Find a adapter to connect my old computer hard drives to my new computers USB port and transfer them over to my new drive? I have XP on the old drive and Vista on the new putter, will that cause a problem if I don't reinstall XP? And lastly, I have just got a question that has a dialog box telling me that it's scripted. Should I open and answer it? Many thanks for helping out a fellow expert who's a complete computer dummy. Tom

A much easier way to do the file transfer is to simply purchase a USB hard
Drive enclosure, uninstall the hard drive from the old system, insert into
The enclosure, plug it into the laptop, copy the files and then return the
Drive to the old system, or use it for backup for the laptop.

USB enclosures are relatively inexpensive and can be purchased online
Without any problem.

I believe this will be the quick and easy way to accomplish what you want, there may be another way with some type of cable or firewire but I have no knowledge of it.

Or since you have vista, you can buy a usb file transfer cable for windows vista for about 30 dollars. It lets you transfer files from the zp PC to the vista one asily with the cable and software. Any computer shop even Walmart.com: Save money. Live better. has them.

Or how about a USB external hard drive rather than an enclosure.
This could then be used to back up your old machine and also to back up your new one too.

The prices of these have dropped massively in the last few months, so a 500 Gb drive is now, relatively, cheap.

Once everything has been removed from you old machine, then you can do a rebuild on it and use it as a spare ;)

As noted you can get a drive enclosure, but I agree with Ben, it would be better to get a USB external drive, connect it to the old PC, copy the files then connect to the new one and copy them to the new hard drive.

My old computer won't boot up. What now?

If you have room in your new computer's enclosure you could add the old computer's hard drive as a second "slave" drive. You may have to toggle some jumpers on the old hard drive in order to do this.
How To Install a Second Hard Drive | eHow.com

Tom -
Since your old computer won't run any more, you have to remove the drive(s) to transfer the files. One gotcha that might happen is that there are two interfaces for disk drives. The older one is EIDE and the new one is SATA. You cannot interchange these drives, and if your new computer does not have EIDE support, you cannot just plug the old drive into the new computer.

My suggestion would be to get an inexpensive USB enclosure (as previously suggested). I recently bought one for $20 with a $20 rebate from Geeks.com - Computer parts, Laptop computers, Desktop computers, Computer hardware. It wasn't fancy, but it got the job done. Just pop it in the enclosure and plug in the USB cable. Viola... access to your files!

Hope this helps,
WallyH

I want to thank you guys for the time and trouble you took to answer me. Especially Wally who went out of his way to E-Mail me. It looks like I'll be able to save my files after all. Thanks again! Tom aka "The Speedster"

I was able to save my folders and files thanks to the expertise of the experts on this page and a special thanks to WallyHelps for hanging in there with a computer dummy. I ordered a USB Enclosure from Geeks and was able to access all my stuff off my old computers hard drive. Many thanks and much appreciation, Tom