After about 5 years with the same work computer, my original 40 GB hard drive is about spent. I'm thinking lately about putting in a second hard drive (assuming I have space and a place to hook it up) but I don't know what's involved with that. What are some of the issues associated with a system running with 2 internal hard drives? Feel free to point me to another forum or online articles if this information is already abundantly documented.

Thanks.

Hi Notesetter,

A 40GB HD is very small on todays standards so would it be possible for you to purchase an new HD of say about 100GB and go HERE for help in how to (install if possible) on your system. You can always use your older HD as the backup for your computer and start affresh with the new one.

Just a simple suggestion, but others will come by with their ideas.

Post back if you need and good luck with whatever you do.

kind regards,

If you are running out of room on your C: drive, getting a second hard drive may or may not help. You will have a nice big second hard drive but your first will still be almost full.



Now, if you were to transfer the original HD to a new, larger one with larger partitions, you would be cooking with gas. You need a 3rd party program to do that usually, like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. They allow you to transfer an "image" of your disk from the old to the new and they usually allow you to resize the partition at the same time. (I prefer True Image)


Now, with a 40GB hard drive, you MAY be able to move enough to the new hard drive so that it would free up some space. But you can only move data and pictures. If you try and move program files, they will not be able to find themselves when needed. You can Uninstall a program and reinstall and select the new drive to reinstall onto. (some programs need to be on the C: drive though)

I hope this helps and has not further confused or scared you.

DR

check this out: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/ The trial version is fully functional and works for 15 days.

This post has been edited by rigacci: Nov 27 2007, 01:56 PM

When purchasing a "new" Hard Drive, it usually will come with a utility CD to allow the user to "migrate" the entire contents of the old Hard Drive onto the new Hard Drive in exactly the same form as the user was familiar with AND the added benefit of having all the rest of the FREE Space available on the new Hard Drive.

Some utility CD's even come with a version of Acronis, as mentioned by rigacci above.
Shop around to see what is included.

Best Regards