move files to new hard drive

[Wish I was diving]

It seems that my current HD is about to retire. Before I completely loose
access to all data on it I want to get me a new drive. Is there a way I can
later transfer my downloaded Windows updates, IE 7 etc. to this new drive? It
would be terrible should I have to download those files all over again since
Internet Connection blows where I live.

 

[Jim]

It seems that my current HD is about to retire. Before I completely loose
access to all data on it I want to get me a new drive. Is there a way I
can
later transfer my downloaded Windows updates, IE 7 etc. to this new drive?
It
would be terrible should I have to download those files all over again
since
Internet Connection blows where I live.

Yes there is a way to do this. There are several in fact.
The new drive may arrive with a CD that contains a utility for doing this.
That is one way.
If your drive is not the system disk, then you can copy the data files from
the old disk to the other with Windows Explorer. That is another way.
You can make a backup of the old disk with Acronis True Image which contains
all partitions. Then, when the new disk arrives, you restore the backup
file to the new disk. That is another way.
There may be other ways, but three examples ought to be enough for now.

If you are not making routine backups of your disk, you are asking for
serious difficulties.

Jim

 

[DL]

Either attach your new drive to the PC and copy files via explorer, or use a
third party Imaging/Clone tool to copy everything to the new drive. Acronis
TI is often reccommended.
Attach your new disk, run Acronis to clone old to new, immediately shutdown
on completion.
Remove old disk, at least its cable connections, replace with new, boot your
PC.
Or detach old disk, replace with new, install win and other software/drivers
from your cd's
Attach old disk as slave, copy data/downloads