Don't You Just Love Computers?

[Swingcats 0]

I went to Taunton yesterday to get a great deal on 120 GB harddrive, 1 GB processor laptop for DJiing, A Fujitsu Siemans Amio at £350.

 

When I got it home and was about to transfer 60 GB of music from my home computer, it flagged up 'Not enough space to do that'!

 

Why

 

It has 98.10GB gross, of which 65.4 is c drive, 32.7 D drive ( Partitioned harddrive) and free space of only 81.2GB in total net.

 

Where has the 21.9.GB gone???? Enough space missing for thousands of tracks!

 

What a swizz :protest:

[Gary 0]

Look's like an external drive will be needed.

 

Probably for the best. Windoze likes to have some spare space for swap files and other "housekeeping", which it can't rely upon with a full drive.

 

Consider also that hard drives generate a fair amount of heat. Most laptop appliations, the hard drive is only being accessed during loading and saving of files eg: Word, Excel etc. The interna hard drive and the surrounding components and air stop being heated by the working drive during those drive-idle periods.

 

With music playback however, the hard drive is usually in near constant use, with very few idle periods for the drive or its neighbouring components.

 

With some reputable makes of 320gb external drives and even some some less well known makes of 500gb external drives now available at around £60 or less, I'd leave the internal drive with just the operating system and dj software on it - no music files whatso ever.

 

Maybe consider a spare, duplicate external drive too.

[bluejools 0]

you will probably find whoever partitioned the drive has left the extra space as "free".

 

This means it is unformatted and unassigned to a drive letter. Still there but at present you cant use it.

 

Right click my computer

 

choose manafe

 

then under storage - disk management

 

that will show you what is used / free etc.

 

There you will find your free..... you could move everything off D, delete the D: drive and recreate it with all the free space as well.

 

Unforutnately you cant "extend" c to make it all available in one chunk.

 

 

[Swingcats 0]

Look's like an external drive will be needed.

 

Probably for the best. Windoze likes to have some spare space for swap files and other "housekeeping", which it can't rely upon with a full drive.

 

Consider also that hard drives generate a fair amount of heat. Most laptop appliations, the hard drive is only being accessed during loading and saving of files eg: Word, Excel etc. The interna hard drive and the surrounding components and air stop being heated by the working drive during those drive-idle periods.

 

With music playback however, the hard drive is usually in near constant use, with very few idle periods for the drive or its neighbouring components.

 

With some reputable makes of 320gb external drives and even some some less well known makes of 500gb external drives now available at around £60 or less, I'd leave the internal drive with just the operating system and dj software on it - no music files whatso ever.

 

Maybe consider a spare, duplicate external drive too.

 

 

Wise words and thanks |Gary.

 

I already have two 250gb external hard drives as my old laptop was of the quarter GB hard drive stone age type, so no problem storing externally, It just means more wires, connections and an extra plug to go with al the rest we need for mobile DJing!

 

[Mattaious 0]

Unforutnately you cant "extend" c to make it all available in one chunk.

 

I think you can with a utlity like FDISK

 

Ive never partioned a drive, and with disco use i would only use an external HDD - very cheap - i went to staples the other week and got a 250GB Iomega USB drive

 

Excellent unit IMHO and as said in many previous threads make sure the laptop only has the basics installed- dont install internet apps or even connect to the net

 

Then add the software your planning on using, and away you go.

 

Just my views

 

 

[Swingcats 0]

you will probably find whoever partitioned the drive has left the extra space as "free".

 

This means it is unformatted and unassigned to a drive letter. Still there but at present you cant use it.

 

Right click my computer

 

choose manafe

 

then under storage - disk management

 

that will show you what is used / free etc.

 

There you will find your free..... you could move everything off D, delete the D: drive and recreate it with all the free space as well.

 

Unforutnately you cant "extend" c to make it all available in one chunk.

 

 

More wise words, but its Vista and so far can't find a My computer, its like your blanket has been lost out the prame. Guess what no instructions leaflet either. After what Gary says I will use my 250gb external drive for now, until its full!

 

Thanks anyway I may well investigate.

[D.X 0]

Try wiping the whole lot and reinstalling the OS (pain in the a$$ I know).

 

By my calculations you should have around 111gb on that drive. You seem to have 13gb missing somewhere.

[TonyB 0]

Try wiping the whole lot and reinstalling the OS (pain in the a$$ I know).

 

By my calculations you should have around 111gb on that drive. You seem to have 13gb missing somewhere.

 

If there is no restore or system disk with the laptop then there could be a hidden partition with a restore copy of the OS and software installed.

[digitaldistortion 0]

If there is no restore or system disk with the laptop then there could be a hidden partition with a restore copy of the OS and software installed.

 

Which, incidentally, forms part of the total size of the disk, and would therefore negate the need to reformat

???????????

