[Tyrian]

I'm reformatting my laptop as part of my once a year maintenance overhaul.  Unfortunately, I have a large amount of data to back up, on the order of +40GB.  I want to be able to connect my laptop and desktop to my router and directly transmit my data from my laptop to my desktop, where I have about 90GB of free space.  I'm pretty sure this is possible, but I need the software to facilitate it.  Hopefully it's freeware...  Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Ghostavo]

Why would you need any additional software? I'm pretty sure the OS you're using is capable of using LANs to transfer files.

[WMCoolmon]

If it's a mac, you can hold down Apple-T when it starts up to turn the laptop into a firewire drive.

If it's a PC, you could try using Cerberus FTP server on the laptop and then using Filezilla or another FTP client from the desktop.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I use Norton Ghost for making hard drive images.  Works well. 

If you just want to copy the data you could just do a straight copy across the network.  All you sholuld have to do is make sure both the laptop and desktop are in the same workgroup and enable file sharing on the laptop. 

[Nuke]

best way to back up lots of data is with lots of hard drives. btw you can get 500 gigs for less than $100 usd, i remember when 4 gigs cost 300 bucks.

why not just use windows file sharing?

[Tyrian]

Hmm...Didn't think of the Cerberus FTP trick.  I think that'll do nicely.  I don't want to image my whole drive, or invest in an external HDD. (Should have mentioned that sooner.  If I had the money to spare, I would go with the external HDD.  Hence the emphasis on free.)  For that I would use Norton Ghost.  I'm reformatting because portions of my OS aren't behaving properly.  And both of my machines are PCs.  I don't really care for Macs.