How do i copy my entire computer to an external hard drive

Hi,

My computer might be on it's last leg (I don't dare turn it off or let it go into sleep mode). I've backed everything up on carbonite but don't like it.

So I bought a Seagate external drive 250 gb capacity. Is there an easy way to just transfer all on my computer to it? Does it work like a flash drive?

Thanks.

Is it USB?
Did you plug it in?
Does windows recognize it as a new drive and does it have a drive letter?
Are all the files you want to copy not hidden and not system files?

If yes to all questions, then simply copy and paste.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mistygrl092

Does it work like a flash drive?

Yep. Pretty much.

I don't get it until tomorrow (Amazon) and it does have a USB 2.0. Hopefully I'll get lucky and the device will be recognized.

I was hoping there was an easy way to just copy the entire C Drive or Desktop without having to moving each individual doc or file? That will take a long time. Still, it's better than having my stuff sit on some server over in India.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mistygrl092

I don't get it until tomorrow (Amazon) and it does have a USB 2.0. Hopefully I'll get lucky and the device will be recognized.

I was hoping there was an easy way to just copy the entire C Drive or Desktop without having to moving each individual doc or file? That will take a long time. Still, it's better than having my stuff sit on some server over in India.

Are all your files in a known set of folders, like Desktop, My Documents, Photos, Working_Files, etc? You can just copy the folders from the C drive to the external drive. You also might want to ask a friend who is a little more knowledgeable on file transfers to sit with you. It should only take a couple minutes.

Drag and drop is simple but it can stop copying if it hits a file it can't read and that can get frustrating. Most of your data is probably in your user profile folder. The following command will copy your entire user profile to another drive:

xcopy "%userprofile%\*.*" "z:\%username%\" /d /s /c /i /f /h /r /y

The part above that reads "z:\%username%\" assumes your USB drive is named Z. Your's will likely be a different letter, like E or F. Just change the Z to whatever drive letter Windows assigned your USB drive when you plugged it in.

You can run notepad, copy the above command into it, then save it as backup.bat on your desktop. Double click backup.bat and the command will run. It will copy everything in your user profiles, which includes My Documents, Pictures, Desktop, Favorites, Outlook and Outlook Express email, etc.

If instead you want to copy EVERYTHING on your hard drive just to be sure, including a bunch of stuff that won't be useful when it comes time to restore, use the following command instead:

xcopy c:\*.* z:\ /d /s /c /i /f /h /r /y

(again, change the z:\ to whatever drive letter your USB drive is)

These commands only copy new and changed files. So if you need to run it again, it won't waste time re-copying files that haven't changed.

To verify that your files have been copied, just open My Computer, go to your USB drive, and browse though the files.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

Drag and drop is simple but it can stop copying if it hits a file it can't read and that can get frustrating. Most of your data is probably in your user profile folder. The following command will copy your entire user profile to another drive:

xcopy "%userprofile%\*.*" "z:\%username%\" /d /s /c /i /f /h /r /y

The part above that reads "z:\%username%\" assumes your USB drive is named Z. Your's will likely be a different letter, like E or F. Just change the Z to whatever drive letter Windows assigned your USB drive when you plugged it in.

You can run notepad, copy the above command into it, then save it as backup.bat on your desktop. Double click backup.bat and the command will run. It will copy everything in your user profiles, which includes My Documents, Pictures, Desktop, Favorites, Outlook and Outlook Express email, etc.

If instead you want to copy EVERYTHING on your hard drive just to be sure, including a bunch of stuff that won't be useful when it comes time to restore, use the following command instead:

xcopy c:\*.* z:\ /d /s /c /i /f /h /r /y

(again, change the z:\ to whatever drive letter your USB drive is)

These commands only copy new and changed files. So if you need to run it again, it won't waste time re-copying files that haven't changed.

To verify that your files have been copied, just open My Computer, go to your USB drive, and browse though the files.

Thanks so much for all of that, but you are too high tech for me.

I don't understand a lot of what you note, although I am sure someone else could.

I guess I'll just have to wait until I get it and see if there are any instructions that come with it.

A flash drive is about as high tech as I've gotten.

You don't need to transfer everything if the computer is going to be replaced, nor do you want to, you don't want the OS as your new PC will have it's own, just copy and past the important folders, docs, photos, videos, etc.

I'm guessing you want to just copy everything to the new drive for when you get a new computer then you can either use the file and settings migration tool here's a quick write up:

Moving Files and Settings to a New PC (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/getstarted/bott_fstw.mspx - broken link)

or you can do as Escape mentioned and use a command line tool like XCOPY. It would be far easier and better than using the windows copy/paste commands. Once you have your drive plug it in and see what drive letter it is assigned.

1. Connect the drive
2. Go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, Windows Explorer
3. Drag and drop whatever folders you want to back up from your C drive to the Seagate drive (possibly E)
4. Profit