January 04, 2011 10:24PM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 1,869 : Amagansett, New York |
Hi Guys, I've got two hard drives in my lap top, one is the acer preload (35 gigs) which is full and the other is D drive (65 gigs) which is empty pretty much. Can I switch things over from one to the other? and if so, what things could go; I tunes, could I shift the whole I tunes thing with all my music in there??
I'm wondering what is the reason for two separate hard drives in the first place? Thanks, Rick |
January 05, 2011 01:23AM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 188 : Sunny South Africa |
Hi Rick
You can put pretty much whatever you like onto the second drive, but it will require a bit of work on your part, obviously stand alone stuff like pics and documents and the like you can just cut and paste over, but if you want to move actual programs across, you will need to uninstall the program and then reinstall it, pointing it to the second drive when it promps you to select the location, because most all programs by default install onto the main or C: drive or C:/Program Files, so it is just a simple matter of pointing it to your second drive instead during the install. Not sure why two drives, but normaly a lot of people just run the operating system and their documents on the smaller, main drive, then put everything on the big secondary drive, helps keep the system cleaner and faster as well if the drive that the operating system is on is clean and clear of clutter. But I am sure someone with a far better knowlege of the workings of these things will step in in short time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E30'S AREN'T BUILT, THEY'RE CAUGHT IN THE WILD!!! When in doubt, use full throttle, it may not improve the situation, but it will end the suspence. |
January 05, 2011 06:45AM
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Admin
Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 584 : Vermont, USA |
Like Flyboy says, you can move any documents and non-program files over to D: without breaking anything. But don't go moving anything from C:\Program files or C:\windows or you'll make all kinds of bad stuff happen.
There are a couple reasons for having two separate drives. The first is if you have two physical drives in your computer, they're pretty much forced to show up as two separate drives. More commonly, you can have a single physical drive partitioned into two or more logical drives (C:, D:, etc.). Usually this is done to avoid problems if your disk fills up. If your C: drive fills up, the system can slow to a crawl. But if you have all your stuff on a separate D: drive and it fills up with all your junk, all that happens is that you can't save any more stuff. As long as C: still has space, the system will hum along fine. The same is true for Mac and Linux systems as well (though they don't use the C: and D: notation). Personally, I generally just put everything on a single virtual drive and just try to keep it from filling up. __________ Dave '91 325iX |
January 05, 2011 07:54AM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 609 : SoCal |
hmmm, I don't think I have ever seen a laptop with 2 physical drives, most likely one drive partitioned into 2 drives (like one drawer with a divider panel in it). Rick, make sure you have critical stuff like music and docs backed up to a separate location like on a USB drive so if the drive on the laptop fails you are not SOL.
alan |
January 05, 2011 08:14AM
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Admin
Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 584 : Vermont, USA |
Me neither. That's why I wrote the part about a single physical drive partitioned into two logical drives being more likely. And yes, I agree -- ALWAYS have your important stuff in more than one place. There's nothing worse than losing irreplaceable files because there were only on one disk, and the drive crashes. Several times over the years I've had to break that news to people at work, and they never feel very good about it. __________ Dave '91 325iX |
January 05, 2011 08:18AM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 609 : SoCal |
The only drives that fail are the ones that aren't backed up. They know...... I recently found an enclosure for a making an old laptop harddrive into a small USB drive. It derives it's power from the usb connection and is the size of a laptop drive so it fits into your shirt pocket. It is really slick. Here is a link: [www.tigerdirect.com] alan Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2011 08:22AM by alanrw. |
January 05, 2011 08:25AM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 609 : SoCal |
January 05, 2011 10:05PM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 1,869 : Amagansett, New York |
Thanks Guys, If I open my computer it does have two separate hard drives, whether they are two, in fact, separate units I don't know but I'll take Flyboys and Dave's advice and transfer large things carefully. I've got my Video software, and a few videos, and I'll transfer them on to the free drive. A lot of my Itunes will have to turn in to cd's because I don't think I can copy and paste them over but I wouldn't mind having the few disc's I don't have and have borrowed to put them in my Itunes anyway.
I understand I'll have to launch certain programs first then reinstall them on my free drive. That's great to know, thank you, wish I started that way.... In fact, you guys are so nice about walking this rookie through basic computer stuff I'm all about flash drives, it gives me back up (just don't loose them as my late Mother in law used to tell me!) and I use you-tube and put-file so I can store my videos there instead of my hard drive (is there a better way?). One of these days I will buy a real back-up hard drive but for the time being ... Eventually I'd like to get a head unit in the car that would receive a usb flash drive so I could have all my music on a few flash drives and leave the cds at home. Thanks, Rick |
January 06, 2011 04:25AM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 188 : Sunny South Africa |
Rick, no need to spend the extra cash, you get those little gadgets that plug into the cigar lighter and accept a stick and transmit on the FM band, so the music plays through your current car radio. I bought one a while back and love it, no wires, plug and play, I paid about $15 for it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E30'S AREN'T BUILT, THEY'RE CAUGHT IN THE WILD!!! When in doubt, use full throttle, it may not improve the situation, but it will end the suspence. |
January 06, 2011 09:37AM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 636 |
That device and how well it works depends a little bit(a lot) on the area, and if you're an audiophile or not It works pretty good, at least as well as a tape adapter. But they usually aren't powerful enough to overwhelm a local station. In fact lots of times you can get some bleed from close stations(in the spectrum). So here in the country it worked great. But go into the big city and you couldn't find a station that wasn't taken or caused occasional bleed over. When I bought my car 3 or 4 years ago I got a head unit for the e30 that had an aux input and a red display. Sucker set me back $89 but was the best performance improvement I ever made. I drive better and feel like I'm going faster with good music playing As for the computer stuff, note that applications are not like to be aware that you have moved files that they depend on. For example, depending on how iTunes is set up, grabbing the whole library and moving it someplace else may confuse it, and the next time you start iTunes it'll look like you have no music. If you want more help with moving this app, let me know. And in case anyone is wondering, Computer Science/Software Engineer is nothing like IT, otherwise I'd be more helpful ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles 2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles |
January 06, 2011 10:50AM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 609 : SoCal |
January 06, 2011 11:40AM
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Registered: 15 years ago
Posts: 636 |
And iTunes can be set up this way. It has to do with how it was initially set up. Either iTunes can keep track of the data, or you can keep track of the data for it. If the former, iTunes assumes you aren't screwing with the files and their location I know that I have my iTunes folder in a location that isn't the default, and it wasn't too much trouble when done correctly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles 2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles |