Is It Worth $130 to have everything moved to my new PC?

[gdr_11]

I am 75 and no longer tech savvy. I have an old computer with about 125 GB of files and programs that I neec to move to a new PC. I amconcerned about losing login and password data. Local shop wants $130; is it worth it?

[Kyle1886]

I'm pretty much in the same boat, although I'm trying to go from a Win 7 PC that was put in service in 2011 and move everything to a new Apple PC that our son "gave" me from his business. It's no going well at all. I only know of one local computer place and they wanted way more than 130.00 to transfer stuff. Basically told me to find an individual as they primarily build custom units. If you have the funds and not want to shoot either PC, let them do it.

Good luck.

Kyle

ETA: I had a mobile tech guy that did repairs / etc. a while back but the rascal vanished during the covid fiasco. I'm thinking maybe I'd better off and try to find a mobile tech versus continuing to being stubborn and getting frustrated...besides breaking all this stuff down/hauling is a bear.😁

[ibanezfoo]

It is easy to do yourself but I get it if you don't want to spend the time. Depending on how much data you have it could take 30 minutes it could take 2 hours. A flat fee of $130 I think is reasonable. If I ever help people with computer stuff (which is VERY rare) its $100 / hr.

[Preston-CLB]

First: Do not 'move' files to the new PC...Copy them. Retain the old drive.

Second: Copying things like documents, pictures, PDF is easy,

Third; Copying programs, i.e. executable files may not work (see caveat below). It would be best to make a list of the programs you want and then download install them afresh onto the new PC. If you have legacy programs, you'll need to know if they are compatible with the new OS. If they are, you can reinstall from the install disks you already have, or download new copies, assuming they are still available.

caveat: You could clone your old C:/ drive to the new machine, but you would lose any factory installed programs, including the OS.

caveat 2: Install a secondary drive into the new PC and then clone the original drive that has the files and programs. You would then have to point to those items from the new PC's OS.

Depending upon how comfortable you are doing things like this, it might be more cost/time/frustration effective to have it done by your tech for the $130.
-P

[SactoDoug]

Before you do anything, make a hard copy of all of your IDs and passwords. I don't normally recommend that but if you are not comfortable with doing things on your computer then having a written backup is cheap insurance. Just put your hard copy in your safe or somewhere else that is secure.

125 GB is not that much by today's storage standard. You can buy 128 GB flash drives that can hold all of your data for less than $10. That would be a cheap and easy way to copy your files. Buy a 128+ GB flash drive, copy your files to the flash drive then plug the flash drive into your new computer and copy your files to the new computer. You also have an extra copy of your data on your flash drive now if you want to have an extra copy.

[Big Chudungus]

$130 should include them putting at least your data on a Thumb Drive for extra backup.

What Preston said about certain Programs might not work. If they were installed, but you don't got the installer Exe File, and that program is MIA on WWW, you might be out of luck. But unless you are into really kinky stuff, a shop should be able to track down WTF they need.

I boggles my mind that Apple and MS haven't figured out a way to reliably and painlessly transfer your whole "world" to a new "machine". They make their money with the "Microsoft Tax" because 90+% of people will use Factory Windows on their new PC, and new PCs are cheap enough people would by them every year, just because.

But my Desktop is Windows 7 or Vista, just because its a PIA to make new default passwords etc. Phone makers seem to have it mostly figured out with some "Smart Switch" and lots of people buy new phones for no real reason.

I also don't get why Google didn't figure out a way to get rid of the Yahoo! virus that was going around a few years back. Somehow you'd click something and suddenly you were always directed to Yahoo! as default when you wanted Google, and it was a real PIA to fix.