I have recently acquired a laptop and I have a massive amount of MP3's that I want to copy over to my laptop. Any ideas of the easiest and most convenient way of doing so? Can you connect both using an ethernet cable?

I do have a 2GB memory stick so could do it that way however I have 16gb of files needing swapped. So connecting via cabling or networking would be a lot easier. Is it relatively easy to do also?

Any help would be greatlky appreciated,

Yes.

And XP has a reasonably good Network connections wizard which will even copy the settings onto disc to transfer onto the other PC. Should be pretty easy.

Right want to explain to a simpleton how to do it?

I COULD be wrong, but I think it's a crossover cable you need to connect two machines directly, not a simple ethernet one. Thats what we used to share the internet connection in my flat, and it worked ok.

XP network setup wizard is very straight forward if both machine are on XP. The firewalls are what's tricky.

You're not wrong, you do need a cross over cable - similar to connect an x-box

Lots of info here

Carlos, its only going to take 8 trips to move the mp3's though, id do that rather than spending £10 on a new cable.

Aye no worries, if thats the easier option.

It depends if you would ever use it for something in future, then it would be worth it.

Nope will not need it for anything else. Just the transferring of Mp3s onto my laptop. However when I stuck the memory card into the slot the laptop has totally crashed. All buttons are non responsive. I can't even Ctrl Alt Del or even switch it off.

Holding down the power button NORMALLY will turn it off, even in a hard crash.

Otherwise you're a bit knacked...

My card reader is 4 in 1 which allows access to SD, MS, and MS Pro and MMC cards. Is my memory card one of these? Its the one commonly found in W810i phones and Sony Playstation Portables. Its says on the card its memory stick pro duo is that the same as MS Pro?

Dont think so

I have a sony ericson phone and it has an SD duo card. Its quite a bit smaller than the normal sony mem sticks. Sounds simple, but does the reader have a slot the same size as the stick?

If it is different, you can get adapters that let you plug a duo stick into a normal SD slot

edited to add - a quick search on t'internet confirms that MS Pro and MS Pro duo are different cards

My Sony camcorders memory stick goes in the MS/MSPro slot on my inbuilt reader. it's the only slot it fits in........ it only says Memory Stick on it.....

Bang on.

I had an adaptor thing in my Phone box. All files transferred over, case closed.