Running Out Of Space! - Please Help

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Originally posted by Ste Disk Clean up.
Defragment.

What does this do? And theres no chance i'll lose anything right? I know how to do it but ive never done it before.

Thanks for the replys everyone, cheers.
 
talldude123 said:
Defragmenting just "organizes" your data. You don't lose a thing.

What do you mean 'organizes'? It dosn't change anything visually does it? Like moves things around where i cant find? I know i sound like a dafty but i just dont like taking risks..im paranoid!

And what does 'Disk Clean Up' do? I wont lose anything by doing that either..right??

Thanks for the help once again.
 
Parky-RFC said:
What do you mean 'organizes'? It dosn't change anything visually does it? Like moves things around where i cant find? I know i sound like a dafty but i just dont like taking risks..im paranoid!

And what does 'Disk Clean Up' do? I wont lose anything by doing that either..right??

Thanks for the help once again.

After you add/remove data to your hard-drive a lot, you create fragmented pieces. Defragmenting basically goes in and removes those pieces. You will not lose any data.

I recommend you download a program to do it, as the Windows one sucks.


Also, don't buy a Maxtor hard-drive, sorry Maxtor fans. Western Digital is good, and Seagate is excellent. If you want a drive that lasts forever, make it a Seagate.

You may want to pick up a SATA controller card. They're only like 12 - 15$ (or can be more expensive, it depends on what you get) so that you can buy a faster and cheaper SATA hard drive.
 
Think of defragging as lots of cookies on a table spread out, after defragging is done all the cookies will be together in a circle rather than spread out over the whole table, hence the pc should perform abit better as the files are closer together and in order, its impossible to lose anything though
 
defragging does not change the directories (folders) that files are in
defragging just organises their physical location on the hard disk platter, so it can access the files faster

anyway, just get a 400GB Seagate Barracuda

once you put it in, go to start -> run -> "diskmgmt.msc"

from there, you can format your new drive
 
Thanks again for the reply's people, very much appreciated.

On the first page, 'Ste' recommended me to buy and internal hard drive & an external enclosure. Why should i not just buy an external hard drive?

Whats the advantages of buying an internal hard drive & an external closure.

Why shouldn't i buy an external hard drive just on itself?
 
More expensive, and if the external hard drive burns out you have to toss everything. If the internal HD burns out you'll have to buy a new drive and stick it in the enclosure. HDs get hot, problem with an external enclosure is that they don't let out enough heat.

You should be able to use 2 HD's in your computer, but I don't believe this will solve your problem. If your worried about losing data then dvd writer might be a better solution for you, 4.7 gb dvd's are dirt cheap, and are more durable, and last longer then all the HD's I've had. If its files your using alot then dvd isn't the best solution.
 
I've got an external hard drive (160 GB Western Digital), and it performs wonders when backing up my music, games, and warez (<- yea i know).

I would recommend what Ste said, if you do that you'll also be able to unplug it and take it and use it on another computer with relitivly no hasle, you dont even have to reformat to do so. Aside from not taking up space inside the computer thats the real beauty of them
 
Just going to throw this out there, because I too don't want to lose any of my data, so I have up and done something about it.

If you want to spend a little bit more money, you can have better data security. If you look in my sig, "The NAS Box" is MY data security. It has dual 500 Gig drives running in RAID1. That means that I have 500 Gig of space in the enclosure, and the drives are mirrored. When I look at the drive in Window Explorer, it looks like it is just one drive... the DNS-323 automatically mirrors the data onto the second drive, so that in the event of a drive failure, I have an EXACT DUPLICATE of the data on the second drive.

Sure, it costs more, My setup was about $525 for the enclosure & the drives, but it will be WELL WORTH it. You don't even have to use a 500 Gig drive, you could use any 2 drives, but the mirrored portion will only be as large as the smallest drive.

Good luck!!
 
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