FW: [at-l] Cost Comparison - Digital VS Slides

[bullard@northnet.org (Jim Bullard)]

At 08:52 PM 11/13/2002 -0500, J Bryan Kramer wrote:
> > Assuming both have IDE drives and you are fairly computer handy
> > the best way is to temporary pull the old HDD from machine A and
> > plug it into machine B, you have to set the jumpers to 'slave'
> > drive and then just move the files from one drive to the other.

Best read the instructions that come with your new computer.  Many new ones
come set up for 'cable select' not 'master' and 'slave' drive jumper
settings.  The primary and secondary drives are determined by which plug
from the ribbon cable is used to connect them.  Both drives must use the
'cable select' jumper position for it to work properly (spoken by someone
who just recovered his files from an old PC last Sunday).

If your concern is loss of files I highly recommend backups.  Hard drives
do die with little or no warning and contents cannot always be
recovered.  Files are getting too large for floppies (unless you don't mind
mountains of them cluttering up your computer area) so zip disks or CDs are
you best bet at the present.  DVD writers will come but they are still too
expensive for the average user.  If you have an older machine get an
external Zip drive (Ebay?).  They are easy to connect and while you may
have move the files to yet newer media in another 4-5 years, at least you
will still have them.

sAunTerer