just set up a directory on the new machine, then dragged the entire content of the disk drive over. (this took a while. I watched TV and read comics.)

Then I went into the copied files, and deleted the System and Finder out of the System Folder (this was the old MacOS 9) so the new machine wouldn’t get confused when it was booting.

If any of the programs wouldn’t run on the new machine, I hunted around in the copy of the old System Folder for likely-looking Extensions and Control Panels and stuff. Microsoft especially likes to toss all sorts of libraries into the System Folder.

Like I said, this was all under OS9. When I installed a new hard drive in my laptop last year, I was using OSX, and I just copied over my user directory, and had to reinstall all my Perl modules and stuff. Pain in the ass.
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[info]mamishka wrote:
Jul. 18th, 2005 04:32 am (UTC)
Fortunately my new Mac comes fully loaded with all the software I have now, plus some. So I only need to move files over and such on that front. Muuuuuuuch easier. :)
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[info]agrumer wrote:
Jul. 17th, 2005 07:59 pm (UTC)
Copying stuff over into your personal directory sounds like a pretty good idea. You’ll want to make a separate sub-directory for each machine you’re dragging stuff over from, just to help keep organized and prevent files with the same names on different machines from stomping on each other.

You’ll also want to check on how much space you have available before you start copying; I’m guessing that [info]solarbird or [info]annathepiper can help you there.
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[info]mamishka wrote:
Jul. 18th, 2005 02:26 am (UTC)
That certainly seems the easiest to me too, and thanks for the suggestions, having a specific directory definitely will make that a clean and safe way to move stuff around. :) Just hoping I can move some programs that was as well, as there is some stuff that I have on my computer that I don't have the discs for, so reinstalling won't be an option and I'd hate to lose those programs or have to go buy them.
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( 13 comments — Leave a comment )