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[amba]

I have a Dell Inspirion 1720  laptop which I use for work with a computer design system from company called Articad.

The  tight firm I do sub work for told us that we needed to buy a laptop as all there sales designs for bedrooms/kitchens would only be accepetd in computer format.

For the last year I have stuggled along with the sytem ,only using it when absolutley necessary,as I am not very computer literate and it was the only way I could get them to pass me work.They have now upgraded the software they use and my laptop doesn,t have enough space to download the new operating upgrade.

Up till now it has been in drive C which had a total storgae of about 30gb but now tells me it only has 160mb free.Computer has 160gb of storage but Dell seem to have some strange system of splitting it across various drives.C/D/E/F..all of which have almost non used.

From talking to a technical guy at our main office he says Dell cannot shift  storage across drives and I will need to upgrade ....can I just fit a second extra hard drive as reading Dells site it seems to make it look like you just plug another in?

I would be gratefull for some advise from any body with a bit of computer info that could advise best action to take.

[Mr Skrunts]

If the drive is partitioned into maybe drives C: and D: then I dont understand why you cant just move "My Documents" as a whole  to drive D: if there is enough space

Sounds like your cueewbt drive C: is clogged up, this could be freed off in a few ways, 1st being clearing the temp internet cache, then backing up photo's , music and pictures.  or even buy an external USB hard drive backing all your work and private files up to it.

[Shelby]

For laptops, I have never come across one where you can just fit an extra hard drive, they generally only have room for 1.

Yes, Dell (and other manufacturers) do often partition their harddrives (make 1 physical drive into multiple electronic drives i.e. C: D: E: etc).  Generally this can be adjusted with software and is normally easy to do.

If you can give me the exact make and model of the laptop, or ideally the Dell service tag number, I will have a look at the actual specs and will try and give you more information.

I have also PM you with a computer forum I have used for many years, there is a lot of expertise on there and I have no doubt they will be able to give you more advice and help.  Used PM as I am need to check up on this sites rules regarding advertising other sites / forums, dont want to get a spanking 

[Mr Skrunts]

I think the 1720 does allow fitting a second hard drive, cant see the point myself, just fit a bigger drive and reinstall, but had an extra partition regardless.

[amba]

Model is an Inspirion 1720 Dell...

PP22X if that makes any sense ?

It has a total h/d of 160gb which is split across several drives but it seems everything I have loaded/windows/work stuff/etc is in drive C which is now telling me it cannot hold anymore.

I did a google search and it appears that this laptop has the facility to add an extra H/D in the back so wondred if doubling up would improve the situation as imaging with only 30gb available in C anyway what ever I clear.(assuming I can work that out) will be in a similar position again in a while especially if this new work stuff requires a lot of h/d.

[Shelby]

I think the 1720 does allow fitting a second hard drive, cant see the point myself, just fit a bigger drive and reinstall, but had an extra partition regardless.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1720/en/om_en/pdf/DT5494MR.pdf

Looking at this manual I agree, it certainly looks like it has two bays.  However, based on the OP description it would probably be cheaper to clean up the current drive / repartion it and make better use of the existing space.

If C: is only 30gb used, then your best and easiest bet would be as Mr Skunts says, and move all your personal / work files onto the non-used partition.  This is generally how they are designed to be used, C: for programs other drive for file storage etc.  However Windows being helpful as it is, defaults to putting everything on the C: drive!

With your C: drive being that full it will also likely be impacting on your overall system performance.

According to the specs I can find it comes with Windows Vista, is this correct?  Worth asking as if its a company machine they may have stuck something else on it.  With a confirmed operating system I am sure I (or someone) can come up with a step by step process to move the documents.

[zirk]

With USB Laptop Hard drives being about £1 per 10gb these days a quick solution would be be to get one of these to hang off one of your USB ports (500gb approx £50).

Long term sounds like you need to tidy up your C drive and start deleting unused stuff, CCleaner is a good start and free.

If you go down the USB HD drive option you or someone you know could just clone or ghost your Laptop Drive image to the new USB drive, make sure it boots and works, then replace the internal USB drive in favor of your pld Laptop one. You will need to check which drive is in the Lappy, but guessing its a 2.5 Sata.

Job done.

Chris.   

[TheBoy]

By default, Dell do not partition their drives (they keep small hidden partitions for system restores and diags), so I'd suggest some idiot has buggered about with that one.

[Mr Skrunts]

I think the 1720 does allow fitting a second hard drive, cant see the point myself, just fit a bigger drive and reinstall, but had an extra partition regardless.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1720/en/om_en/pdf/DT5494MR.pdf

Looking at this manual I agree, it certainly looks like it has two bays.  However, based on the OP description it would probably be cheaper to clean up the current drive / repartion it and make better use of the existing space.

