Moving QB from one Computer to another with a portable drive

Good afternoon, @wildewan

Let's get your company file saved to the computer and opened up properly. First, we're going to need to create a backup company file from the data that has been stored on the portable hard drive. 

Back up your company file manually

1. In QuickBooks, go to the File menu and select Switch to Single-user Mode.
2. Go to the File menu again and hover over Back up Company. Then select Create Local Backup.
3. In the window, select Local Backup and then Next.
4. In the Local Backup Only section, select Browse and choose where you want to save your backup company file. (make sure you save it to the computer and not the portable hard drive)
5. Set the number of backups you want to keep, and this is optional.
6. This runs a test to make sure your backup file is in good shape before you save. 
7. When you're ready, select OK. 
8. Select Save it now and Next. 

Next, make sure you have disconnected the portable hard drive after making sure the backup company file has been saved to your computer. Now, we need to restore the backup of the company file. 

That should get you squared away. Please post again or reply to this thread if you have any other questions. Thanks for reaching out to the Community.

Thank you for your help with this.  I did the save to the hard drive, but when I did this and disconnected my portable, the app on my desktop that I normally would double click to open QB 2016 says the drive/file it is stored on is not found.  If I plug the portable hd back in, it is able to open the app immediately without issue. I can see an Intuit file on my C: Drive but don't know which one would be equivalent to the desktop app that I normally double click to open.  The few that I looked at ended with .exe in the extension.  I am sorry to be so much trouble! Thank you for your help! 

Hi wildewan,

Instead of using the portable drive, you could have saved the backup file in your new computer first before restoring it. 

You can back up your company file and do the same process again:

1. Backup your company file using your old computer.
2. Copy the file to your flash drive, and save it to your new computer.
3. Restore the copied company file.

If you have new transactions, you can enter them in the restored company file.

Please don't hesitate to go back to this thread if you need more help.