Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with copying

Clear a hard-drive, copy another onto it, then clear that other drive

The Devil Tesla — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:41:26 -0800

Looking for step by step instructions on how to clear a hard drive and then copy one drive (that boots Windows 7) to that drive I just cleared, then clear the old boot drive. My case currently has two drives, one connected by SATA and the other by PATA. Though this wasn't my intention, when I upgraded from Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit my old boot drive, the SATA one, was left untouched and the new OS was installed on the PATA drive.

I would really like to switch things around so the SATA drive is the boot drive and the PATA one is secondary, like it used to be. This is because the PATA one is a lot older than the SATA one. Everything on the SATA drive (the secondary one at the moment) is expendable and I'd like to clear that and then copy the currently bootable PATA one to the SATA drive and then clear it, resulting in the SATA drive being the primary one and the PATA being a big blank secondary drive.

I know next to nothing about this kind of thing, so I would be eternally grateful if someone could point me to the software I need to be able to do this and how I would set up this kind of operation on it. I've gotten a vague sense of how I should do this from other AskMes and a few howtos, but I'm not confidant yet that I could do it and nothing would go wrong.

Also, I'd much prefer if I could do this without buying any more hardware or software. I do have blank cds, dvds and a flash drive.

In a perfect world the solution would be to set things up, press go, and then walk away for a while until it's done, but yea, any help you can give me would make me super happy.

I can see the solution to this problem taking a bit more effort than some AskMes. If it does (or hell, even if it doesn't but you give me the information I need) I will e-mail you ten adorable pictures of bunnies as a thank-you gift.

How do I copy a DVD movie to DVD-R on a Mac?

rentalkarma — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:26:40 -0800

MacFilter: Mac DVD copying on the ~~cheap~~ free? I'm a Mac user now. Hooray!

I want to be able to backup DVDs that I own. (So this is legal, see?) On Windows, I'd use DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink. The first gets rid of the copy protection, the second squeezes the DVD image down to 4.3GB, the size of a blank DVD.

It's a painless process, and it's free. My goal is to play a copied DVD in ANY player I run across, not just some fancy smancy iPod or XBOX or whatever.

On Mac, I've found MacTheRipper (free) for stripping the copy protection. If the resulting DVD is small enough, I can burn it to a DVD with Burn (free). It plays on any player, and makes me happy.

However, if the DVD is greater than 4.3 GB, I've been unable to find any FREE DVDShink equivilant software for the Mac.

Does such an animal exist?

I keep seeing Handbrake appear in discussion threads, but Handbrake doesn't handle VOBs and VIDEO_TS folders and the like.

Thoughts? Or have Apple fanboys been lying to me all this time?

How can I stop these people from copying my site?

languagehat — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:27:19 -0800

I have been alerted to the fact that this site is reproducing the content of Languagehat without attribution. I can't find any way to contact them. Is there anything I can do about this?

Cloning iPOD content

zeikka — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:54:43 -0800

How I copy all content from an iPOD to others? I.e. how to clone iPODs? Giving multiple iPODs (Touch) as corporate gifts. They will be full of customized content (music, podcasts, pictures, memos, calendar, contacts, etc.).

How can I clone this easily? I.e. after we've done one, how do we clone 10 or 20 other ones? None of the content is copyright protected, so that's not a problem.

How do I find the playlist for multiple cds which were burned from my (initial) main music file, which has been added to extensively?

h00py — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:21:41 -0800

After burning a cd using Itunes, is a copy of the playlist automatically archived? And if so, how do you access it? I'm hoping that this isn't terribly obvious if only I'd looked more closely at the toolbar. Having said that, I did look and couldn't see a way to find what I'm looking for. I burned a bunch of songs to ten cds but the fifth one didn't work so I'd like to copy the songs I missed to another playlist for burning. It would appear that the playlist I burnt from was just my main music file which I have added to extensively.

Do you know what I'm looking for? Is it easy and if so, how?

