Thanks everyone. Lots of useful methods. Mikie - it's good to know about moving entire folders (I don't have my video's in folders - yet - but am just discovering how useful that would be for shows I've recorded for a few seasons - having them altogether). I'd like to double check and ask what "a cmd window" is - and how I'd get there. Again - I have Windows XP (SP3). Sorry to say, Mikie, but I also need more explanation for what "make a shortcut to the destination , within the folder the files are in... then select a bunch of what I want to move, cut&paste onto the shortcut" means. I know someday I'll understand all of this, but I don't know how to make a shortcut to the destination. And once I cut and paste onto the shortcut, what do I do with it? Absolutely there are some big files - so I'm glad to told me to break it up into smaller chunks. I have so far. Thank you. Lynn.

Something like this works very well and is inexpensive: Rosewill IDE/SATA to USB Converter Your Drive can be an 3.5 or 2.5" IDE Drive or SATA Drive. I've been using one of these for years, much easier than opening up the computer. I usually use it to try and retrieve files for people when their computers crash! Like Snidely stated; best to have it still in the old computer hooked to the original mother ship! But in my case that's not always possible! This IMO is the next best and cheapest option! You never install the drive back into a computer, it does come with Protective Silicon Cases for Standard or Laptop Hard Drives.

External hard drives are typically a standard SATA drive in a case with a USB interface. Not uncommon that the USB circuitry in the external case goes bad but the drive inside is OK. I've disassembled them in a couple instances for friends, removed the drive, installed it in as a second drive in a desktop computer and retrieved the data.

This is a big *Thank you* and an update to those who offered encouragement and comments. 1. I ended up using MiniTool and it did just what it was supposed to. I had hooked the new SSD to the computer with a USB cable, but even then the transfer only took an hour (no videos, not very many photos). I had a little trouble inside the tower because of a dearth of cables. HP Pavillions apparently don't waste an inch of wire. Because of that I wasn't able to hook up a spare drive as I'd hoped, but I may be able to get more cables in there "someday", and next time I buy a desktop, if I do, I'll look inside for more flexibility. Also had some trouble mounting the new drive. The 2.5" adapter I picked up at BB Big Box wasn't suitable, but I ended up being able to mount directly to the internal framework once I found suitable screws. I probably could have gotten away with a zip strip or such, but it would have screamed "amateur" too loud ... As it happens I also had a drive from an older Gateway, and wanted to see if anything could be recovered from it. So while I had my box apart I plugged in that drive, booted it with the USB boot disk I'd made for this project, and got it to respond to the recovery disks that came with it. I lost all the files, but we had most of those backed up from before, so sooner or late I'll try to restore those. So all in all I took Richard's advice and had fun, and now my wife thinks I'm a genius. Thanks again! :-)M