transfer of contents of HD in old computer to HD in new computer

I have Dell withh XP PRO on an 80 gig HD. I have just purchased a new
Dell with XP PRO and a 320 gig HD. The HD on the old machine was set
up with a 2 gig partition C: using W98 and the reamainde rin a
partition D: using XP PRO.
What is the easiest way to "transfer" the programs and data on the old
computer to the new one with the same partitioning ?

Thanks in advance

 

Just hook up the old drive as a slave or as primary drive 2 in the new
computer. Then in Windows Explorer you can simply drag and drop files
across drives.

 

Oops, just noticed you said "programs" too. Simply copying them will not
work. You can "ghost" a drive from the old to the new and the programs
will work. Most drive mfg's allow you to download software to do that.
But honestly, you're starting out with a clean install, why junk it up
with all the old crap from the hard drive? Just reinstall the programs
you use the most and it'll run better.

 

I really appreciate your reply. My son in law told me I could not use
Norton Ghost to make an image of my HD in old computer to an external
HD ands then hookup the external to the new computer ands recover its
contents to the HD in the new computer. He said the programs
transferred in this way would not work on the new computer. IF I
understand you correctly you are saying they will. Have you
successfully done this ?? It would sure make my life a lot easier if
that would work. I appreciate what you are saying about reunstalling
my programs on the new computer and then just "copying" data from the
old to the new but I was planning to copy what I have and then
deleting stuff I did not really need.