How to Safely move files from old computer to a new one.

take the old hard drive and install it in the new PC as a second drive, then on the new PC use a 1GB or larger flash drive and install a ubuntu on it, then boot into ubuntu then access the old hard drive

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

after that look at the root part of the old drive and delete any exe files you see (and any kind of autorun.ini file)

after that reboot into windows on the new PC, then run a full scan using your virus scanner.

If you want you can install multiple scanners, as long as you only you disable all but 1 scanner's auto protection. (you can delete the additional scanners when you are done.

the new PC may come with a trial of nortons or something, use that to scan, then install avast and avg and have them also run a full scan. after that, you can uninstall the extra scanners and keep the one you like.

you can then begin restoring your files (since you have the entire drive, you won't have to worry about a file you need not being there)

most automated backup services (eg carbonite or other auto backups will not backup everything, they look for files in common locations) and while some may allow for custom locations, you may not know which directories may be important, eg suppose you needed to backup the ratings and list order of your windows media player library for transferring to the new PC?

backup the entire partition, then sort the data later

You could use a USB drive and scan it before copying the files to your new computer. You can use something like http://www.clamav.net/lang/en/ .

My suggestion would be transferring it to an external hard drive via USB and put it on to the other, but before it goes on the other, make sure the new computer has Linux or BSD so you no longer have to worry about those pesky things ruining your computing experience. :)

Depends on how many gb your files are that are needing to be moved. if you have less than 50 or so gb, jus buy you a 64 gb flash drive for like 40 bucks off ebay. on the other hand, if you have about 200-1000, just buy you a 1tb portable hard drive for about 80-90 bucks. all depends on what type of files and how big they are.