Using a new external hard drive?

[flobadob]

Our PC only has 80G of memory. If I bought an external 500G hard drive that connects via USB could I set it up so that the new external hard drive could be used as the default hard drive for saving everything or would I have to keep sending from the C/ drive to the new hard drive?

[BillySugger]

No , it's a matter of changing the location of the file through it's properties . It used to be easy in XP but bit more tricky in Vista . I had a bit of a nightmare doing it so I hope someone else can help .

[Gormless]

I can't see why you say "only" 80gb.

80gb is a lot. Most of it you will have filled with plain files. With your USB 500gb drive, you can transfer to it much or most of the stuff you have accumulated on your c: drive, no need to play with system settings.

Have you examined exactly what is on your c: drive?

[flobadob]

I'm not too up on computers so I don't want to mess about to much with it, it was more an idea for moving around my music and videos and anything I might download as at the mo I've only got about 15G spare.

[VHG]

There are two types of files on the 80Gb drive,

1) Your Windows and other program files.

2) Your personal files like mp3s, photos etc.

Leave the Windows and system filkes on your 80Gb drive, but move all your "personal" files from the 80Gb to the new external drive.

This is easy to do, just open two windows, one showing your 80Gb drive, the other showing your external drive, then just "drag" (move) the personal files from one window to the other.

Simple explanation here

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US /help/013d4526-3287-45b4-96ae-0eb356f7ed521033 .mspx

[VHG]

As a follow up from my append above.

In some cases dragging from one "window" to the other results in a COPY (which you dont want) and not a MOVE (which you do).

Make sure if you do this operation you actualy MOVE the files and not COPY them.

[flobadob]

Cheers.

[ACtheTROLL]

Ok - first asswer is yes you can.
2 ways of doing it ...

1 move my documents (or documents in vista to the new drive)
it's easy enough just right click documents | properties and change the path to your new drive
(frinstance replace
C:\Documents and Settings\<your logon name>\My Documents
with
f:\my documents)

windows will even move your existing files to the new drive
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1371

EXCEPT it's not a good idea to put a system folder onto a removable drive - if it's not plugged in or gets unplugged .... not a happy system

the slightly more involved ... but more system friendly alternative is to use a prog such as this
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.asp x?********=C26EFA36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C5 2&displaylang=en

work through the wizard to setup a folder pair (in my example called docs)
set the action to contribute

then create a batch file in your start menu's START folder called something like backup.bat

open a text file in notepad enter the following 3 lines
pause
"C:\Program Files\SyncToy 2.0\SyncToycmd.exe" -r"docs"
pause

this will move everything in your my documents to the portable drive every time you start the machine .....
the first pause gives you chance to abort if you don't want to
the second lets you see the confirmation that the process is complete

[scaniavabis]

*I'm not too up on computers so I don't want to mess about to much with it*

Good job you didn't go into too much detail then eh AC?

[BillySugger]

And ********* in the link ?

[ChuckFickens]

Once again AC gets his link to a microsoft page censored.

Replace the ********'s with "family id" but without the space in it.

[flobadob]

Thanks for all the answers but I think I'll probably just cut and paste the music and vids onto the new drive and not mess about too much. Don't want to mess the whole thing up.

[ACtheTROLL]

scaniavabis
knowledge is power ... (you must be very weak - like your attempts to troll)

the first option doesn't require much knowledge - edd botts actually writes the microsoft inside out books
It's pointless not offering to take people outside their comfort zone - it's the only way to learn ... and it gives them the power to choose ... most people underestimate their potential - a good explanation (edd's - not mine) is sometimes all it needs.

it's an option - not compulsory (you sound very comfortable ... or is that just smug?)

[ACtheTROLL]

cheers chuck - hadn't noticed the link