I think copy and paste will take forever, is there any quicker way to transfer the files?

12/1/2009 2:39:02 PM

i heard that there is some type of program that does it through MS-DOS and takes no time. Not sure of the details though

12/1/2009 2:41:00 PM

When I want to move a user's directory to a new PC --

xcopy c:\CoolUser_backup\*.* "c:\documents and settings\CoolUser" /s /h /r /c

so if D was your source and X was your external destination then this would probably work but still take forever.

xcopy D:\*.* X:\ /s /h /r /c

--
Ghosting/Cloning would be the fastest way using Acronis or Symantec Ghost if you can find either. I thought lifehacker or ghacks had a writeup of free tools at one point but I don't have the link handy.

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 2:47 PM. Reason : .]

12/1/2009 2:45:05 PM

Quote :

"Ghosting/Cloning would be the fastest way using Acronis or Symantec Ghost if you can find either"

12/1/2009 2:53:17 PM

Ghosting for sure.

Windows key + R
cmd
Xcopy c:\old_files\* e:\new_file_location\* /e /y /z /h

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 3:45 PM. Reason : /h]

12/1/2009 3:44:47 PM

Robocopy is also a good one. I haven't used xcopy as much but I imagine it does about the same.

12/1/2009 3:53:14 PM

i've always used copy/paste to move data from one drive to another...acronis/ghost never seemed any faster UNLESS the stuff to be moved consisted of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of small files (like programs or an OS partition)...and if it's an OS partition, you can't just copy and paste and expect it to work flawlessly afterward

*shrug*

12/1/2009 6:11:34 PM

If you have the space on the primary drive, zip up all of the files into a single zip file, move zip file to external drive, unzip. Adds two extra steps, but I've found this to be easier than moving 10k+ small files over SFTP (not quite an external drive, but same idea in principal).

12/2/2009 7:00:49 AM