Without a monitor on the old computer it will be difficult to transfer your library to an external hard drive connected to it.

The single cable connection between computers requires a "zero-modem" cable and software to support the connection. Some recent Windows versions can recognize the connection, but even if you have a version that can, in theory, the specific software components may not have been installed.

If your old laptop wasn't something too exotic, you should be able to remove the old hard drive. A hard drive replacement is one of the few common repairs you can usually make on most laptops.

You can get a "USB Box" that you can put the old hard drive into, and you'll have built yourself a USB External Hard Drive.

When you plug the "box" (with the old drive inside) into a USB port on the new computer, it should appear as a new hard drive - probably as something like drive G:\ of H:\ based on my experience. You will then be able to copy anything you want from it onto the new hard drive, and use the "external drive" for backup or just as extra space.

You can remove the old drive from the box when the transfer is done and put it back into the old computer if you want. The box is "re-usable" so you can put another HD of appropriate size in it if you want more external storage space for the new computer.

The box you'll need will be something similar to This One but you'll have to find one that matches your hardware. The "sample" is not necessarily a recommendation, although I have used the brand - it's just a picture.

Your laptop probably has a 2.5" drive, and the box you get must be made to contain a 2.5" drive. (The other option is 3.5" - desktop HD size, as in the sample). Most such boxes will be for IDE/EIDE hard drives, which probably is what you have in the old laptop.

If you happen to have an SATA hard drive in the old laptop (unlikely if it's very old) you'll need a box specifically for SATA drives.

I have a couple of "Mad Dog MegaVault" 3.5" boxes that will take either IDE or SATA drives, but they appeared only recently and I haven't seen that kind (dual connectors/interfaces) in a box for 2.5" drives. I have seen the sample brand in 2.5" IDE/EIDE boxes, and there are several other makers of 2.5" ones, for either IDE/EIDE or SATA drives.

John