[jimwg1]

Greetings

I have a Dell XP desktop with a basic CD drive and a XP Thinkpad with DVD. I'd like to backup my desktop by using the Thinkpad's DVD drive because I already have many surplus DVDs and because the number of CDs I'd have to backup the Dell with would be unwieldy. I don't have a cross Ethernet cable and would prefer to use a wifi connection as well. I have EaseUS as a backup program but if you have better recommendations on what best to use I'd appreciate the tip as well!

Thanks!

JimWG

[LiveBrianD]

You might not need a cross ethernet cable at all. Try bridging them, making the bridge from one PC, and if that fails, the other. (the network adapter needs to have auto-switching for this to work, both of my PCs do, for instance, though they're not as old as yours) The other option is connecting both to the same network. Then, copy the files to the thinkpad and burn them (I wouldn't try burning a CD or DVD from files on the network, since there's probably an increased risk of failure if the network goes down).