Moving iTunes library to a new computer?

fogster — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:17:39 -0800

Can I simply copy the files from iTunes from my old computer to my new computer? Complications and Long story short, I'm trading my laptop in for a new one in two days. (I give them the old one, then get the new one. I won't ever have both at the same time. I've got a big external drive, it just means that going back to the old one if I screw up isn't an option.)

Some complications, though:

- I've authorized other computers. I don't know if I hit my 5-computer limit or not. I own a lot of purchased music and videos.

- Windows now bluescreens within 5 minutes of booting it up. (Safe Mode, and Ubuntu, run fine, so there's no trouble getting the data, just with using it normally. I might be able to run iTunes under Safe Mode, but I've basically written off ever getting it running on this machine again.) I am not interested in fixing this computer (it's not a hardware issue, nor are any viruses detected), just mentioning that I don't have the leisure of running iTunes except in Safe Mode at an awful resolution.

- If it matters, I'm runnin a slightly old version of iTunes. (Don't remember the version, but I've skipped the past couple updates.)

- I do use the iTunes "Organize my music" feature that keeps everything in its folder, so there's no doubt of where things are stored.

So... Is moving the music as simple as copying the iTunes music directory to an external hard drive and then importing it on the new machine? Will I have authorization problems? And how does my iPod, synced to my existing iTunes library, play into this?

Automating USB pen drive copying

bering — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 05:23:55 -0800

So I have a big conference coming up and we’re considering giving each attendee a usb-drive with all the presentations on. The problem is that if I don’t find a way to automate the copying of files I have to do it manually by myself! (+) Hence my question: is there some software out there than can automatically copy a folder of files to a usb-drive every time one is inserted in to a computer?

Why can't I copy my files?

Termite — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 07:56:32 -0800

Here's a hard one: why can’t I copy my files? [More griping inside] I’m used to backing up stuff easily using CD-RWs and packet writing software. On my new computer set up (XP + Nero’s InCD, latest version) trying to do this has led to nothing but error messages and curses. Typical situation: buy new CD-RW. Format it. Open Windows Explorer. Copy files to CD. Error message: one of the file names is too long or something else is wrong with the file. Erase CD. Format again. Rinse & repeat.

There is nothing wrong with my files and the ”too long” file names can be less than 10 characters. The only way to get help from Nero is through an online support form that didn’t work, that’s why I’m bringing my troubles here again.

Any packet writing freeware out there?

Anyone know any good free CD copying/ripping software?

Slimemonster — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 18:38:02 -0800

This question has been asked before a few months ago, I'm sure, but I can't find it so.... Anyone know any good free CD copying/ripping software (better than Windows Media anyway)? Everything I copy with windows media comes out weird and it skips even though it doesnt skip when i play the CD normally.

How to import updated bookmarks from IE to Firefox?

casarkos — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 19:24:31 -0800

Finally decided to make Firefox my default browser, but the bookmarks it imported from IE are four months old. Is there any way to get the updated ones without handcopying?

How do you get DVDs of a just-released movie?

MiguelCardoso — Sun, 04 Jan 2004 12:35:39 -0800

One of my nephews (the lucky one everyone in our family loves, featured in this thread) presents us every week with a faultless DVD of a just-released-in-the-U.S. movie. How does he do it? [More inside.] Years of avuncular grilling have produced little in the way of answers, besides saying he belongs to some sort of swap club and that downloads take up to seven days(!). Now, I've watched Asian pirate copies and they're unwatchable - in some of them you can see members of the audience sitting down and getting up. These, however, are pristine and, shockingly, have perfect Portuguese sub-titles (better than the legit translations which eventually emerge). As you might know, there's a one or two month gap between American and European releases - so how does he do it? There is no underground market of DVDs in Portugal, so far as I know.

In other news, certain far-flung internauts (of which some may or not be members of MeFi) have access to the full texts of newly published U.S. and U.K. books. I realize this is all highly illegal but I'm still curious as hell as to their methods and techniques.