....
1. connect two laptops with a USB cable?

2. connect two laptops using LAN cable?

... bascially want to transfer files from one laptop to the other ideally by doing a copy between the discs without having to use an intermediary device such as a CD rom or memory stick thingy.

I think you have to use a Crossover LAN cable. (which you can make if you don't have one)

But that's where my PC knowledge ends (and I mean totally ends! And I might not be right about the above statement either!!!)

Steve

[Edited on 27/5/08 by worX]

You need a special USB cable to connect 2 pcs or you are likely to damage the USB interface as they will both be pushing 5V into each other.

With a LAN cable, you will need a crossover cable, then you can connect 2 pcs directly to eachother. (Easy with XP - needs faffing about with win 2000). If you use a standard network patch cable (like PC to router) it wont work.

All in all its far easier to use a USB stick, or burn the data onto DVD!

David

as steve said use a network x over cable (much easier to put it through a router) then setup a shared folder (by right clicking the folder) and pull from one pc to the other

I dont think USB is possable without some contraption in the middle to stop you blowing up both computers

Or of course you can set up an Ad Hoc wireless network solely between the 2 laptops (assuming they both have wireless built in!) and tranfer the files that way.

Its probably the easiest! LOL

^^^ right; I didn't think it would be that easy.

I assume a USB hub will not work for the same reasons since the PC is the master and you cannot have two masters.

A small LAN box .... or locosted option is to transfer the files onto memory in phone or camera - quicker than burning CDs.....

Just get a USB Key/stick. You will use it again and again, they are quite useful and not expensive.

Steve

I asked this very thing not that long ago when a computer was dieing. All I did was take out the hard drive and fit it in the other computer, then copied it over. So easy.

if you have internet on both, simply email it to yourself

Ray

If you use a crossover cable you'll need to manually configure the IP addresses so that the pc's can talk to each other - if you do this it will be the fastest way of transferring lots of data over.

Cheers

mark

If you've got firewire it's pretty easy (or at least it is on my desktop and laptop both running Xp Pro).

quote:

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Originally posted by 02GF74

I assume a USB hub will not work for the same reasons since the PC is the master and you cannot have two masters.

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If you've alredy got an external hard disk you can use that to transfer the data.

If you haven't got one I would strongly recommend you get one to do backups onto (guess who found out the hard way when his PC went tits up!).

E.g. Maplins here

e.g. £50 for a portable (powered by the PC) 80GB one, £60 for a 400GB powered one

Or if everyone was clever and brought macs you could just set up a wireless lan network with three mouse-clicks or simply connect an ieee 1394 (firewire) cable between the 2 macs and browse one of them in drag-and-drop fashion.