transfer hdd data via thumb drive?

I'm replacing a 10gb hdd with a larger one. I have no need to keep the old tiny drive so it'll probably go in the garbage. Can I transfer the data from the old hdd to the new one via a usb thumb drive that I can actually use again, versus a 2.5" transfer case/kit which I have no future need for.

Thanks!!!!!!

 

If you can fit all the data you need to pull off the old drive onto your USB flash drive... I don't see why not.

 

Well, if you have a 10GB drive, you won't transfer system files.

The other thing is - if its 10GB its old? a PATA interface? Most enclosures are SATA, and even if you buy a PATA enclosure you can pretty much bin it afterwards.

You may also want to consider DVDs if you can burn them.

 

Get a portable 2.5 inch hard drive... Western Digital Passport is a good one... flash drives are slow and only the new USB ones look way faster... for now with USB 2.0 , portable hard drives are the best option...

 

Well...

Portable HDDs are much more "fragile" than thumbdrives...

I can chuck a flash drive out of a window, then pick it up and it'll still work.
You can't do that to a HDD.

Now, just for home use a HDD is brilliant - if you need plenty of space a HDD is the only way to go - but if you need robustness, get a flashdrive.
Or, very expensive, put a SSD in an enclosure.

Having said that:
I have a 500GB Passport drive, I carry it around every day - got it this summer, and it was a good choice (as I brought back 80GB of photographic data)

 

Maybe I wasn't clear.
Can I insert usb thumb into laptop, copy (clone?) entire hd, including xp os, to thumb drive, remove old hd and install, new hd. Then boot from thumb drive and copy thumb contents to new formatted hd?

 

You'd need a tool like Acronis or whatever its called - but it could be done.

You'd need to create an image on the USB drive, then restore from that image to the new HDD...

In that case you may be better off getting an enclosure and cloning the drive altogether.

 

Why would it be better to go the enclosure route? I will not be keeping the old 10 gb hdd. Is what I'm suggesting something no one has tried before? This is all new to me

 

The problem is that you need to transfer the hard drive image onto the new hard drive from the flash drive. How do you plan on doing that? You would need an operating computer with the new drive and flash drive plugged in. I don't think booting the image off the flash drive and then copying that onto the new drive is going to work out too well. It is by far easiest to buy a cheapo enclosure and just clone the old drive onto the new drive and the standard procedure for doing this sort of thing. Unless you are a masochist, just get the enclosure.

 

I almost read something totally different there.

 

...why did I fear that would happen?

But I did shoot 2500 odd photographs in Poland plus about another 1500-2000 odd in Germany... (pre editing)

Then created some HDRs, merged some photos... a ton of data...

So for people who need a lot of space "on the go" portable HDDs are the only choice.

 

Use HDClone, free version. You can make a bootable CD and choose a source / destination from any drive attached to the computer. Clone to the thumbdrive, then swap to the new hard drive and clone back. HDClone also automatically upsizes the partition to match the new drive size.

 

Sure you did...