You can buy some decent ones for reasonable price (I have one that is 1.8 TB). Once you have it, you can connect via USB and begin moving all your important documents over to it.

As for your second question: you shouldn't have too much issue with W7 files as I upgraded from W7 to W10 on my old machine and lost nothing. I say shouldn't but there is always the possibility you run into some compatibility issues on older files...but I doubt it'd be much an issue.

If there aren't security issues present (like a file with login credentials and passwords) or other sensitive documents, it might be more cost effective to transfer the files into the cloud. I have an external hard drive that I used for about four months from the time that my desktop with Windows 7 died and I purchased a new laptop with Windows 10. I haven't encountered any issues between the operating system upgrades.

I'm reluctant to even upload a picture of myself into the cloud or on Facebook. I usually limit my photo uploads to pictures of my cats (past & present) and scenery. Unfortunately, there are too many people who like to snoop and gossip that I'm concerned that any information that I post could be used maliciously.

get an external hard drive which are very cheap these days. backup your data you need to keep to that hard drive. include data files, download folder, desktop folder, favorites from your browsers

go ahead and get the new computer and backup data to that computer.

all your programs will need to be reinstalled on the new box.

Absolutely.
You might consider getting one with multiple ports beyond just USB for the sake of speeding the transfer of data.

Thank you for your help!

In my experience buy one with twice the storage as the harddrive you're backing up.

Large, 2 TB (terrabyte) drives are much cheaper than they were, but you might get by with 500GB, depends on your desktop storage size.

Also, be sure that your external drive is compatible with windows and that you have the right cable to connect to your box.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Good luck with it all!

Depends on how much stuff you have, how current you need to keep it, etc.

16G and 64G.

Then I shut it down, and I'm crossing my fingers I can start it up again tomorrow when I bring home my new external hard drive.

Thanks for your help and suggestions!

You can copy to flash drive if that's all you have available.

I got in the habit of doing that because up until this past Xmas I was still using an iPhone 4S, and I knew that sucker could die any second.

Not sure I have much room on the ones I have for much of anything else, but I'll check. I've got a ton of pdf's and other downloads. The rest is mostly financial stuff, tax filings, receipts, stuff like that.

Maybe I can fit it onto what I've got, but I figure if I'm buying backup media, might as well do it right.

Glad you have pix backed up! I had an oldrr android that ran some sort of an update all on its own & wiped my contacts, pix, everything.

If it's just your hard drive dying youbcan get a huge SSD for around $60 or so. We have had very good luck with ours.

I've got a Best Buy right up the road that's still doing curbside.

to your new one with PC Mover. It works great. But external hard drive is a good idea too.