The "easy" way is to remove the hard drive from one computer, install it in the other computer, start the machine, issue the copy command, and walk away until it is finished - then replace the hard drive in the original computer.

If both machines have ethernet built in, you can create a two-machine network (with a hub or by using a crossover network cable) and do the transfer that way but it will take much much longer.

~ GaySatyr

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I would use a pair of fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) cards with a special crossover cable to connect them back to back. I don't know if the computers you're talking about have Ethernet cards or built-in ports, but if they do, that's probably the easiest way. So long as you use a crossover cable, address the computers on the same subnet, have Microsoft networking enabled, and set up the file permissions right, you'll get a pretty fast transfer speed. It should take around an hour or so to transfer 22 gigs, depending on the file sizes and number of files.

If you opt for USB, then you'll have to buy a file transfer cable, and if you have older USB ports (1.1), it will take many times that long (somewhere between 10 hours to a couple of days). You're in better luck if you have USB 2.0 ports on both computers and a 2.0 transfer kit, that may take 15 minutes.

If you have to add cards to the computer to do the transfer, it's probably going to be easier to put the second hard drive in the other machine as a slave drive.

- Saki [faqs]

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