If both the laptop and PC have usb ports (small rectangular 
connections), I would say the easiest way is to buy a USB drive (a.k.a. 
flash drive, mini drive, jump drive, thumb drive) -  every store has 
them these days for $10 and up, depending on capacity.  For $25-30. you 
can get a 512 mb drive, equal to about 350 floppy disks.  You can copy 
files using windows explorer from your hard drive to the USB drive, 
insert it into the laptop and copy the files to the laptop hard drive.  
The drive usually has software on it that may need to be installed on 
the win 2000 laptop in order to be read.  The Win XP system should do 
that automatically.  You may have to copy the needed software files from 
the usb device to a floppy disk on the pc and then put the floppy into 
the laptop to install the software before the usb drive can be read by 
the laptop.  Some of the usb drives come with security software to 
secure the data on the drive if you lose it.      

Loy Pressley wrote:

> Good morning,
>
> I have acquired a laptop computer, a gift from my son, and I am not 
> very familiar with laptops.  I want to hook the laptop up to my 
> desktop so I can transfer data files between the two computers.  How 
> can I do that?
>
> The laptop uses Windows 2000 Pro operating system.  It has a 40 gig 
> hard drive with almost nothing on it and has 512 megs of memory.  It 
> has all kinds of ports on the back including a telephone jack for the 
> internal dialup modem and two RJ-45 network connections.
>
> My desktop is a Dell L800r with at least 100 gigs of free hard drive 
> space, 512 megs of memory, and Windows XP Home operating system.  It 
> has an RJ-45 network connection in the back.
>
> I don't need or particularly want a LAN setup.  The best I can get 
> here is a dialup modem connection so there is no possibility of 
> sharing  a high speed internet connection.  I just want to hook up the 
> two computers periodically so I can transfer data files between them.
>
> Thanks...
>
> Loy
>
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