Replacing hard drive

[Mel]

I have two hard drives in my computer of which one of them is starting to go bad. How do I transfer the files and programs to a new hard drive.

 

[crizazykid2]

Try using correct English, with peroids and commas; myhead was spinning while I read that.

 

[brainysmurf]

Well, this may not be the preferred method -- I don't know your budget.
But for $109 I recently got a 120GB, USB external hard drive -- at Target, of all places (not my usual computer gadget supplier).
This one was a Western Digital model, 7,200 rpm spindle speed.
Going through the USB cable slows things down somewhat, but this is what I use now to backup data and to transfer files whenever I upgrade my computer.
I like to do a fresh install of Windows XP with every major change (new CPU, new motherboard) and this makes it easy.