How to Transfer Data From One Drive to Another

Years ago, transferring information from one hard drive to another was very complex, but today technology has made it a relatively simple procedure. If you have a new computer and you want the data from the old computer put on to the new one, here are some suggestions on how to successfully transfer that data.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• USB Portable Hard drive
• CDs
• DVDs

How to transfer data from one drive to another

1. You can permanently transfer all the data from your PC hard drive by downloading the data onto a portable hard drive known as a USB drive. These hard drives are full capacity and are bigger than many PC drives. So, there is no problem with a shortage of space to hold your data.

2. You can temporarily download all your information onto the USB drive and use it as a temporary transfer. You can then take that USB drive and upload all the data onto your new PC hard drive.

3. You can download all your data onto CD’s and transfer that data back on to the new hard drive. You may require several discs to hold all your info and this procedure takes a bit longer because CD's have only a limited amount of space.

4. You can download all your data onto a DVD and then transfer it all back on to the new hard drive. The advantage of a DVD over a CD is that it will hold more data so you’ll need less of them, depending on what kind of files your are transferring.

Tips & Warnings

• As a safety precaution, you should always create backup files for all your computer data including programs and files, and a good way to do that is to have your programs copied to a USB drive as you get them. That way, once you have uploaded the back up file to the new computer, you can simply copy your files onto a drive or discs and upload them onto the new computer which will now have the program and will accept the files.
• Do not erase any data off of your old hard drive until you have confirmed that everything transferred properly to your new one.
• You may even want to keep the drive or discs that you used to transfer the data as a back up for your new computer.