Hi Sharon, First - I have found the information you have shared invaluable and generous beyond words. I have tried to offer assistance 'stateside' as much as time allowed as I learned genealogy over the past 8 or 9 years. I've only just started to learn more about my families in Ireland, Scotland and England in the past 18 months and find so many people so helpful. When I purchased a used hard drive two years ago, I decided to move all of my family tree and tons of other files over to the 'new' one computer. They were on a laptop that was getting a bit bogged down. I purchased a file sharing cable at a local office supply store for about $20. It is actually called a "Data Link Cable" It was easy as pie to use. It came with it's own CD (micro size but fits in same drive) that walked me through the process. There's a USB port on each end of a cable and a small 'router' type box in the center. Once each end was hooked up I 'moved' the files over from the laptop to the PC without any problem. That included hundreds of jpeg photo files, music files, My Documents contents and dozens of Word docs associated with my genealogy research. The process actually makes copies of the files you are moving. You could also use a flash drive but this cable predated my having one of those. I'm sorry I don't know if it would work for emails. I use Outlook Express and for the past few weeks have been getting a popup box offering to 'compact' the messages but it scares the daylights out of me that I'll lose hundreds of messages. I just need to take time to figure out how to do that or use another option but with working two jobs it's hard to commit the time necessary. Good luck with your 'wish list'. There is a computer listserv for gen-newbie's that I am on....if someone here isn't able to assist I could post it there (unless you're already aware of that or are a member). It's a beautiful Spring day here and I'm going out to pull weeds before I have a field of dandelions bloom. Jayne Madison, Wisconsin ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sharon Carberry" Re: postings ? New question "laptop is due to arrive..snip.... I have to transfer my current computer files to the new one. "