@Peter
I cannot thank you enough for your complete answer, both explaining everything clearly, and giving a fully detailed set of instructions of more than one way to do what I want to do, and of how you do it. Out of this world! Fantastic! Amazing!
Yes, and much thanks to Ashraf – not only for what he gives us – but also for giving us this forum in which to meet and to share and to help each other. Peter, I think you and I have both been here with Ashraf for at least ten years.
May I be audacious and ask you another question? If no, then stop here. If yes, forgive me if I write too long.
As I wrote, the first thing I do want to do is to copy data from one old external hard disk to a new one, for backup … and, as you so keenly noted, to keep the back up updated. But I’ve wondered about whether or not to get another external hard disk for a different purpose. I used an HP Pavilion g laptop for very many years (primarily for downloaded papers and for papers I write … inter alia, I have two Ph.D’s and have been active in several fields beyond those, and, as I wrote, for family and travel/nature pictures). Yes, and I did download to the HP numerous programs from Sharewareonsale (I actively used only a few). At one point the original HP’s hard disk broke down, and I put in a new internal drive/disk and started again. I updated from Windows 7 to 10. Now, after several more years, I suspect my HP is filling up, and running down. So I’ve gotten a Lenovo ideapad 3, and have been getting into using it – with Windows 11. Strictly speaking, I can still run the HP, and I did copy all the downloads, pictures, and documents onto the external disk drive I was using with it (WD Elements, 2 GB). But I wonder whether I ought to get another external disk/drive, and clone the HP internal disk/drive to it, just so I have everything that I ever had/used/did on the HP available. That’s my question – is it a good idea to go to that trouble, or does it not matter enough to spend the money on a new external drive, plus the time and the trouble? If I did that, would I run that external drive some time on my Lenovo ideapad? (Just a brief personal word to introduce me: the first program I wrote and sold ($300) was about 53 years ago; when microprocessors were born I learned how to program them, moving bits so I could use the tiny memories efficiently (remember 64k????); but I’ve moved on to many other things, so I’m now pretty much just a user and not into programming, and not completely up-to-date. So your help, Peter, really means a lot to me!)