Help, I broke my wife's PC

[gcgrotz]

Here's my problem, any help is appreciated:
1) HP Pavillion DM4 <3 years old Win 7 updated regularly. System started to run very slow, probably 1% of normal. Opening explorer window would take 10 minutes.
2) Began to suspect heat problem with mother board, professionally I've seen heat shut down various things. Quick internet search confirmed heat problems plague this model. Found, and executed, a procedure to clean the fan. It was full of dust and some cat hair.
3) Re-assembled the unit and of course it didn't boot up. A light on the keyboard was blinking. I could hear the hard drive spin up.
4) Bought a new HP laptop with Win 8.1.
5) I have the old hard drive and I want to use ez-transfer to move all (mostly the wife's) stuff-mail, bookmarks, settings, etc. Can I attach that HDD via SATA/USB interface to my desktop? Can I just copy the "user" directory to the new pc? Do I have to get the old one working and put the drive back in it? Any other ideas?
THANKS!

 

[CapStar362]

a external SATA > USB adapter will do this. it will read the drive externally not requiring the original OS from the original drive to be booted. i would not copy the "USER" folder, but the items you want inside of it, from specific folders.

the "User" folder contains hidden "App data" and other temporary folders that could corrupt your Win 8.1 easily. so rather than target the folder as a whole, enter into it and copy the individual folders you/she needs. they are divided rather nicely for Win 7.

My Pictures
My Music
My Videos
Documents
Favorites

and so on...

if you have multiple user accounts, each one has its own folder name within "Users"

 

[lgentle]

Favorites is easy - Just copy everything from c:\users\<username>\Favorites to the new laptop - same location

Documents is easy - See above except notice different location
c:\users\<username>\My Documents

Pictures, Videos - See above

Mail - need to know what mail client you use & if you use POP or IMAP.

 

[lgentle]

Note

The AppData folder referenced is hidden by default. You'll have to click the plus next to ThisPC, C:\ drive, press Alt+T to access the Tools Menu and select Folder Options, click on the View tab and select Show hidden files, folders, and drives.

 

[CapStar362]

yes, but if you move the entire "User" folder, hidden does not mean it will not move it. hidden just means the user cannot see it, which the app data, local data, temp folders ( certain ones ) and couple other folders are there.

if you drop new app data and some certain types of temp hidden data that involve windows settings and apps installed on a different OS than the original OS, you will introduce more problems than you want.