How do I expand the hard drive on my PC?

Question

The hard drive on my PC is nearly full. I've done a clean-up which has freed some space but there is nothing else I can delete. What would be the best way to expand the memory on the hard drive? Would an external hard drive do the trick? If so how do these work?

As you can probably tell I know very little about computers so please be kind!

Answer 1

i would say install another internal hard drive, like an IDE one, but, as you seem to be one of lifes. "i am so clever, i worked out what the start bar is today" kind of novices. i dont recommend it, as you would have to pay for fitting which will set you back another £30.



i would recommend that you purchase an external USB Hard drive. all you need to do is intall the driver and plug the USB lead into the socket. even my gran could do it, and she dont know a hard drive from a mouse. or how to turn a computer on, or use one.



anyway, i recommend at least 120GB+, and then transfer all your documents to the external, i.e. (word docs, powerpoints, photos etc). basically things you have saved. that will free up space on your original hard drive, so you would still be able to install software etc.



NEVER move or delete system files. i once did that, and my computer would not load up windows and i made a total mess of it. (although i was 12 and knew nothing about system files)



anyway, also try going into your control panel and removing software that you don't use.



good luck



john x

Answer 2

External Hard Drives work through an available USB on any PC aslong as it meets basic requirements. The external hard drives typically use a plug to power themselfs although you can buy hard drives that uses power from the USB port. The PC loads from your existing hard drive and you can save whatever you want onto the external. You can access the external drive through "My Computer" on Windows. Thats pretty much it - you can buy the hard drives in various sizes and different manufacturers. Normally FreeCom are very good and give out automated back up programs.

Answer 3

you have two options if you wish to have more hard disk space.You can either compress the files that you have on the current drive, or you can add another hard drive to your PC. The drive you add doesn't necessarily have to be external.... you can have 2 hard drives in your PC.

External hard drives are usually a USB device that works just like an ordinary hard drive but can take a little longer to access.In terms of what you would see in "my computer" you would have local drive "c" and the "d" would be your other hard drive.

Answer 4

Choose some folders that you use rarelly

right click of one of them choose property

In the tab general click on advanced and select

Compress content to save disk space

Or more simple:

Choose some folders that you use rarelly

Burn them on the CD/DVD

After that delete them.

Now you have a copy and you can use them only when you need from the DVD or CD

Yes an external hard drive is a good option to

Buy a RAID unit for an external hard disk and ask the vendor for the step that you need to install this as a hardware and on the BIOS

Answer 5

Yep an external hard drive would be perfect. All you need is a USB point - your printer should be connected to one of these if you ar enot sure what it looks like. It;'s a kinda rectunagler hole. The way mine works is I connect one point to the USB and one to the power. Connect it up when the pc has booted up and when you connect it, it will make a new drive. For example you have C in use for your existing hard drive; D in use for your CD; so it will make E you external hard drive. All you do is check my computer and voila! there it is.

Answer 6

There's internal drives I've seen up to 500 Gigs, External also on the other hand if you haven't opened your PC the external is connected by usb very easy it will come with software and found easy to install. Hope it helps

Answer 7

You can't really expand your current hard drive, but you can build in another one or use an external one. Using external ones is really easy. Basically, you just plug them into the USB port of your computer and Windows XP (which I assume is what you're using) will do the rest.

Answer 8

Buy a new hard drive (external or internal) it's the only way to add storage space.



By the way, you are not adding memory - just storage space, memory (RAM) is a different part of your PC and affects the way your PC works.

Answer 9

You need to buy a new one, you can plug up to 4 internal hard disks in your computer, if it's not too old buy a really big one, like 250GB or something. As you are not Computer Geek you should get professional help in installing the new hard disk. External hard disks also work, they plug into USB ports, but unless you have USB 2.0 ports you shouldn't consider buying one of these, because normal USB is very slow.

Answer 10

Get a new hard drive. You can buy an external one, that really you just plug in to the outside of your computer and start using, although they cost a bit more to buy (but you dont have to pay for installation if you cant install an internal one yourself).

Answer 11

Do a defrag of your hard drive. That will basically take all the free space on your drive and group it so it's more usuable.



After that, any external or internal harddrive would do the trick.

Answer 12

Yes, put on an external hard drive with plenty of gb (disc space) and it works in the same way as your internal hard drive.

Answer 13

You can add another hard disk on your system or you can use a external hardisk that 1 is a laptop hard drive which you can use as a external hardisk and ou can connect an external drive to your usb..thts all

Answer 14

the easiest thing for a nontech is to move all of your documents such as movies, pictures and music to an external hard drive. If you are willing to spend the money you can have the hard drive replaced with a bigger one or purchase a newer computer.

Answer 15

add another hard drive to your PC to add space to store files. You could get an external hard drive but those are typically more expensive. You should also delete any unused files, pictures, music

Answer 16

AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE IS YOUR BEST BET IF YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT COMPUTERS, THEY JUST PLUG INTO A USB PORT ON YOUR COMPUTER. THEY ARE USUALLY MORE EXPENSIVE, BUT THEY CAN BE MOVED FROM COMPUTER TO COMPUTER EASILY. SET UP IS 'PLUG AND PLAY' JUST CONNECT THE DRIVE AND WINDOWS OR OSX (MAC) WILL SET UP ALL THE DRIVERS ETC. NO SOFTWARE IS REQUIRED IF YOUR HAVE WINDOWS XP OR MAC OSX.



BUYING AN INTERNAL HARD DRIVE TO EITHER REPLACE OR RUN ALONGSIDE YOUR EXISTING ONE IS CHEAPER, BUT MUCH MORE FIDDLY TO SET UP, AS BIOS SETTINGS NEED TO BE CHANGED, MASTER AND SLAVES HAVE TO BE SET UP ETC. ITS SIMPLE, BUT NOT IF YOU DONT HAVE A CLUE ABOUT COMPUTERS!



LACIE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES ARE SOME OF THE BEST AROUND. THAT IS WHAT I USE ANYWAY!

Answer 17

an external hard drive would do the trick, but i'd reccomend you buying an internal harddrive and installing it, its really easy just follow the directions that came with the new hard drive.

Answer 18

the best option could be external USB based hard drive. You can also buy another hard drive and can get it configured as Secondary drive.

Answer 19

PC world are selling external hard drives for £80. It holds 250GB and you connect it via USB.

Answer 20

Use Web space, for example GMail where you have appr. 2.8 GB of FREE storage space. Also, if you have a Mozilla Firefox browser with GSpace plugin installed, you can upload/download files there.





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Valentin Ivanov,

Expert & Consultant

Internet Marketing,

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http://www.intermarkpro.com



Yahoo ID: valyowm

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Answer 21

If your hard drive is near capacity you can add another large capacity drive relatively cheaply. You can get another installed internally in your machine for about $150 or thereabouts. Good luck!

Answer 22

There are a few solutions. If you have a DVD writer you could burn up some DVDs with files you don't access too often, like movies, clips, music. If you don't buy one and burn DVDs. OR you could get a new HDD. Go ask your local store for prices on DVD writers and HDDs and compare. Consider your needs too.

Answer 23

Defragment your hard drive (click START and ALL PROGRAMS, in ACCESSORIES click on SYSTEM TOOLS you will find it there), after perform a disc clean up.

Also you can try to remove some unwanted programs/files from your pc.

Otherwise just upgrade your mem.

Answer 24

Any way would be to compress your seldom used documents using winzip. that would create a bit more space.

Answer 25

buy another drive and make it your secondary drive, or slave drive