Skip to main content

What is the best way to transfer data to a new laptop?

Thread needs solution

I have a laptop running Windows 8.1 (fully backed up) and I want to transfer the contents to a new laptop pre-loaded with Windows 10. I have 6 external hard drives so space is not a problem. What is the best way to proceed?

0 Users found this helpful

Cheryl, if you only want to transfer user data from your old laptop to the new one, then you can use a variety of approaches.

You can do a Files & Folders backup just of your user data such as Documents, Pictures, Music etc, then recover this to a drive on the new laptop.

You could simply Copy the same data to an external drive and then copy it from there to the new laptop without using ATI at all.

You could use a synchronisation tool to copy the data directly from the old laptop to the new one provided you can connect both laptops to your local network and share the necessary folders to allow this.

Please note that you cannot transfer installed programs or applications using ATI and copying such program folders will not work unless you have very simple programs with no integration with the Windows Registry.

To continue using your programs on your new computer you may need to first uninstall them from the old computer. There may be some programs where the licence cannot be transferred. It is also possible that you may have difficulty installing and running older programs on Windows 10 system.

Ian

If you have a large volume of data (either lots of files or large file sizes) to transfer, I'd recommend not using the standard Windows Explorer copy. Use something more robust with logging, so you'll have verification that everything you set to copy to the new drive matches the old.

Personally, I like Robocopy, which is free with every version of Windows. You write a simple command line detailing what you want copies, what options and parameters, etc. There is also a free GUI interface available from Microsoft if you prefer that.

If you don't like Robocopy, there are many other such tools. The point is to use something better than the standard Windows Copy command, so you'll have a proper sync, which can be repeated, and for which you'll have log verification of what was done and if any errors occurred.