Hard drive upgrade- help!

[mick s]

It appears that I have only about 2GB space left on my laptop hardrive it is a DEll Inspiron 640m with 120GB hard drive .

Any advice on best place to go for an upgrade would be appreciated.

Dell appear to be quite reluctant to upgrade which is annoying as it is only 12 months old,and it appears that large amounts of this hard drive get used up before you even start saving files.

Can I compress my music files in anyway to create more space or do something else to create space?

I have backed up my files on to a remote hard drive although is there away to check I have done this correctly as I would hate to upgrade and find i did not do it correctly?

Can you pay to get someone to back up files for you?

[pmjd]

Originally Posted by mick s

Can you pay to get someone to back up files for you?

There's always someone willing to take money off you

You could buy a new HDD, there's double your current size for £57 and a ludicrous 320GB on on offer too for £85. If your upto a bit of diy you could get a HDD disk caddy from ebay for about £5-£10, pop your new drive in it and clone the contents of your current drive onto it. Once done take out the old drive and replace with the new one. I'm a bit out of touch with what programs are best to do this on PCs these days but can have a look if you want. Alternatively you could take it to a computer shop and pay someone to do it.

I've never found compression of file to be great if you want to actually use them on a regular basis, and it'll only delay your problem of running out of space for a wee while.

There is a free program from Microsoft called Sync toy, which is rather handy for backing up files to another drive and keeping them in check and it'll only update any changes rather than the whole thing in one go

HTH,
Paul

[martingold]

you could buy a small external usb drive i got a 120gig one for about £40 you then just move your data files to it is photos music docs etc
As it happens you should always back up your data anyway i have my photos and music in at least three places

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by mick s

It appears that I have only about 2GB space left on my laptop hardrive it is a DEll Inspiron 640m with 120GB hard drive .

Any advice on best place to go for an upgrade would be appreciated.

you can buy a bigger drive from ebuyer.co.uk or similar - a 160gb laptop drive will be about £50 - but you then have backup/restore steps to go through.

Dell appear to be quite reluctant to upgrade which is annoying as it is only 12 months old,and it appears that large amounts of this hard drive get used up before you even start saving files.

Thats called the "operating system" well that and the file system you format the drive with. Things like hibernation files, pagefiles, the recycle bin and system restore files all take up space "before you even start saving files" as you say. If you don't like it - switch them all off

Can I compress my music files in anyway to create more space or do something else to create space?

No you probably can't compress your music files to save space, at least not without losing quality and I'm assuming they are already compressed with a lossy format such as mp3 or aac or ogg - meaning the bits that can be removed to make it smaller already have been and another form of compression is not likely to save anything other than a minute amount more. You can always use another codec - change from mp3 to ogg perhaps but without the original file all you're doing is butchering your music

I have backed up my files on to a remote hard drive although is there away to check I have done this correctly as I would hate to upgrade and find i did not do it correctly?

Backing up to an external HD is your best bet, and if you then check your music player of choice can still play the files, you'll find out if you copied them successfully. (or simply right-click on the same directory on each HD and select Properties to see the size). I don't know why you feel you need to do anything else? You can now delete these files from your laptop hard drive. If you feel your external HD isnt portable enough to use these files in future, get a smaller 2.5" based one - it needs no external power supply.

Can you pay to get someone to back up files for you?

yes you can pay someone to do backups, PCWorld will do it for a small fortune but as you've said already, you've done it to an external hard drive

[martingold]

Originally Posted by mick s

I have backed up my files on to a remote hard drive although is there away to check I have done this correctly as I would hate to upgrade and find i did not do it correctly?

oops i didnt read this bit lol

[dep]

does Windows "back up and restore" still ONLY work when the same operating system is in use at the restore time?

What about one of those 1Tb Ethernet HDDs?

[pmjd]

Originally Posted by dep

What about one of those 1Tb Ethernet HDDs?

Expensive overkill? (that coming from someone who is seriously considering buying an apple time capsule backup device)

[Dreadful Scathe]

ONLY £150 from PC world
- with an extra usb port in the back for plugging in another external overkill ? nah

[pmjd]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

ONLY £150 from PC world
- with an extra usb port in the back for plugging in another external overkill ? nah

Good find Been a while since i looked into them, last time it was a buffalo device that was near £300 and that was for 10/100 ethernet and a lot less storage

[DavidY]

Originally Posted by pmjd

If your upto a bit of diy you could get a HDD disk caddy from ebay for about £5-£10, pop your new drive in it and clone the contents of your current drive onto it. Once done take out the old drive and replace with the new one. I'm a bit out of touch with what programs are best to do this on PCs these days but can have a look if you want.

