If it were me, and the original PC is balking so much that I was getting a new one, I would remove the hard drive from the original PC and install it as a slave to the new one and copy any thing I wanted to the new, probably much larger, hard drive. Most new computers will recognize the added hard drive with no problem and it would be much faster than copying or cabling. Then after you clean up the old hard drive, you could re-format it and have that added storage. Adding a hard drive isn't a big job, if you don't want to do it, ask some computer repair place what they would charge to do it. Alfred http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~adelr/ ==== ==== =========== ========== ========== ----- Original Message ----- From: <jmarkert@charter.net> To: <GEN-COMP-TIPS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 7:19 AM Subject: [Gen-Comp-Tips] transferring data > Good Morning, > > My question is about how to transfer data from one PC to another. My computer is in sad shape, can only boot up in Safe Mode. It has windows 98. I've heard that you can get a cable which will allow transfer of data from one to another. I will need to buy a new computer in the next couple of days, more than likely it will have Windows XP. > > How does this data transfer work? I'd really like to be able to transfer all my Genealogy data as well as scanned photos and my e-mails. If something needs to be installed on the "old" pc to enable this I'm probably in trouble. It is not recognizing either of the CD drives. > > Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank goodness for being able to check my home e-mail from work. > > Joan M. >