Is there a super fast way of transferring a large ammount of files and folders to another computer?

Question

Somebody knocked my HP Pavillion laptop off my desk and busted the place where the powercord plugs into the computer. I shut down the computer and have about 1 hour of battery remaining. Instead of paying the $300 to have it fixed we bought a new laptop for $300. Now I need to basically transfer my entire hard drive from my old laptop to my new one, in one hour or less. Is there a way to do this? I know I can use an external hard drive if I can find somebody who has one but the last time I did that it still took hours to transfer all my pictures, music, etc onto the external hard drive. Does anybody have any suggestions?

If an external hard drive doesn't work out for me because of time contraints, does anybody know if it's possible to remove the hard drive from the old laptop and somehow hook it up to the new laptop or to another computer so that I can have more time to transfer the files? I know how to do this with a regular computer but I've never even seen the inside of a laptop so I wasn't sure if that was possible or not.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The fastest way I can think of would be to make a mini-network with the 2 computers but setting this up would use at least 10 minutes of your valuable hour. I would recommend getting an external hard drive even if it doesn't help you out in this instance, that way you can save all your stuff to it in the first instance, that way you don't have to worry about this situation happening again.

Answer 2

Your own choice is your best answer...copy the data by removing the hard drive.

All laptops have the hard drive in an accessible spot, and this is usually held in place by one or two screws. It only takes doing it once.

The problem you have after, is finding a suitable part to connect up the old hard drive. Your best bet for that is a computer fair where you can get slave components for dirt cheap usually. Make sure of the connection type on the hard drive (IDE or SATA) so you are sure to get the right device. (IDE has "pin connections" where SATA has a connection that looks almost like USB) I've put a link to the sort of thing you need to get, but keep in mind, computer fairs usually cheaper.

Good luck.

Answer 3

It is possible to do what you need to do. It may not be possible to get all the information off in an hour but it is definitely possible to remove the hard drive and assuming it has not been damaged in the fall, to copy the information from the hard drive. I don't have have an HP Pavillion and have never used one. The only problem would be if the controller us using encryption when saving the information to the hard drive. Otherwise, I have seen someone do this with a desktop by plugging a the laptop hard drive into a controller card connected to a desktop and then copying the entire hard drive. The easiest way to do this would be to use a service like circuit city or best buy and ask them to do it for you.