Sure you can do ez tranfer from vista to 8..see link
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/windows-easy-transfer
Cool.
is there a specific cable I need to buy?
I have a never used Passport external drive, but I think it may need to be formatted for my old computer(not sure on how to do that)
ok- tried that.
when I got to the part to transfer from my portable HD on to the new computer, it gave me an error message:
“your files can’t be transferred. windows easy transfer can’t transfer the files from windows vista or windows xp”
...but apparently NOT 8.1.
it seems Windows 8 was the last version in which you could transfer from XP or Vista using Windows Easy Transfer. Microsoft is trying to force people into using their cloud service, Sky Drive.