[runo]

Hi all,

I have a laptop, has a capacity of storing 40gb information. I use almost all of it and i need to install other software. I don't want to uninstall software from my laptop. I plan to get an external hard-drive. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks

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if you get an external hard drive, be aware that it's not suggested to use it for installing software. it WILL cause issues. if at any point the drive becomes unavailable, so will your apps.

[dsenette]

if you get an external hard drive, be aware that it's not suggested to use it for installing software. it WILL cause issues. if at any point the drive becomes unavailable, so will your apps.

[runo]

So what should I do?

[dsenette]

identify what's taking up all of your space, uninstall things, delete things, etc.. if you've also got a lot of DATA (documents, pictures, music) you could move those to an external hard drive to free up space...it's just not recommended to install software on an external drive (and in most cases it's actually pointless as the bulk of the application still gets installed on the main hard drive whether you want it to or not)

push comes to shove you could replace the laptop harddrive with a bigger internal one, but you'd have to have your system disks to get the OS back on and you'd have to reinstall everything

[runo]

It seems to me. Changing the laptop's internal hard-drive is permanent solution.

[dsenette]

until you fill it back up

[123Runner]

You can also get the larger drive and use the drive manufacturers software to transfer an image, or clone the old drive to the new drive.

[dsenette]

assuming that the manufacturer's software has that ability (which a lot do)...or you can buy an imaging package like acronis true image (or others) that allow for disk cloning. just make sure whatever it is allows you to clone to a different sized hard drive, some require the drive to be the same size

also...this might be a little difficult to do since this is a laptop...you'd have to hook the new drive up in a USB enclosure to do the clone then load it up into the laptop as the primary drive once you get the old one out

[runo]

Can you give little more detail about the cloning the disk?

[dsenette]

disk cloning will allow you to copy the full contents of one hard drive to another...which would reduce the need for you to install everything again. it basically makes an exact duplicate of ever single piece of info on one drive to another.

with a desktop this is relatively easy. you simply mount a new drive inside the case and do the clone then remove the old drive....with a laptop you can't do that as you can't put another drive in the computer. so you'd have to either A: take the old hard drive out and install the new one. then mount the old one in a USB enclosure and clone it to the new drive that's inside the laptop or B: the opposite (mount the new drive in the USB enclosure then clone the old drive to it then swap them out)

[runo]

Just to be make sure this drive is an external drive, isn't it? If I get an external drive do you think it will cause problems when I install new programs?

[dsenette]

if you install programs on an external drive then yes you will have problems

the situation i described above would only require you to hook up a drive externally to accomplish the drive cloning process...after that you would then replace the internal drive with the external drive