Solved copy files from WinXP to Win8 PC's

I am a new member here. I looked to find, but was not successful, a more closely related thread.

I just purchased a Win 8 PC (gateway) to replace a Win XP PC (Compaq); both are desktops. The OS (XP) crashed weeks ago; although it was re-installed and seem to work, it was just too much work to bring it up to date. Therefore the new Win 8.

I have a large collection of files on the XP that I would like to bring over to Win 8. The XP cannot yet be connected to the Internet; but its USB ports works fine.

Any way I can connect the two through USB to copy files from the XP to the Win 8? Any other ways? If you have a suggestion, please give me as detail as possible step-by-step instructions.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Why not get a 16 or 32 GB usb drive & copy the files to the usb drive & then put the usb in the new computer & copy them to the new computer. ???

Might be easier to install the Lan driver for XP so you can access the network then transfer data that way.

copy files

Thanks for both suggestions! Unless there is another, I will follow either of the two above.

I had a similar problem my 11 year old xp desktop computer's motherboard gave up the ghost, so I had to buy a new windows 8 computer. I needed all that data off the old drive so I purchased a hard drive enclosure, now I have access to all my old data.

Thanks. This sounds simple enough.

Consequently you can use Hiren's boot CD on the crashed XP... And then you can just connect any USB drive or maybe even just connect another hard drive to the system and then you can move all of your files over without having to reinstall any operating system that way you won't have to take the hard drive out of the XP box

Thanks for the suggestion! I have a "big" HD that used to connect to the XP's USB for back-up purposes. I probably can connect them together again now and do a quick copy.

After the crash, I "recover" the OS. So it is running okay by itself. It is just too much work to find all the driver to make networking work, as well as re-installing all the applications software. I always feel the word "recover" is a mis-use of the word in the case of this XP computer!

If it is a Dell or other brand name they keep huge archives of drivers, you can always download all of them, copy them to a disk, and install them. But I suggested using Mini XP because it uses Teracopy to move files, which is 20 times faster than using Windows to copy them

It is a Compaq. It (I can only say about this particular computer) had a history of crashes and failure with CD and HD drives; and crashes of XP, even though the XP had a reputation of being quite stable. That is why I am not particularly wanting to bring it back to full health; I decided to replace it.

I have not heard of Mini XP; if you do not mind, could you tell me what it is?

Hi there
IMO the EASIEST way is if the computers are on the SAME LAN (say at home) why not just SHARE the drives and copy files from the OLD to NEW one before finally getting rid of the XP machine.

BTW I'd KEEP your old drives -- you can get say an IDE==>USB adapter so why not use the OLD drives from the computer for storing Backup images, some music files etc. For Backups these disks don't need to be FAST and if they are reasonable why throw them away.

Incidentally you could probably install W8 on the old machine quite successfully too if you wanted -- have a spare machine. !!

Cheers
jimbo

Can't you use the 'Windows Easy Transfer' app combined with a flash drive. That's what I did to transfer from XP to new Win8 laptop.

It's a stripped down version of XP on Hiren's Boot CD. You can download it from the link below my Sig Pic. It's got a lot of the Hiren's Utilities at hand, for instance, you can import the registry from your system and check for problems. But Teracopy is builkt in and is the default way to copy or move files, is uses upper memory to do it, or, different memory than regular copy processes use, so it is much faster.

Thanks to XweAponX for the information on Mini XP!

Thanks to all who had responded. I have received many great ways to solve my original problem. I will try one or two; I am quite sure they will work. I have therefore marked the problem solved.

Thanks again to all for your kind helps!

Great! I just gave ya a rep point to get you started here.

Thanks for the "rep point!" I am still too green here to know what it is for; but I know it is a good thing to have. I thought at one time I had 2 of those, but now I do not see them. Hope to find them again sometime.