I got a new computer! Now I have questions...

[deevergote]

You guys always steer me true, so I'm coming here before I ask anywhere else!

Last night, I blew up my computer playing Diablo 3. My video card needed a 350w power supply minimum, and I had a 300w. It was fine for well over a year, but I never played a heavy game like that. Oops! I was due for an upgrade anyway.

I just picked up a brand new computer. The first time EVER buying a complete machine, as I've always built them myself. I just got tired of the hassle, and this thing was twice the machine my old one was (even after last year's upgrades) for under $500. It's a Lenovo 77472MU from Best Buy (specs are on there.) 500gig hard drive, 8 gigs of ram, Windows 7 Home Premium... it's pretty nice.
As soon as I got it, I ripped it apart and replaced the 250w turd of a power supply with a cheapie 520w unit, then I dropped in an EVGA GT520 dual monitor video card. So far, so good. Haven't fired up Diablo again yet.

ANYWAY... on to the questions:
I have my old hard drive running perfectly as a slave. I have access to all my old files. The old machine was running XP Pro.
However, I want to import my Firefox and Thunderbird (email client) data. Stored passwords, all my sent/received email, etc...

Does anyone know how I can do that? I assume it's not very difficult.



Also, can I boot from the other hard drive. Would that be doable? I haven't messed with the boot menu, but I assume it'd be doable. It's only a 32bit OS on that drive, though... so would it work with the current hardware, but only use 4gb of the ram I have?
I'm nervous about losing my ability to do my work, because the stuff that I use tends to be rather picky... it won't load properly on certain computers (it's a custom Access database, something made by some 3rd party that my boss no longer communicates with.)

[dysfunk]

You'll have to change the physical jumper on the secondary harddrive to act as a slave... from there.. i can't really recall.. it's been a long time since i've done a dual boot with multiple harddrives....

[deevergote]

They're SATA2 drives, no jumper nonsense required (thankfully, because I never managed to successfully make a slave drive with the jumpers!)

[Ander]

You can try and boot from the slave HDD and hope it works. Generally when you change almost all the hardware it just gives your a BSOD, but it does work occasionally. You wont lose anything if it does BSOD so give it a go. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

Booting onto that slave and exporting your data to your main HDD would be the best bet. Definitely easier than going into the directories on your slave drive and trying to retrieve it (if you even can, not sure it saves that stuff in a format you can just drag and drop)

[Nurega]

Mike, I think these links should help you. You'll have to find a way to back up your old browser information, then copy it over. Try booting from the old HDD, opening Firefox, and following the procedure in these links:

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/...urrent-profile

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/...%20information

I've long since switched to Google Chrome for this reason; any computer I go to, I can simply open Chrome and actually "sign in" to the browser, thus enabling me all my bookmarks, contacts, history, saved form information, etc, instantaneously. Good luck!

[deevergote]

Mike, I think these links should help you.

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/...urrent-profile

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/...%20information

I've long since switched to Google Chrome for this reason; any computer I go to, I can simply open Chrome and actually "sign in" to the browser, thus enabling me all my bookmarks, saved form information, etc, instantaneously. Good luck!

Thanks!

That might finally be a reason for me to permanently switch to Chrome...

[Ander]

There you go. If you can't boot into it, you will be able to drag and drop those files they list into your new directory on the main HDD.

Learn something new every day, lol.

[Nurega]

Thanks!

That might finally be a reason for me to permanently switch to Chrome...

To be honest, I LOVED Firefox for it's functionality and features, but all that clutter made the browser fairly lethargic over time. With Chrome, you can customize it by adding in only the specific extensions that you need; you'll find that you can browse much more quickly.

[cloudasc]

There's no point in booting the old drive on the new hardware, as every single old driver would be useless, and you would end up with a computer needing all the correct drivers for your new hardware and even if you do succeed it will never be truly as stable as a clean install. You should be able to pull all your old bookmarks, passwords might be more difficult, out from the documents and settings folders, you may just have to turn on show hidden files and system files to dig into the application data folders to find what your looking for. Otherwise obviously check in the programs folder too.

[deevergote]

Firefox stuff has successfully been transferred Now I have to figure out how to do it for Thunderbird... that's the more important one!

[deevergote]

...and done. i just copied everything from the old folder to the new... it worked.

[Ralphie]

Glad to hear it worked out for you!

Seriously, when you have a day with free time, hit me up!

Im unemployed now so im home during the day.

Jenna works a few days a week, so you can come by and have a beer and check out the new place!

How come you use thunderbird?

I know it comes with Ubuntu lol....but on windows?

And Chrome is the way to go.

I can't name one thing that Google makes that isn't the shit.

I love the functionality of Chrome.

Sign in anywhere in the world and I have everything.

Same goes for Android phones....sign in and contacts/emails are sycned....no more hassling to bring them over or use a program to sync them.

[deevergote]

Yeah, I'll have to come up. You're really not that far from me. A little over an hour, tops.

I started using Thunderbird when Outlook Express decided to stop actually sending the mail that I sent for no reason whatsoever. I decided it was time to switch clients, and since Mozilla does right by me with Firefox, I figured I'd go to them for email as well!
I do use GMail for sending work files, though. I refuse to integrate my main email with a gmail account, though.

[Ralphie]

Yeah, I'll have to come up. You're really not that far from me. A little over an hour, tops.

I started using Thunderbird when Outlook Express decided to stop actually sending the mail that I sent for no reason whatsoever. I decided it was time to switch clients, and since Mozilla does right by me with Firefox, I figured I'd go to them for email as well!
I do use GMail for sending work files, though. I refuse to integrate my main email with a gmail account, though.

Ya It took me like an hour and a half from Brooklyn so your cutting out at least a half hour(which is what it takes from Brooklyn to my house).

Last time I came down to you, I took the turkpike.

Next time I want to try some backroads lol.

The throuroughfares like 18, 33 etc

fly....never really traffic and speed limit is 65.


Damn 2 hours lol!

Using 527 and some other shieet.

[deevergote]

Most of the trip would be 295 and 195. The back roads to figure out are the ones between you and 195. 33 and 130 would be one way, 527 and 537 another. About an hour and a half with back roads, an hour on the toll road.