Hi all, hope somebody can help me?

I have a laptop and the hard drive is about full (all my documents and 20GB of music).

What i would like to find out is... Can I transfer all the music files from my laptop to a desktop via the LAN cable or is there some other way of doing it as I don't want to loose any music files and then transfer them back when the new drive is in there?

Oh and does anybody know how to view a webcam through a wireless router so it can be seen from another location?

Cheers people!

On the first one, I just have a 250GB USB drive and copy to that

That maybe better, I'll ask my mate to borrow his.

Also, is there anyway to use a desktop thats plugged into a router to listen to music over the wireless connection to the laptop? that way, I could keep the drive I have now and just use the desktop for music?

That maybe better, I'll ask my mate to borrow his.

Also, is there anyway to use a desktop thats plugged into a router to listen to music over the wireless connection to the laptop? that way, I could keep the drive I have now and just use the desktop for music?

Yes, you just need to setup a home network and share the relevant folder. It's all done in windows so you don't even need to buy anything.

Bear in mind that depending on the speed/capacity of the wireless network and the size of the music files, it may not stream smoothly, but for normal MP3's it should be fine

Chris

Hi all, hope somebody can help me?

I have a laptop and the hard drive is about full (all my documents and 20GB of music).

What i would like to find out is... Can I transfer all the music files from my laptop to a desktop via the LAN cable or is there some other way of doing it as I don't want to loose any music files and then transfer them back when the new drive is in there?

Oh and does anybody know how to view a webcam through a wireless router so it can be seen from another location?

Cheers people!

That maybe better, I'll ask my mate to borrow his.

Also, is there anyway to use a desktop thats plugged into a router to listen to music over the wireless connection to the laptop? that way, I could keep the drive I have now and just use the desktop for music?

(Im running vista so there might be slight differences in the way to do it, but I might remember how to do it for XP machines)

Yup, run to the desktop and click the start menu.

Go to the control panel

On the left hand window click "Classic view" (Im quite old school)

Then click network devices or network connections IIRC

If you have a wired and non wired connection, these will be shown here

Right click the connection you wish to share across, and click properties

Then, ensure that "File and printer sharing" is turned on (ie, ticked) & click ok.

Then, find the folder you wish to share, and right click it then select properties

There should be a tab that says sharing or something similar.

Clcik the relavent options to share that folder and click ok.

Jobs a good un

Now you need to find the shared folder on your laptop...

(You may need to adjust the firewall settings to allow the ports to be open)

Clcik start

then My Network places

Click for long enough and you should find the folder

If the printer on the desktop has sharing enabled you can find this ere too

Alternativly, right click My Computer

Then click Map Networked Drive

Choose any letter that takes your fancy & click the browse button.

Again, click away until you find the folder you have shared and click ok, making sure that Reconnect At Logon is ticked

Now you can just click on my computer to find the folder quickly!

If your wanting to play the music via Windows media player then you can either click each song and it will play it, or change the location that Windows Media Player looks for music to the location that your music is now stored in.

HTH

Mike

ps , PM me if you get stuck

pps, try computer components, pc systems, parts & peripherals aria as they have 250GB Freecom hard drives for only

Also, is there anyway to use a desktop thats plugged into a router to listen to music over the wireless connection to the laptop?

If you have iTunes this is very easy:

On the desktop

Open iTunes.

Open Preferences. (sorry, don't know what they have called this on the Windows version. Options?)

Click on 'Sharing'.

Tick "Share my library on my local network"

On the laptop

Open iTunes.

Open Preferences.

Click on 'Sharing'

Tick "Look for shared libraries"

Click on your Desktop's music library which will have appeared in the playlists on the LHS of your iTunes window.

I have the slowest type of wireless network & have had no streaming problems using this method.

HTH

You can use the network following the steps pointed out by various members in this thread, but by far the easiest is the method mentioned by Jon (Taviars).

Get an external USB drive (

With regard to listening to media files shared from another machine on the network, I think Vista has some built in magic to make this easier. I happened to have both my Vista and XP laptops fired up at the same time the other day (not usual) and I got a system tray pop-up on the XP machine telling me it had found shared media on the Vista machine and would I like to use it...

I haven't had a chance to investigate this, but I'm sure as heck I didn't do anything to enable it.

Agree with what was said here about streaming , using XP, have been trying to do that, but over wireless, it is not very good, music stutters.

Alternatives suggested around a USB external drive, are good.

Ok, BIG thanks to everyone for your help, I'm going to get an external drive to back up the HDD now after reading some posts, so I can put it all on there.

I will try the wireless streaming through the various different methods and I'll try the setup for I Tunes (thanks for that tip The Ors)

Ben

Agree with what was said here about streaming , using XP, have been trying to do that, but over wireless, it is not very good, music stutters.

Alternatives suggested around a USB external drive, are good.

I listen to music and watch videos over wireless on XP without problems.

Agree with what was said here about streaming , using XP, have been trying to do that, but over wireless, it is not very good, music stutters.

Alternatives suggested around a USB external drive, are good.

I listen to music and watch videos over wireless on XP without problems.

I have my laptop running Apache web server to share my documents folder on the network so I can access it via my PDA and PSP (PSP wont allow interconectivity between microsoft and itself ) and the music doesnt stutter at all. Well, unless Im listening to Gareth Gates

Is there any easy way of putting a DVD onto a disc drive? I have tried but I just get a load of spuel from the machine saying this can't be done.

If I'm getting a decent drive, I may as well try and put them on?

Last question (possibly),

Do any of these stand alone disc drives fit into the router say on their own, or do I need a desktop to have in the corner out of site to host it on so I can access the files?

Ta.

Is there any easy way of putting a DVD onto a disc drive? I have tried but I just get a load of spuel from the machine saying this can't be done.

If I'm getting a decent drive, I may as well try and put them on?

Last question (possibly),

Do any of these stand alone disc drives fit into the router say on their own, or do I need a desktop to have in the corner out of site to host it on so I can access the files?

Ta.

Use DVD Shrink / DVD decrypter to rip the dvd to your hard drive. Some wont do it due to copyright protection, and so different programs can be used to strip the protection.

I have on my laptop Planet earth box set and indianna jones (I own the originals and these are my backups ) and they work ok, and on my external hard drive I have about 50GB of movies (again, I own the originals, these are backups).

As for your final question, I spotted in Staples yesterday that they have a NAS (Network Attached Storage) 200GB (ish) for only

NAS Hard drives at ARIA

The above site is ok as I have used them before

LaCie 250Gb Ethernet Disk Mini External Standalone NAS (Rackmount Kit Optional) - 301136EK - www.microdirect.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk: ATMT 3.5" 300GB External 10/100 NAS Hard Drive, Silver/Black: Electronics & Photo

Whereas, a 300GB hard drive will cost alot less

Hard drive, external hard drive - Aria Technology

But as I said earlier, PC world, Staples, Maplin and others are doing an offer on 400GB external hard drives

Use DVD Shrink / DVD decrypter to rip the dvd to your hard drive. Some wont do it due to copyright protection, and so different programs can be used to strip the protection.

I have on my laptop Planet earth box set and indianna jones (I own the originals and these are my backups ) and they work ok, and on my external hard drive I have about 50GB of movies (again, I own the originals, these are backups).

As for your final question, I spotted in Staples yesterday that they have a NAS (Network Attached Storage) 200GB (ish) for only