I'm only going to respond to your non-router questions as I think you should have enough info in those other posts to make a choice.

First, when your new computer is set up, plug in the new external drive to make sure it's recognized as part of that new system. It may have backup software already on it, so you could make a backup copy of your new system onto the external drive as your first step. Then, before you transfer any of the photo files, etc., to your new system, you could download and run Malwarebytes on the old computer as a precaution. Once you are sure your old system is clean, you can do your file transfer. Since you can't get your external hard drive recognized with your old computer, you'll have to do something else. If it were me, I'd get a flash drive of 4GB or larger (you can get an 8 GB drive on Amazon for less than $20). Then COPY as big a chunk as possible of those files onto the flash drive (DON'T cut and paste, as you want to leave a backup on your old computer at least until the whole transfer process is done correctly); then plug the flash drive into the new computer and copy the first batch of files to your new computer's hard drive. Then plug the flash drive back in to the old computer, delete all the files on the flash drive only, and reload it with a new chunk of files. Then load these on the new computer. Repeat until they are all loaded on to the new computer. Then, when you've transferred everything, you can copy all of them from the hard drive of the new computer to the external hard drive, which will then be your insurance policy.

Second, if you have a 15 month subscription to McAfee, why complicate things? Keep it and run it. You can worry about replacing it with something else like Avast in 15 months. Just supplement it with Malwarebytes, but don't try to run another antivirus program like Avast at the same time. Also, having a router is a different issue from what ZoneAlarm software does for you. If you are running McAfee with its firewall, and occasionally running Malwarebytes, you should be fine. Also, because your knowledge of computers appears somewhat basic, ZoneAlarm may be a little sophisticated for you to make sure you are running it correctly. (I'm not trying to insult you, just trying to keep you adequately protected without making it unnecessarily complicated for you.

if you have windows 7 it has a built in firewall that will do you fine just make sure it is turned on, if your McAfee has a firewall then you can use that one instead.

As I have said in your other post I highly highly advise NOT moving all those huge files to the new hard drive and loading down the new pc with all of that stored stuff there is no reason to do that and it will take so long to do your scans if you put a ton of big video, movie and music files on it. Put them on an external hard drive and plug it into the pc you have them just as handy as if they were on the pc, when you store that amount on the hard drive you are really putting your pc through wringer every time you do a scan because it has to scan all of those many many huge files. Why not just take that hard drive out of the old pc and put it into an external enclosure to use with any of your computers and it still has all the stuff on it.

I personally have a linksys G wireless router which works wonderfully with a very strong signal. If you get an N router they are backward compatible so items with the lesser cards will still work no problem.

Just network all the new and old computers then you dont have to move files to a portable drive... just move them on the network.

mikie-
I thought of that, too. My own experience has been that network transfers can sometimes be slower than using a decent speed flash drive, and I was concerned about the OP's ability to get all this stuff up and working correctly right away, especially in light of her concerns about the old hard drive failing, and her acknowledgment in another post that she "loses things." But, I agree, your recommendation is equally valid.

Thanks for the advice. I thought of just transferring via network as well but I am so afraid of transferring viruses and parasites that I think I am going to just forget it and start fresh. I will just have to upload my photos to a couple different sites or something. I was not aware I could have my current hard drive put into an enclosure because I cannot comprehend how much it would cost me to put all that stuff on flash drives or the like.

I know I don,t sound very computer savvy, I have never worked with a network or never used a portable hard drive etc..so I am especially dumb about that stuff. I have used zone alarm and do understand how to use that, although I am happy I won't need it for the new computers.

One thing I still don't quite understand though is you are right that scans take forever with all that stuff on the hard drive, but if it is sitting in a flash drive or portable hard drive, isn't is just as susceptible to virus when it is plugged in, wouldn't those files need to scanned as well?

I have some music files that are in my realone library that I want to save, and I also need to save our itunes account, so I guess I will still be at risk for transferring a virus to the new computers, or can I upload those to one of those online storage sites and transfer it to the new computer that way?

I think you're way to concerned about transferring virus if the computer had infected files you would pretty much know about it.

Run a full scan with Malwarebytes on it, then transfer the files.

Move ITUNES Library to another computer http://www.ehow.com/how_2049882_move-itunes-library-another-computer.html

Polarprincess, you are not leaving it on your flashdrives. You would need a ton of them to do that. All you really need is one flash drive, that has a fairly large capacity. I also agree, dont load down the new computer. Thats what you have the external for. You can have both the flash drive and the external running at one time. Use the flash drive to put the files on, from the old computer (copy and paste), take flashdrive out of old computer, put it in new computer, and copy and paste it into your new external. Re read Kudzu9's post again. He explains it very well. Good Luck to you.

i am concerned about transferring viruses because i have some that AVG detected and cannot heal. I am running the malware scan as we speak, so we will see what that comes up with. One thing I still don't understand though about the scans as i mentioned before, if running the scans goes through all the files on the pc and takes all that time, what happens to the files on the external hard drive? Do they never get scanned then?

When you set up a scan with an antivirus software like McAfee, you can choose which drives to scan. An external hard drive, if it is turned on and connected, will be assigned a drive letter by your operating system. When you start a scan you can choose which drive letter(s) you want scanned. The software doesn't care if a drive is an internal drive, an external drive, a flash drive, a computer memory card, etc.: it all sees it as one big system. It's up to you to tell the software what to scan...all of it or part of it.

when doing any type of scan it asks you what drives you want it to scan for example if you are doing a malwarebytes scan you had to select which drives you told it to scan well when you have your external hard drive plugged into your pc it will show up as yet another drive letter so you just choose to scan that drive with your programs and you can do that totally separately from the scans you do for your regular C drive on your pc.

yes you can get an enclosure that just snaps around your old hard drive once it is removed from the old pc and the enclosure enables it to plug into your usb port just like any external usb hard drive.

External Enclosure
that is a link to an example of an enclosure, some have fans built in some don't, some are much cheaper than others, you can look around there on newegg and see all types. It is one option to consider.