Connecting two computers

[Mr_Threepwood]

I just got my laptop and would like to connect it directly to my main computer so that I can transfer files. Here's what I've done

1. Got a crossover cable
2. Turned off windows firewall and other virus scanners on the computers
3. Manually set both computers IP, because if I used automatic it was screwing up.
4. Ran the network wizard, so now I could actually share files
5. Tried to transfer 8 gigs of stuff and it said it would take 130 minutes!!

What could I have possibly done wrong here that's causing the slow transfer rates? The cable itself is rated at 1 gb/s so it's not that. I'm thinking it has something to do with the settings. What should I try?

 

[Law]

The speed of the transfer doesn't always depend on your network; your computer plays a role also. A slower computer would take longer than a faster computer on the same network. So just wait it out, because the time is just an estimate, and transferring 8 gig over the network is a lot of bandwidth.

 

[Law]

The cable may be rated for Gigabit transfer, but is your network card and switch port also operating at that rate?

 

[Mr_Threepwood]

I fixed the problem and thought that others might want to know how.

The problem I was having was one of the computers was on fat32 and the other was on ntfs. So I converted the fat32 one to ntfs and then all was well.

I get about one gigabyte per minute of transfer now, which is very very acceptable.