Solved Easy transfer from old PC drive (external drive?)

My old PC (windows 7) died but I was able to rescue the hard drive. Bought a new PC running Win 8.1. Connected the old drive to my new Win 8 PC as an external hard drive (showing up a F: and G: - F: has win 7 system files, G: has programs and data). I am trying to use Easy Transfer to move the files from my old drive but it doesn't seem to work - it wants the drive to be in a different PC and it wants me to run the Easy Transfer software on that PC. I can't do that since the drive is now connected to my new (and only) PC. Is there any way to get around this? If not what is the best way to get the files and user settings etc transferred over? Thanks.
Steve

Steve,

If your new computer will see the old drive, then you don't need to use the Easy Transfer to move the files to the new hard drive. Just copy the DATA files from your old hard drive to the new one. What I would do is, copy the user files from the f:drive to your C: (Assuming that is the new 8.1 drive). Browse to the f:\users folder, look for your old login name, double click the login name and you will see the following folder's: Desktop, Documents, Favorites, Music, Pictures, Videos. You will see other folders but the ones I listed are the main ones. Just copy the contents of these folders to your new drive c:\users\login_name in the same folder as they came from.

I would NOT try to copy a program, I would reinstall the program, and then copy any data that resides in the old program files folder based on the install of the program onto the new c:. Now, if you don't have an install for the programs in question due to you downloaded the program, you will find the downloads on your old f:\users\login_name\downloads. You can copy those as well to do any installs.

If you prefer to use software to "sync" the hard drives, I think laplink pro will do the trick, see it at this link:

Professional - Laplink® Software

Hope this helps.

You should be aware that MS Easy Transfer does NOT transfer apps or games from one PC to another. You will have to reinstall everything but the OS should you go down that route.

What DOES work (I know because I've used it) is the Macrium Reflect feature of Installing to different hardware -- that is available with their Pro version (which costs money). Using this feature, you make an image back of your existing drive, "restore" that image backup to the new drive, save the drivers needed for the new computer to disk/USB, connect the new drive to the PC, boot from the MR CD, select the option to Install to different hardware, load the CD/USB with the new drivers -- and MR does the rest. It installs all the needed drivers, replacing the old drivers, and when you reboot, you have a working PC.

Thanks guys. I knew Easy Transfer wouldn't move everything, but it does do user settings which is mainly what gets missed when you copy the files manually. Nevertheless, that is what I did (copy the files), and yes I got 90% of what I needed that way, so good enough!

Interestingly, I had 2 PCs die at the same time. Well the first one was just dying, so I could and did use Easy Transfer on it. The 2nd died (motherboard) so I pulled the disk and stuck it in an enclosure and connected it up to the new PC. Would have been nice to run Easy Transfer on it too but as I said above just getting the files was good enough.

Thanks for the help!