How to Transfer Files

Transcription

1 This tutorial will illustrate the steps involved in transferring files from your old computer to your new computer. You must save any files you want to keep from your old computer before your refresh appointment. Once you return your old computer, you will no longer have access to any of the files on that machine. You will be responsible for backing up all of the files from your old computer and transferring them to your new computer once you receive it. **Please note: Due to time constraints, the technician will not be able to transfer files from your old computer to your new computer during the refresh session. If you would like to attend classroom instruction on the use of external hard drives for transferring files, classes will be available at the TLTC prior to your refresh appointment. To register, go to 1

2 Connect Your External Storage Device to Your Old Computer 1. First you need to connect an external storage device (such as an external hard drive, CD/DVD, or thumb/flash drive) to your computer. It is recommended that you use an external hard drive to store/transfer your files because it has a higher file storage capacity than a CD or thumb/flash drive. External hard drives are connected via a USB cable and may also require a power supply that will need to be connected to an outlet. Once you connect the device to your old computer, a popup window should appear that might be labeled My Passport (F:) or Maxtor (E:) depending on the particular brand of external hard drive that you have. For now, you can click Cancel. We will be locating this device again once we have copied files. Locate Files to Copy 2. The next step is to begin copying files to the device. To do so, navigate to your personal folder on your old computer by going to Start > My Computer. 2

3 3. Once you are in My Computer, double click on Local Disk (C:). 4. In Local Disk (C:), double click on the Users folder. 5. In the Users folder, locate the folder with your shortname (i.e., petruzch ). Double click on this folder. Many of your documents are stored in this folder. 3

4 Copy Files to the External Storage Device 6. To copy the folders, highlight (select) all of the folders by holding down the CTRL key and then clicking each folder, or by dragging your mouse over all folders until they are highlighted. Next, right click on one of the selected folders and choose Copy. Once you have copied these folders, you will be able to paste them onto your external storage device drive. 4

5 7. To locate the external storage device that we connected in the beginning of this tutorial, go to the Start menu, and select My Computer. Under the Hard Disk Drives section, you should see your external device listed as a drive letter (typically E: or F:). To access the external device, double click on the name, as outlined below in red. 8. Once in your external device, right click and choose Paste. This will copy all of your files onto the external device. 9. Instead of copying and pasting, you can also drag and drop your files if you wish. To do so, go back to Step 2 (navigate to your personal folder). Resize the window so that you can also see the external device folder on your screen, as illustrated below. 5

6 10. Once you have opened both windows, you can highlight the folders you want to move (see Step 6) and drag/drop them to your external drive. 11. There will be some files that are not stored in these locations. They can be located in other places, which will be discussed below. 6

7 Locating Other Files to Copy 12. If you use Maple X, you will need to locate those files in order to transfer them to the new computer. To locate them, go to My Computer. Next, open the Local Disk (C:) folder. On the top right corner, you will notice a Search feature. Type.mws in the Search field. All of your Maple X files will appear. You can then highlight the files and copy and paste or drag and drop them, as described above. 13. If you use Microsoft Outlook and have created archives of any s on your machine, you will want to transfer those to your new computer. To locate them, go to My Computer. Next, click Local Disk (C:). Next, open the Documents and Settings folder. Open the folder labeled with your shortname. Within that folder, click the AppData folder. Then, click Microsoft, then Outlook. Within the Outlook folder, you will find a document labeled archive.pst. You can then copy and paste this document to your external storage device. 7

8 14. Once you have copied all of your files onto your external storage device, you will want to transfer them to your new computer after your refresh appointment. The steps below explain how to do this. 15. Just as you had to connect your backup device to your computer to save your files, you must connect it to your new computer to put the files onto that computer. Connect Your External Device to Your New Computer 16. Once you have connected your external storage device to your new computer, a popup window should appear asking what you want to do with it. You can choose Open folder to view files. 17. If, for some reason, the window does not appear, you can access files stored on that device by going to Start (round windows logo on the bottom left corner of your screen) and then clicking Computer. Under the Devices with Removable Storage area. double-click on the drive representing your device (typically labeled Maxtor or My Passport and assigned with the letter E, F, or even G). You will be able to see all of the files you copied from your old computer. 8

9 Copy Files to Your New Computer 18. To transfer the files from the external device to your new computer, you will need to open each directory individually. You can then drag the files from the external device and drop them into the appropriate folders. Be sure to place the files in the folder where you would like them to be stored. 19. You can use the explorer pane on the left hand side of the screen to locate common folders (such as Documents and Pictures). 20. For example, if you want to transfer all of the files you had backed up from your My Documents folder on your old computer, you would select all the files from My Documents on your backup device. Then, on your new computer, click Start > Documents. In the left-side explorer pane, you will see a Libraries area. Click on Documents and then select My Documents. You can then drag and drop (or copy and paste) the files into this directory. 9

10 21. Another way to copy files into these directories is to locate them on the Start menu. Within the start menu, you will see these same shortcuts. You can open one of these shortcuts by clicking on the name of it. 23. Once you have opened the folder where you want to place the files, resize the windows so you can see your backup device and the folder at the same time. You can then highlight your files from the external backup drive, and drag them to the window for the directory. This will successfully copy these files onto your new computer. 10

11 24. You can repeat this process for any files from your external storage device that you would like to add to your new computer. It is a good idea to keep these files on your external storage device after copying them to your new computer so that you have a backup. 11