Bob Try removing the hard disk from your old computer. Unless it has a 40 or 80 pin ribbon cable (IDE drive) connecting to the motherboard it will most likely be a SATA drive.
You can get SATA to USB adapters (with P/S) for ~$20 from Amazon or electronics stores and also adaptors which will work with older IDE connections. This will allow you to connect the old drive if it is still functional. A computer store may be able to help with testing whether it is still functional as well. In that case you should be able to connect it to your new PC with a USB port and then simply copy any files you need including the GnuCash data file. It is also a good idea to copy not only the primary data file but also the user preference files and any stored reports. Where these files resides depends on your O/S , presumably Windows, and is described in the GnuCash wiki (https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Configuration_Locations There are diagrams of the configuration locations a bit down the wiki page which are easier to read than the strict documentation. You would need to copy the configuration files from that location to the same locations on your new computer (they may exist already if you have installed GnuCash and run it on the new compute but you can just copy over them unless you were running a very old GnuCash version (<4)on the old computer where you may need to update both the data files and the user preference files. If you did have an old version search the archives of the mailing list for instructions on how to update to a current version, see https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2021-January/094773.html for example. On Tue, 2026-11-03 at 11:26 -0700, Bob Lehmann wrote: > I love Gnucash. I've used it for many years. A week ago my computer > crashed and I lost everything. I'm now up and running, went to the > internet and downloaded "Gnucash... but am having trouble getting > started entering accounts and starting to reenter data ... Is there > any help available to me? Please!!! > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > [email protected] > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. -- David Cousens _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
