I've got a external HD that I used on my xp which I don't use anymore. Nothing on it is any good,It's 149GB. What could I use it fore now on my 7, Should I format it? What files could I put on it. I don't know that much about a external HD. Thanks
Richard

External drives are just the same as internal ones except they are erm external:-). You can put what ever you want on there - use it to backup files/free up space on your main drive. If it's permanently attached then you could even install progs/games on there.

How do I know what to put in there. Where would I go to put anything in there. If games are installed in windows could I put them there. There would be no reg. files in the external HD. Could I put most everything from a HD. I've got two HD. One big and one small.
local(c:) 223 GB
Windows (D:) 70.6GB
Thank you mj2c.
Richard

You would have to direct things there. For instance, when you download something, you could direct your browser (Firefox, right?) to put all the downloads to the EHD. Or when you install something, if the options are there, you could have it install to the EHD.

For my Windows 7 installation I have a small 60 GB SSD (solid state drive) like you have with your two drives. I only have Windows 7 on it and a few other things. But I have a 500GB drive (inside the case) where I have told Windows 7 and my Firefox browser to put all my downloads, documents and pictures. I have also told the Big Fish Games client to install my games there. When I install a program that allows me to choose WHERE I install it, I install it to the big drive.

I would still like to know how your builder did your two SSDs. I wonder if he RAIDED them? That means he made them as if they were one drive. I've never done that, so I don't know if they would still appear as two separate drives in your My Computer. Jenny or Inland might know more about that or you could ask your builder. IF that's the case, then you essentially have nearly 300 GB of SSD space - which depending on your use might be enough.

Somewhere in the Glitches forum Jenny posted a great link to how to tell Windows 7 how to do all this. I thought I had bookmarked it, but I can't find it.

"How do I know what to put in there."
You would copy them there like you would any file. The fact that the drive is external makes no odds.

"Where would I go to put anything in there."
Windows explorer.

It looks like you have one internal HD partitioned into 2. Is that so?
When you attach your external HD then it will be assigned another drive letter.
What that letter is will depend on what other drives you have attached at the time CD/DVD Memory sticks
and so on.

A games installer often asks you where you want to install the game. You would choose this external drive.

"There would be no reg. files in the external HD."
I actually don't know what this means.

It appears he has two separate SSD drives in this new build. The 233 GB drive is an SSD and I believe the builder just threw in the 70.6 GB SSD. I'd still like to know if they are RAIDED together or two drives.

RAID 0 joins the drives into one big drive space.
But after that, the space can be partitioned into more than one.
So you can have two equal size physical drives, but end up seeing two or more partitions in Windows Explorer (My Computer).

The only advantage of RAID 0 is speed. Data can move through two interfaces instead of bottlenecking on one. But if either drive fails, you've lost all your data, not just the data on one of the drives.


Was it the Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels


That's what I was wondering.


I think he's talking about the entries in the registry that you get when you install games.

Richard when you say XP do you mean your XP computer? When you say Win 7 is that a new computer or was Win 7 installed on your XP machine? If you're talking about two different machines then you'll have to know how the external HD is connected to your XP machine. If it's by USB then you'd have to find a vacant USB port on your Win 7 machine and connect the external HD there. When you do that Win 7 will tell you it's discovered a new device and ask you some questions. If you installed the external HD to your XP machine then do you still have the install disk, or a link to those files, so you can install this drive on your Win 7 machine.

Personally, after installation, if there's nothing useful on that drive I check into formatting it to make sure it's completely clean. Go to the makers site and see if they have a procedure for reformatting it. Or if you didn't want to go that route, simply delete everything. This might take a bit of time but you could make sure you wanted those files deleted. When the drive is installed you'll see an icon in Windows Explorer for this HD, like you see for your C: drive or DVD drive if you have one. And you access it just like your C: drive.

As to what you want on it, whatever you want--except Win 7, it'd take more time to boot your system. You could store you games, or run them from it; store pictures, documents, e-mails, anything you mind might conceive. You're only limitation is the size of the drive, and you'll be surprised how quickly you can fill it. That drive also makes an excellent place to store backups, such as restore points, and the like.

This is his new Windows 7 computer with two SSDs installed.

I believe that was the link, Jenny. Thought I had it bookmarked, but I didn't.

Ah, right. Well if the installer installs the game on the external HD then it will automatically reflect that in the registry.