file sharing between laptop and desktop pc - how connect

[bazz]

Hi,

my HDD seems about to crash as it is clicking quite loudly. Before it does this, I want to backup about 10Gb of photographs onto my laptop.

Can anyone point me to a tutorial or even tell me, how to connect the two so that I can do the transfer.

Bazz

[brad211987]

For speed purposes, you can get a USB link cable from almost anywhere for 20-40 dollars. If you don't want to do that, I would make sure they are on the same network and just use windows shared folders. In other words, place the file with all of the pictures inside the shared folder on the desktop, navigate to it with the laptop, and copy them all down. This will take a long time, I would just let it go when I went to bed or something along those lines. You can get to the shared folders on your network by going to 'start' --> 'my network places'

Hope this helps

[bazz]

Thanks,

I have misplaced a cable I had which used the printer socket on the tower unit and connected to that same port on the laptop. I haven;t done such a connection since the win95 days so I am rusty on how to set it up. I expect that I would see how to do it once I have connected them, right?

Anyway is USB quicker than using the printer port?
When I know for sure, I'll get the appropriate cable tomorrow

bazz

[brad211987]

The cable I bought a year ago is very quick, it uses USB 2.0, and i forget the exact bandwidth that allows off the top of my head, something around 40 MB/s I think.

[westmatrix99]

Laplink through usb or parallel port, unless you have an app for the usb cable.

[JamieR]

I'd personally use a cat5e crossover cable between the two computers, rather than USB links etc. Why don't you just do this? If they don't have network cards, then the USB option is probably the best bet you have, short of taking the hard disk out, whacking it in a USB caddy etc (or plugging it into another desktop computer).

I've seen IDE to USB converters but I don't know if they work well or how reliable they are.

[bazz]

OK, I have been to the local IT shop - the smaller ones are often the best aren't they :)

They have given me a new hard drive, which I have already installed and so I can copy directly from the old HDD to the new one unless, of course, it packs up in the process.

Thanks for your tips guys. Again I have l;earned the importance of backing things up - until I forget again. :(

bazz