On Wed, 16 Apr 2014 11:42:15 -0400, "Not@home" wrote:

Jerry wrote:
My machine is old, 12 yrs to be exact. I do believe my hard drive is
dying. Wouldn't mind keeping my monitor, but would like to increase memory,
speed, etc. And, specifically would like all my information put on the new
system. I really like Outlook Express, but have heard it is not available
anymore.

In other words, I need some words of wisdom regarding what information I
should be looking for. And what should I steer clear of?

As you can tell I really lack computer knowledge.

thanks


I've read all these postings; quite a chore. But I want to set out what
I think I have learned. For my laptops, I have external hard drives
that I use for, among other things, backups. On this particular Dell, I
have a Western Digital hard drive, and have their software set to back
up everything weekly. Alas, I think all they do is back up the data,
and because I use uncommon software (Wordperfect, Seamonkey [son of
Netscape], F-secure AV, etc.) they don't seem to know where to put the
data when I ask for a restoration. So this charming Dell, which I
actually like, with Vista, has eaten two hard drives, and when I send it
for repair, they put in a new hard drive, and reinstall Vista, and that
is it. I am supposed to reinstall my programs and data, which is a
hassle, since I don't remember all my programs, and the restoration
service doesn't seem to work well. In anticipation that my current hard
drive will die before I do, I want a way to put my current setup on a
new hard drive.

It seems to me that making a disk image (which disks, C only, or C and
D?) with disk wizard, would be a good solution. I haven't looked for
disk wizard yet, it might even be somewhere on my machine. So my
question is, is this a good solution, and if so what is the best cloning
program for the unsophisticated, and where can I get it.
At the risk of being told I'm stupid again, I would recommend the
program I use for imaging and cloning hard drives. It is a program
called Easeus todo backup. It works better than HDClone, which works
better than Norton Ghost.
Their Partition Master is also an excellent product.