Can I add Documents to my external HD?

Question

I have a 25 BG hard drive laptop (Dell Inspiron 1200), with an upgraded RAM of 1 GB. I ALSO have an EXTERNAL 80 GB hard drive that is pretty much always attached to my computer. Now my internal HD of 25 Gb is almost full, but my External HD still has plenty of space. It was suggested I not add PROGRAMS to the External HD, but rather leave thsoe on the Internal drive. Can I take the entire Documents and Settings folder (which currently takes 11.6 GB space), and move the whole thing to the external drive? I have already moved all my pics and music and videos, but the folder is still enormous. Or does the "settings" portion of the folder require it to remain on the C: drive for pragram start ups? Thanks....

Answer 1

You can't do that. If you were to try it would give you an error telling you that something in the document and setting folder is currently being used.

I don't understand how it is still taking 11.6gb of space if you moved all your pictures, music and videos out of there. Your My Documents folder is probably the folder that takes up most of your space. Are you sure you moved the files you said you moved?

Answer 2

The documents part, yes. The settings part, no.

Just transport your MyDocuments folder to the external hard drive. Some laptops can be upgraded to a larger storage hard drive.
Some upgrade places may transfer all data from the old hard drive to the new one.

BTW: It sounds like you haven't deleted your already transferred files from your My Documents folder. Sometimes, drive to drive transfers keep a copy. Go ahead and delete the old My Documents items as long as you have already transferred them to the external drive.

Answer 3

Doubt it..... for programs....... uninstall any you don't need or rarely use anymore (make sure there aren't any saved files in the folders for them first that accidently got saved there by default, such as any webpublishing / FLASH animation tools / desktop publishing files / OFFICE files, etc)......... reinstall the programs on the external one (with my first PC, which only had a 1.8GB hard drive I then started moving stuff and running programs off a Zip drive until I had a 20GB secondary hard drive fitted).
If you just try to drag&drop programs onto the external disk, when you open them you'll get sh*tloads of error messages, such as "cannot find xyz.dll"
If you've got anything like Microsoft publisher files on there.... try shifting them too, they can get HUGE.

If you use Internet Explorer on your laptop, another thing you may want to check is the TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES folder, which sometimes gets a corrupted database file..... I've had mine get to well over 4GB 'cos of that (When I only had it set at 2GB).... and still shows a large size, even if you empty the damn thing and the folder appears empty.
There's more blurb on it here: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/21398/21398.html
If it has happened, quickest & easiest fix I've found it is to install ZONEALARM INTERNET SECURITY SUITE, and use the "Cache Cleaner" tool provided with it.

As it's got 1GB of RAM you may be able to get away with disabling the VIRTUAL MEMORY paging file (if it hasn't been already)..... which is where the computer uses a bit of your hard drive to stick things it's run out of space for in RAM.

Alternatively rip out the standard hard drive, and replace it with something bigger, such as a "Western Digital SCORPIO" or "Seagate MOMENTUS" laptop hard drive
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Notebook_Drives.html

Answer 4

YES, You can do that, however it is a bit tricky.

Instead I would suggest only moving "My Documents" which is the safest thing to do.

Otherwise you can follow the `More Information` part of this explanation by Microsoft. Be aware that it is easy to `hurt` your Windows if you do anything wrong.

Answer 5

dont move docs\setting
it contains windows files too
just anything thats a file, docs,movies,pics, exe programs
folders ect.

reason is programs make registry files that live in C:\\

Answer 6

no