Laptop harddrive

magnus1225

New Member
Hello all, i just got a new Maxtor 500 gb external harddrive, and i'm transferring all my files from my laptop onto it (pictures, mp3's stuff like that) to make room for some program i want to add. I did just that, added them to the 500 gb, and deleted them off the laptop. Then went to control panel...programs...to check how much space my programs were using, and with like 35 programs i was only using 600mb of space which is good. But here is what i dont get. When i go to the C drive and hold the mouse over it, it says i have 40 something gb of space left of a 65 gb hardddrive. My computer is actually an 80 gb, but i read some where that the numbers are different thus the small total gb, but still, i dont understasnd how i only have 40 gb left...it just doesn't seem right. I seriously don't have anything on the computer except those few programs...no other pictures or mp3's. Alrighty, help will and would be greatly appretiated so thanks much!!!!
 
Could be a lot of things. First of all, if you have an 80GB, you probably only have 72-75GB to start out with. If you're running Vista, that takes up like 5GB, XP like 2-3GB. On mine, there is also a setup file in the C drive that has all the setup programs that came with my computer and drivers and what not, and that's like another 3GB. If you have a somewhat newer laptop, then it probably has a recovery partition... usually around 10GB.

There is a handy program called WinDirStat that will examen the contents of your hard drive and tell you exactly what files are using up how much room, it's really useful, you might want to check it out.
 
well thank you for the help sir i'll check that program out. I need as much space as i can get because i want to put all my music making programs on the laptop too. I have some question about the external harddrive then if you don't mind. Alright so i have a bunch of programs on my external, besides all the pictures and mp3's. Can i run a program on the external and keep it on that instead of on the laptop? Do you get what i'm saying? So like i can still use it on the laptop, but i would have to have the external plugged in, but it wouldn't take up any space on the laptop? ANd would you recommend deleted the recovery program on vista to save space, but then like adding the whole 80gb of the laptop to the external? THat would be kind of like a backup right? THanks
 
Back
Top