[lindsayb]

I went to intstall my new Seagate External Hard drive on my laptop (Windows XP), and received a message saying that my disk is already partitioned and something else that hinted at erasing all the data.

My laptop was set up at grad school before i got it and apparently has been partitioned (i don't really even understand this), and there is only a very small amount of data on one of the "partitions" and I'm not sure what it is. I want to install the Seagate to back up my computer and have extra storage space, but when I tried to install it (using the Seagate software), it warned me that it couldn't continue because it is already partitioned.

Sorry if I'm not giving enough information...Does anyone know what is going on here and how I can work around it and install this external hard drive?

Thanks!

Lindsay

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A couple assumptions.

It is a USB external drive. Try plugging it in and do not use the software.

It sounds like it is already formatted.

If so, you should notice in "my computer" that you now have a "C" and another hard drive.

[123Runner]

A couple assumptions.

It is a USB external drive. Try plugging it in and do not use the software.

It sounds like it is already formatted.

If so, you should notice in "my computer" that you now have a "C" and another hard drive.

[lindsayb]

Yes, that works, and I can copy files to the external HD, but I suppose I can't use it to make my computer faster. I had read about possibly using it to boot up. I'm not so technical...I really don't know what I'm talking about.

Or would I just move things around?