Transfering data: It can't really be this Hard?

Hardware and technical stuff
1

Going crazy the past few weeks trying to transfer data(mostly family pictures she would like to keep) from my Mom’s old computer(Win Me) to her new(Win XP).

First I tried a flash drive, but two different ones were not detected. I think they don’t have Win ME drivers.

Then I got a network switch, but there is only a phone type connection on the old box, and I am unable to find a converter to connect the network cable.

Then I looked at “transfer cables” in the store, but none listed Win ME support.

Any ideas??

Thanks.

2

USB memory sticks or HDs should be the easiest solution. They shouldn’t require any special drivers (even on ME), so I’m wondering whether the USB ports in the old machine are functional at all? The surefire solution is to remove the HD from the old computer and attach it to the new one as slave, but that’s a bit more work and requires some technical expertise.

3

Yank hard drive out of old PC, connect it to new.

Or, USB network port for old PC. (The phone-type connection is a modem, won’t be able to connect that to a switch).

Or, buy a $15 network card for the old PC, install it, connect it to the switch.

4

A non-borked ME should detect most, if not all, flash drives. I know, that doesn’t help. How about booting to a copy of Puppy Linux (low resource usage) and trying the flash drive from there?

5

Yank the old HD, attach it to something like this, and attach it via USB to the new computer.