Moving all Data from Linux 17 Mint to Windows via USB.

[Cliff the Curious]

Hi all, apologies if this has already been covered but I have an elderly friend who has Linux Mint 17 installed on a very old PC and would like to buy a new Windows PC.
What is the easiest way to move/copy all his Documents etc to an external drive?
I understand that this can be achieved via the Terminal but would prefer the GUI method if possible as I do not know a lot about Linux but I am very familiar with Windows. I understand that I need to format the drive to NTFS for Windows to recognize it.
A very basic step-by-step guide or a link to a video etc would be very much appreciated.
Many thanks in advance.

[djph]

plug in the USB hdd, copy the stuff. Same as in Windows.

No need to format or anything -- unless the drive they're using is formatted to a linux-only filesystem

[Cliff the Curious]

Thanks djph but I actually need to know what I click on first when I open Linux, eg how to find his Documents folder, then second click to copy, where will the USB be displayed, etc. I need a click-by-click guide as I have never used Linux. Could you elaborate on 'copy the stuff' please?

[Moem]

Click-by-click is not going to be easy as we can't see the screen. We don't know which desktop environment is installed, and whether there are specific customizations. But you should expect to find a main menu somewhere in the bar that is across the screen, usually at the bottom. The menu button is by default at the left hand side.
When you open the menu there should be lists of applications and also a search bar. Try typin 'Files' into that search bar; does anything come up? If it does, that's the file manager,
Note that so far, nothing you've seen is radiacally different from Windows.

In the file manager, you will see directories (visualised as folders) and files. The USB stick, too, should be visible in the file manager.
Try the things that you are used to doing. You can select, copy and paste very much like you are using to doing.

[Cliff the Curious]

Many thanks, Moem, I will try this over the next few days.
Does the external drive have a specific icon?
How do I safely remove the external drive after copying?

[mikeflan]

Does the external drive have a specific icon?

Start Nemo. It should have an icon similar to 1 below.
.

.
If yours doesn't look anything like mine click button 3, or just use what you have already.

The data on the Mint computer will be in directory 2, which is also the circled part.

How do I safely remove the external drive after copying?

Right click on 1 and select Eject or Unmount. Either one will work. But let the copying complete and then wait 5 minutes more before doing Eject or Unmount.

[Moem]

Start Nemo.

We don't know that it's Cinnamon, so we don't know whether there is Nemo.

[Cliff the Curious]

Thanks, Mike and Moem, all I know is it's Mint 17.2 or something. The screenshot really helps.
I will be attempting the copy early next week so I will come back to you if that's ok.

[billyswong]

What's more important is how to make sure files have finished copying securely before removing the USB drive. There are times the GUI is being misleading, telling users things are copied when in fact they are still in the RAM "disk cache". This is especially likely to happen when one copy large amount of files into a slow USB stick.

Currently the most reliable solution is to go to terminal then run the sync command after one finished all the copy+paste in GUI. The GUI option of eject/unmount/safely remove to the USB stick is supposed to do that "sync" thing automatically, but they aren't reliable enough in visual feedback on whether the sync has finished. Meanwhile the sync command in terminal won't quit and give the prompt back to user until after the operation complete, thus it is clearer. Then one can go back to the GUI and do that eject/unmount/safely remove with more confidence.

p.s. In the mean time of long wait for sync after copying a lot of stuff into USB stick, one can open another terminal window then run

Code: Select all

cat /proc/meminfo | grep Dirty

to query how much stuff is not yet written to disk/drive.

[Cliff the Curious]

I have copied all files to an external drive, they are all text Documents, but the music files it says will take days and days!!
So we have given up on moving any Music.

Thank you all for your input.