Is it possbile to have 3 >> 120GB hard drives on my pc

[jamieuk23]

Hi, at this moment in time I have 2 x 120GB hard drives on my PC, but Laterly I am running out of space on both drives as I store a lot of dvd-r movies on my PC.

Would it be possible to put another 200GB hard drive on my PC, or could i cause problems to my PC >???? ie overheating, slowing my pc down etc.

I dont want to burn all my movies off on 2 dvd-r disks as I use them all the time, so that isnt a option.

+++ when I right click on my C drive and go to properties it says

USED SPACE > 91 GB
FREE SPACE > 4 GB

I dont understand how this drive can be this full, when I double left click on Drive C > to see the folders I have (progrmae files etc)

I drag my mouse cursor over every folder and file to hightlight them all, and then go to properties and it says >>

SIZE > 53GB >>>> which is weird as 91GB take way 53GB = 38GB.

So in theroy I shoudl have 38 GB of free spave on Drice C.

Sorry to get abit complercated....... any idea were that 38GB will be so I can free my drive up



Thanks for any info you can give me. >>>> cheers jamie

here is my pc spec

windows xp
2.8 GHz
1 GB RAM

[WildmanJoe]

System Restore.... disable it.

[jamieuk23]

hi

How di I disbale system restore >>> thanks 4 help mate

[jamieuk23]

hi

soyy mate did a search on google, and did what you told me to do.

what exactly will disabling ststem restore do >> I have done it but it hasnt freed any of my missing hard drive space up.

[GeneralLeoFF]

I do not understand how the drive could say 91GB used and 4 GB free. That comes out as only 95GB but you say the drive is 120GB. Why is it not accounting for that 15GB?

Is the drive partitiond? does your bios support drives as large as 120GB? Going on the (though limited) specs you posted it does. I dont know why it's not accounting for it though.

Anyway disabling system restore will free up a ton of space if it's been on and the system used for a long time. If you go un hide hidden folders/files you should see a folder named "system volume information" (you wont have permision to open it by default). You can check it;s propertys and odds are this folder is eating up TONs of space.

Somewhere in XP that I dont remember where is an option to purge all the system restore files. I think it might happen after you disable it. To disable it just go in the controll panel and click on system. From there you cant miss it.

While yer at it running disc cleanup on all drives isnt a bad idea.

Oh and nah theres no real problem in adding a 3rd hard drive if you want to. I run 3 now.

[Phytrax]

Give some more specs on your computer please: Windows version, motherboard, cpu?

I don't recommend disabling system restore, but you can turn down how much hard drive space it uses. You should be able to setup all your system restore options under your Accessories folder in WinXP. If you have WinME you need to upgrade.

You can put as many hard drives as you want but if your IDE ports are full you may need to add an SATA card or use external hard drives. I hope you have USB2 or Firewire for external.

[GeneralLeoFF]

oops I mean 25GB missing... How the hell did I mess that up?

[jahkaine]

Yes, disabling System Restore will wipe all your Restore Points and, in theory, give you back the space it was using. Apparently in Jamie's case, it wasn't using much. Definitely check for Hidden and/or System. You know how XP don't like to even show you Windows folder.

3 Hds? Man, I only have a 10 and a 20 Gb. Is someone gonna break me off a piece or what?

[andrewpk200]

just a quick reply, have had this problem myself

do you have norton systemworks installed

if you have then it does strange things to your recycle bin without telling you
right click the recycle bin and select properties -> norton protection -> empty protected files, then disable protection for each drive
basically what is has been doing is any of the files that when you click delete come up with the message 'to big to fit in recycle bin' then it hides them from you instead of deleting them,

if you dont have norton system works then i have absolutly no idea

AndrewPK

[jed5634]

You can always add an IDE controller card to a PCI slot. That will give you another two IDE channels (4 devices). You can then move all your optical drives to the card and keep all your fast HDDs on the native IDE connections.

Motherboard specs would be nice as you might have a MB that supports RAID and might have additional IDE channels not used. I run one and have 3 HDDs (450GB total), 2 DVD-ROMs and 1 DVD Burner. I still have the capacity to add 1 more optical drive and 5 more HDDs before I have to go to an extra controller card.