I rather suspect that you need to (a) know what you're doing and (b) have the right disk imaging software to create a clone in this way.

You might also find that your original disk has a hidden partition that you can't see (for instance with recovery information) - you'd have to make sure you copied this across to the new disk too.

There's also the possibility that the first time you plug your new disk in and switch on, it doesn't work.

If there are files that you can store offline (ie if you don't need to carry all the data in your laptop), the approach of having external storage is much simpler as you can just plug it in and you're not touching the operating system or software.

[pmjd]

Originally Posted by DavidY

I rather suspect that you need to (a) know what you're doing and (b) have the right disk imaging software to create a clone in this way.

Laptops are surprisingly easy to do things to change HDDs on, only requires removing a couple of screws on Mick's laptop The last time I used any disk imaging software it was Acronis backup which had a nice easy option to clone the old disk onto a bigger and newer disk. Worked fine.

Originally Posted by DavidY

You might also find that your original disk has a hidden partition that you can't see (for instance with recovery information) - you'd have to make sure you copied this across to the new disk too.

As long as Mick has the restore CDs he'll be fine, dell usually include them. I installed a new HDD in my parents dell desktop using the supplied CDs and all was well.

Originally Posted by DavidY

There's also the possibility that the first time you plug your new disk in and switch on, it doesn't work.

Unlikely as the disk would be cloned and ready to go, plus the sata disk that Mick's laptop uses doesn't have any problems with master/slave jumper setting on the disk. Besides he always has the old one which would be untouched.

Originally Posted by DavidY

If there are files that you can store offline (ie if you don't need to carry all the data in your laptop), the approach of having external storage is much simpler as you can just plug it in and you're not touching the operating system or software.

Simpler yes but depends what Mick really wants to do. I use a 2.5" external (my old laptop HDD from when I had to do the same) which is very handy as it doesn't require an external power source unlike the bigger but cheaper 3.5" backup disk solutions but either way it's still more stuff to lug around.

Mick it's up to you!!!

[DavidY]

Originally Posted by pmjd

Good Stuff snipped

Don't disagree with any of that. I didn't know about the Dell recovery CD - I've had problems with losing hidden partitions when trying to do similar things several years ago.

I'd stick by my statement that you need to know what you're doing and have the right software cloning tool, though...

[mick s]

Well my first line of attack is to try and get Dell to upgrade for free as in my opinion they sold me the wrong thing in the first place(unlikely I know but I can be quite persausive).

I have had a price of £115 + vat to upgrade to 200GB including rebuild by a local supllier although Dell reckon it has not been tested beyond 160GB.

I think I will wait until after Southport or my sets may be a bit short!.

(only joking most is backed up on ext Hard drive and on discs).

[pmjd]

Originally Posted by DavidY

Don't disagree with any of that. I didn't know about the Dell recovery CD - I've had problems with losing hidden partitions when trying to do similar things several years ago.

Been burned by that in the past too, even when my HDD on ny first PC went and was replaced onsite by a compaq engineer who then said I hope you made recovery disks (which I had done) and left me to it. Or the specialised windows CD I got from Rock that as soon as you boot from defaults to wiping your HDD and reinstalling windows without asking or warning

Originally Posted by DavidY

I'd stick by my statement that you need to know what you're doing and have the right software cloning tool, though...

I agree with you on both counts, it's just that I think it's not as difficult to do as people think it is

[pmjd]

Originally Posted by mick s

Well my first line of attack is to try and get Dell to upgrade for free as in my opinion they sold me the wrong thing in the first place(unlikely I know but I can be quite persausive).

Good luck! A customer bought two computers and asked for something to connect them together....what he should have got was a couple of quids worth of ethernet cable, instead he was sold a few hundred pounds worth of server Dell refused to take the server back saying their sales people had acted correctly.

Originally Posted by mick s

I have had a price of £115 + vat to upgrade to 200GB including rebuild by a local supllier although Dell reckon it has not been tested beyond 160GB.

I think I will wait until after Southport or my sets may be a bit short!.

(only joking most is backed up on ext Hard drive and on discs).

Going to Southport, can take a screwdriver with me

[mick s]

Going to Southport, can take a screwdriver with me[/quote]

Well that sounds like an offer, will need something to do as on crutches at the moment and will n0t be able to dance.