Hi guys, I'm new and my knowledge on computers is limited.. so go easy on me 
. Also, please keep my lack of knowledge in mind when using any acronyms or explanations. Thanks in advance!
OK, so my HP dv6426us currently has a 160gb HDD in it, still works and nothing is wrong with it. I have purchased an Intel 120gb SSD that I plan to swap out with my current HDD, and use the HDD in an enclosure for external storage. I'd like to clean off my current hard drive before I transfer to and install the SSD.
Question #1) Hard drive space (a) - If the current HDD is supposed to be 160gb, why does the computer show only 140gb available in the C drive and 8.12 in the D (recovery) drive? Are the other 11.88 gigs reserved for the OS?
Question #2) Hard drive space (b) - It says there are only 42 gigs free of 140 gigs of space, WHAT IS EATING UP ALL MY HARD DRIVE SPACE!? I only have Microsoft office 2007, Visio 2007, Autodesk Inventor (student ed.), and all the music I have, pictures, and documents total up to less than 4 gigs. So the question is what is burning up all the space? There's absolutely no way the few things I have need that much space.
Question #3) System restore - The computer originally had windows vista, and I did the windows 7 upgrade. The upgrade was a free download through school, so I have no disks or anything. I remember back when I had vista, when the system was booting up, you could hit F11 or something like that and do a COMPLETE system restore and it would clean off all the crap and put it back to the way it was when new. Before I migrate everything to the new SSD, I'd like to back up all the files I want to keep and then clear all the cob webs and crap out. Is there a way to do this with windows 7, similar to the way it was easily done in vista?
Thanks again!!
. Also, please keep my lack of knowledge in mind when using any acronyms or explanations. Thanks in advance!OK, so my HP dv6426us currently has a 160gb HDD in it, still works and nothing is wrong with it. I have purchased an Intel 120gb SSD that I plan to swap out with my current HDD, and use the HDD in an enclosure for external storage. I'd like to clean off my current hard drive before I transfer to and install the SSD.
Question #1) Hard drive space (a) - If the current HDD is supposed to be 160gb, why does the computer show only 140gb available in the C drive and 8.12 in the D (recovery) drive? Are the other 11.88 gigs reserved for the OS?
Question #2) Hard drive space (b) - It says there are only 42 gigs free of 140 gigs of space, WHAT IS EATING UP ALL MY HARD DRIVE SPACE!? I only have Microsoft office 2007, Visio 2007, Autodesk Inventor (student ed.), and all the music I have, pictures, and documents total up to less than 4 gigs. So the question is what is burning up all the space? There's absolutely no way the few things I have need that much space.
Question #3) System restore - The computer originally had windows vista, and I did the windows 7 upgrade. The upgrade was a free download through school, so I have no disks or anything. I remember back when I had vista, when the system was booting up, you could hit F11 or something like that and do a COMPLETE system restore and it would clean off all the crap and put it back to the way it was when new. Before I migrate everything to the new SSD, I'd like to back up all the files I want to keep and then clear all the cob webs and crap out. Is there a way to do this with windows 7, similar to the way it was easily done in vista?
Thanks again!!
