Transferring Files from Win 95 to Win XP

Hello there, I am trying to transfer files from my old Windows 95 computer to my brand new Windows XP computer. Windows 95 doesn't have USB or networking so I can't just conect them and go. I believe that the hard drive size on the old computer is quite small only about 1.96gb. I have used 1.83gb of it. Well that is what it tells me when I click on it anyway, although I thought it would be larger. Today we bought a new COM (serial) cable 9-pin female to female, to connect them together. It doesn't work it just stays on the screen "Connecting to the other computer" for half an hour to a whole hour. Then I finally gave up on it. It is really annoying me now. I rang up a few computer help places and they said that a COM cable is a really bad idea, but I think its a good one considering that the computer doesn't have anything else in it. There are five other options that I think I can do: Option 1. (Don't think it will work very well) Connect the old computer to dial-up and put the things on the internet and then get them off the internet from my new one. I tried some of this option today but, although I have been on the internet from my old computer before the plug will now not fit in the internet socket on the back of it so I can't connect at the moment. Option 2. (Don't think it will work very well) The old computer only has a floppy drive so I could put some things onto a floppy and then onto the new computer one by one, would take ages as there is quite a few image files. Option 3. Take the old hard drive out and then put it in the new computer and use it as a slave drive and then copy everything onto it and then put it back into the old computer. The only downside to this is that the new computer has a seal on the back and if you open the cover it breaks the seal and I think that will void the warrenty. Option 4. Take it into a computer shop and they can put the hard drive from the old computer and put it into one of their computers (so it doesn't void my warrenty) and then put all the data over a network onto my new computer. Or finally Option 5 which I quite like if it is possible. Get the old hard drive out and then buy a adaptor to go into a USB port in the new computer then put the hard drive in and then put the stuff onto the computer. Any ideas???? P.S. Does anyone know why someone wouldn't reccomend a COM cable data transfer??? ~Matt. :-)

You might have the wrong cable. It sounds as if you might have a "straight through" cable. You'll need one that has the transmit/receive pins crossed (xmit on one end connected to recv on the other and vice-versa). And you might not be able to go any faster than 9600 baud rate when sending/receiving files (depending on cable length, local EM interference, and other things….). These cables can be purchased with the xmit/recv switched. I have one I bought to send files to/from my TI calculator to my XP machine, and it was "off the shelf". If the cable is the correct one, you'll need to be sure the communications parameters are set the same on both machines (baud rate, stop bits, and parity) to get a succesful transfer. And some machines have more that one communications port (COM1, COM2, COM3, etc.), so you'll need to be sure you have the software "looking" at the right COM port. I think if you go the "cable route", it still might take a while….. I hope this helps. M68

I do have a straight through cable, not a null modem or laplink cable. I realised later on but the guy from the shop DSE, actually thought the straight through cable would work, which it wouldn't.

Speed isn't the number one concern to me as I just want to get the files off the old computer, onto the new one.

I am just using Windows Settings and Data Transfer Wizard.

I just got back from the shops and we bought a Null Modem cable from Jay CarJaycar and returned the other one back to DSE.

So it should be all sorted, all I need to do now is test it!

~Matt :-)

Hello everybody, Its me back again about the serial cable. This time we have purchased the right null modem serial port cable and connected it and then the two computers find each other and then when the Windows 95 computer is collecting all the data to send to the newer computer a message comes up about it having run out of room for all the files????? Then when I just try to connect them normally (not using Files and Settings Transfer) it cant connect and neither the other way around having Windows XP as the host computer. The guys in the shops have said that it is quite tricky but has any one else ever done a serial cable transfer before because I need advice. Does anyone know of any good websites to help me? Should I revert to another option? Another option that I thought about is networking them together and I have done another post about this asking weither anyone has ever done this before and weither they can help me. (Note. That one of the computers is running Windows 95, but once upon a time at my school we did have a network of Windows 95 computers.) ~Matt :-) P.S. If I did a network I would actually use it again.

when the Windows 95 computer is collecting all the data to send to the newer computer a message comes up about it having run out of room for all the files?????

Windows is probably trying to move all the files into a "temp" location before the transfer begins.

Judging "free space" by what you said in your first post, you may be only able to transfer about 1/2 gig (500 mb) of data at a time.

Try sending the files in "smaller chunks" to see if this will work at all.

After a successful transfer, you might consider removing the successfully transferred files from the "old" PC to enable a larger transfer "chunk" the next time (i.e. freeing up more disk space).

I would of tried that but theres no options in DCC to enable me to do that. ~Matt :-)