On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:33:41 -0400, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

A fellow I know, but never met. He's got two computers.
Desktop running XP, and laptop running Vista. He wants to
copy a couple gb of files, from one to the other.

So far, he's been copying some with a flash drive, and dump
them onto the other computer. It's taking a long time.

Can't he do other things while it's happening? Like read
alt.home.repair?

Suppose he takes a USB cable, from one computer to the
other. Would each computer show up as another drive, to the
other? Use windows explorer to click and drag and drop? Send
the data through the USB cable.

YOu can't do it that simply. At best-buy, staples or office-depot,
probalby best buy, maybe all 3, they had a device that is designed for
this. It was only about 20 dollars iirc, maybe 24. It might have had
teh orange geek guy on the label, but maybe not. If you look in the
USB cable area, I think that's where it is. It might have had some
little box in the middle.

When things like this were done with serial cables from one serial
port to the other (very slow, slower than printer ports) a regular
serial cable wouldn't work. A null modem was needed, one in which two
of the wires reversed on their way from one end to the other. (They
cost no more to make than a regular serial cable, but might have been
a little more expensive because there were 100 times as many of the
other ones made. This may not be the same issue USB cables face -- I
don't know -- but at least we hanven't gone backwards.

And what if one of the computers was turned off? Would the
USB cable provide enough power to spin the other drive, and
allow the data transfer?

No, not nearly, and in addition, there is no way it would get from the
USB port back to the power supply and from there to the harddrive to
power the harddrive. Even an exteranl harddrive, or a harddrive case
(used to turn a plain old harddrive into an external harddrive. Under
10 dollars) for which they would love to be able to use it like you
want, requires a wallwart to power it.