If C: is only 30gb used, then your best and easiest bet would be as Mr Skunts says, and move all your personal / work files onto the non-used partition.  This is generally how they are designed to be used, C: for programs other drive for file storage etc.  However Windows being helpful as it is, defaults to putting everything on the C: drive!

With your C: drive being that full it will also likely be impacting on your overall system performance.

According to the specs I can find it comes with Windows Vista, is this correct?  Worth asking as if its a company machine they may have stuck something else on it.  With a confirmed operating system I am sure I (or someone) can come up with a step by step process to move the documents.

Thought so, it's the same model I have, bought it and never really used it.  Firdt thing I decided was to uprade the HD and add more RAM.

Nice lappy for what it is.

[cem_devecioglu]

160 gb is not a small disk imo(check your partition sizes from my computer - right click - manage- disk management)..there are many ways to solve your problem..

first, as said above clean temporary files and internet cache.. write your mp3 ,video files,documents to a dvd or cd..

from control panel > add remove programs check for your unused programs and uninstall them..

if all those dont help, repartition and format ..

[amba]

Thanks for all your helpfull advuise ,Guys..and for your information" if some idiot has buggered around with it".it certainly isn,t me as I dont understand the thing at the best of times...I just press the buttons and hope it works !!

Will see if I can move some unwanted and redundant stuff to another drive or delete.

Is it possible to move capacity around then ...shift some from say F drive over to C.

[cem_devecioglu]

Thanks for all your helpfull advuise ,Guys..and for your information" if some idiot has buggered around with it".it certainly isn,t me as I dont understand the thing at the best of times...I just press the buttons and hope it works !!

Will see if I can move some unwanted and redundant stuff to another drive or delete.

Is it possible to move capacity around then ...shift some from say F drive over to C.

moving capacity isnt possible unless you re-partition and format.. try cleaning and uninstalls first imo..

[cem_devecioglu]

there is another alternative..

drive compression , but I never recommend :-/

[Shelby]

Thanks for all your helpfull advuise ,Guys..and for your information" if some idiot has buggered around with it".it certainly isn,t me as I dont understand the thing at the best of times...I just press the buttons and hope it works !!

Will see if I can move some unwanted and redundant stuff to another drive or delete.

Is it possible to move capacity around then ...shift some from say F drive over to C.

moving capacity isnt possible unless you re-partition and format.. try cleaning and uninstalls first imo..

You can, but it can only be done from an extended partition back to the primary, it can't be done from a logical partition, so it will all depend on how the drive partitioning has been done.  Unfortunately, I would expect any partitions to be logical which would need a format and reinstall to reallocate the space 

@amba: According to the Dell Service Tag that machine should have a 250gb hard drive in it.  If you go into Disk Management as described in the guide below or just click Start then type disk management into the run box it should give you one option which says create and format hard disk partitions.  Click that, a new window will open, give it a moment to gather system information.

When open, it should list all the disk and/or partitions, something a bit like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.theeldergeek.com/images/Disk%2520Management/DiskManagement01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_management.htm&usg=__wmsL9d2Mb_UUDRih9pv_34LJZg8=&h=589&w=734&sz=100&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=WY9hKNJpLkrFhM:&tbnh=134&tbnw=167&ei=0zyaTZypLMrDswbBnLjMCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvista%2Bdisk%2Bmanagement%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1920%26bih%3D860%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=262&oei=0zyaTZypLMrDswbBnLjMCA&page=1&ndsp=45&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0&tx=89&ty=63

but hopefully less complex haha.  Anything listed next to Disk 0 are partitions of your primary hard disk, I would expect it to only have a disk 0 (if there is only 1 physical hard drive), if it has a disk 1 aswell then you already have 2 hard drives in it.

The bit that is listed as Hard Drive C: and shaded, is your primary boot drive.  You might have a Dell Recovery partition on there aswell.  Anything else that is listed as a 'Logical Drive' is effectively storage area partitioned off from the main drive.  Would be useful to see what you have listed there.

[amba]

Did as requested and have the following :

V  L/O     TYPE   F/SY         Cap               f/space

C  simple  Basic  NTFS          34.18GB        840MB   
D  ........    ....      ......           117.19GB     113.33GB
E  .......     .....      ......          29.29GB         26.91GB
F  ......      .....      ......          52.22GB          45.71 GB


C  34.18 GB NFTS
Healthy(system.boot.page file.active

F   52.22GB NFTS
Healthy(Primary partition)

D   117.19GB NFTS
Healthy (Logical drive)

E    29.29GB NFTS
Healthy (Logical drive)

Disc   0
Basic
232.88gb
Online


Hope that all makes sense to somebody..looks like chinese to me ??

I assume I have enough Harddrive capacity for all I need its just in the wrong places and needs moving around