[felicia]

Hi All,

Please go easy on me as I don't know much on this subject.

I have an Acer Aspire laptop I think its 80Gb, I have brought a Western Digital External Hard Drive of 500Gb whch I have pugged in and installed.

My question is do you just use the drive to store music, files etc or can you fix it so it sort of combines with your normal hard drive to make whole computer faster?

Also if I put music on it would the files be found if I clicked on them in a program like Itunes?

As you can tell I brought it but now not sure what to do with it and any help would be apprieciated.:o

[Wolfeymole]

Hi Felicia

Welcome back.

Just look at the 500gb as a big mass storage area for your music if that's where you want to put the files.
Once you have told ITunes where the files are you will be ok.

I won't even go into RAID arrays, (multiple drives with one operating system) as I feel you might become confused Felicia.
This is not intended as an insult. :)

[alex]

Originally Posted by felicia Hi All, Please go easy on me as I don't know much on this subject. I have an Acer Aspire laptop I think its 80Gb, I have brought a Western Digital External Hard Drive of 500Gb whch I have pugged in and installed. My question is do you just use the drive to store music, files etc or can you fix it so it sort of combines with your normal hard drive to make whole computer faster? Also if I put music on it would the files be found if I clicked on them in a program like Itunes? As you can tell I brought it but now not sure what to do with it and any help would be apprieciated.:o

Hey Felicia.

You use the external hard drive for, as you say, storage of movies/music/documents etc. It will also come in useful for backing up the drive on your laptop.

Stated simply, no you can't use the external to make your laptop faster, it's 'seen' by your computer as a peripheral device (an add-on), not part of the computer. And even if you could, the limiting factor would be the bandwidth of data transfer provided by the USB connection.

Your music will be found by iTunes if you 'tell' it where to search for music upon the initial install of the software.

Can't remember exactly how to do this myself as I havn't used iTunes for some time, but i'm sure other's will be able to assist.:)

[felicia]

Thanks, but thing is 500 is massive really just for music, Is it possible to share its other resources with computer? Is it Partitioning? Could I put programs on there I don't use that much but want to keep and access tham from there? Or does it not work like that? I'm good at following instructions:D.

[alex]

Originally Posted by felicia Thanks, but thing is 500 is massive really just for music, Is it possible to share its other resources with computer? Is it Partitioning? Could I put programs on there I don't use that much but want to keep and access tham from there? Or does it not work like that? I'm good at following instructions:D.

Firstly, what operating system are you using?

[felicia]

Windows xp pack 2

[Wolfeymole]

Originally Posted by felicia Thanks, but thing is 500 is massive really just for music, Is it possible to share its other resources with computer? Is it Partitioning? Could I put programs on there I don't use that much but want to keep and access tham from there? Or does it not work like that? I'm good at following instructions:D.

I would partition the hard drive into sections Felicia;
Have a look at this and see what you think;
220gb = Music
100gb = Downloaded Executable files ie Programs. All programs installed to, and I'm being purely alphabetical here, F would auto install to C even though being on F.
100 gb = Pictures, Word documents etc.
80gb = Backup

[felicia]

Thanks, that looks good, not sure whether to leave it or do that now, I saw on another thread the instructions on how best to do it I think, are there any main Do's and Don'ts
PS. Think computer only 40gb, what would you do?

[Wolfeymole]

You said in your first post the hard drive was 80gb.
To make sure, double click on My Computer then Right click on C and choose properties you will see the exact size of the hard drive.

[felicia]

Hummm.. Acutally its say's 26.2gb:(

[Wolfeymole]

Is that what it actually says in Capacity Felicia hun?
Even if it does it's no big deal.

[felicia]

Yes 26.2gb total, free space 8.86gb, so my first estimate was well off:)

[Wolfeymole]

Like I say honey it will be ok to run with that and obtain the 500gb, partition it how you wish and if you encounter problems get back to us.
By the way might you be interested in a competition we are thinking of running with a prize of a brand new laptop?

[felicia]

ok, great, thanks for the help.

Re: Competition, sounds good! If its anything to do with hard drives or singing I doubt I'll win:), give me a drawing competion or something

[Wolfeymole]

Hahhahah at least you admit you can't sing unlike 75% of the entrants for the X Factor. :D
Why don't you pop some of your artwork on here let's have a look.