 

[norty303 0]

Drives are normally sized based on 1GB = 1000mb and 1mb = 1000Kb

Whereas in reality 1GB = 1024mb and 1mb = 1024Kb

 

So a formatted hard drive of 120gb has an actual size of roughly 111gb, depending on file system used.

 

Have you tried incrementally copying the data to the new machine? Windows sometimes doesn't like large file constructs, especially over a network. I'd break it down into smaller groups of folders and try again.

 

Have you checked in disk management to see the size of the partitions and any free space left over? Right click my computer and click manage, then disk management

 

 

[Swingcats 0]

Drives are normally sized based on 1GB = 1000mb and 1mb = 1000Kb

Whereas in reality 1GB = 1024mb and 1mb = 1024Kb

 

So a formatted hard drive of 120gb has an actual size of roughly 111gb, depending on file system used.

 

Have you tried incrementally copying the data to the new machine? Windows sometimes doesn't like large file constructs, especially over a network. I'd break it down into smaller groups of folders and try again.

 

Have you checked in disk management to see the size of the partitions and any free space left over? Right click my computer and click manage, then disk management

 

 

Thanks all, I've decided to follow Garys advice and use an external hard drive.

[dj007 0]

youve got the same laptop as me Swingcats only mine is only 80gb C drive 62.8gb and D data 11.7gb so mine is 74.5gb so im loosing 5.5gb

ive just bought a 320gb maxtor from maplins :hide: for £59 so happy with that.

 

one small problem tho. i managed to wipe my entire music collection that i had on the laptop.

luckily ive got 2 old internal hard drives and using an ide-usb converter i managed to retrieve most of my collection except for the last 8 months worth from there.

jim

[Swingcats 0]

youve got the same laptop as me Swingcats only mine is only 80gb C drive 62.8gb and D data 11.7gb so mine is 74.5gb so im loosing 5.5gb

ive just bought a 320gb maxtor from maplins :hide: for £59 so happy with that.

 

one small problem tho. i managed to wipe my entire music collection that i had on the laptop.

luckily ive got 2 old internal hard drives and using an ide-usb converter i managed to retrieve most of my collection except for the last 8 months worth from there.

jim

 

 

Back it up on asecond hard drive, my friend

[analyst 0]

I know this issue seems to be done 'n dusted now, but . . .

 

with a little ap called Partition Magic you could sort it all out/change partitions/resize/recover all "lost" space, and lots more too . . . and all without reformatting or wiping orf any files whatsoever.

 

It's basically a very sophystic . . .sofistic . . sophia . . . a very clever FDISK application.

 

BTW FDISK is not a description of the state or condition of your HDD tongue out icon

[norty303 0]

recover all "lost" space

 

Only if it actually existed in the first place. You can't get more than there actually is. Partition Magic, for all its good points, doesn't work real magic.

 

In my experience, where Partition Magic has failed, Paragon Partition Manager has done the business, and seems to be a better product all round

[dj007 0]

my computers slowing up already and its only 6 months old :shrug:

 

so im taking a big step and going the whole hog and am going to get an area 51 alienware laptop in the new year. 4 gig of memory and 500gb HD

 

NOW! is this a good idea as ive just been informed by my IT dept. that alienware now uses Dell components.

 

any ideas guys.

jim

[bluejools 0]

Computers slow down - fact of life. Rebuilding them every 6 months helps alot.

 

 

I wouldnt be afraid of Dell so much anymore.... they have got better.

 

However rather than lashing out on a truly exspensive lappie why not buy two cheaper dell ones for the same price ???

 

instant back and you can take one out every time you feel its slowing and rebuild it with no impact on your show.

 

Dell's customer service still sucks, but not as bad as it once did - and not as bad as say, virgin media :joe:

[rictic 0]

More wise words, but its Vista and so far can't find a My computer, its like your blanket has been lost out the prame. Guess what no instructions leaflet either. After what Gary says I will use my 250gb external drive for now, until its full!

 

Thanks anyway I may well investigate.

just click on the windows logo in bottom left hand corner, right click on computer in the menu, select manage from the next list. allow the application to start, then select storage from the next page and away you go.

Edited December 20, 2007 by rictic

[dj007 0]

thanks for the reply bluejools.

not really using the laptop for gigs as i dont do that many anymore and its really only for backup.

my main use is a lot of DV editing and transfer to dvd. a couple of weeks ago i was converting an avi file to dvd and both cores were running at 100% and the 1gb of ram was on 98% and an on screen message said cannot complete as run out of memory???

thats why i was thinking of getting the 4gb of ram. also alienwear has free support lines.

even worse support than dell has to be mesh unless theve changed their tune lately.

jim

 

[D.X 0]

Computers slow down - fact of life.

Macs don't. Well mine hasn't anyway. Windoze does though.

[MobileDamo 0]

Hello

 

Believe it or not me and my girlfriend had the same problem we copyed 10gb of music off her laptop put it onto external hard drive then afew days later we needed it all on the laptop as my burning software wouldt allow me to burn music from an external source,as my girlfriend copyed it back some of the albums WOULDNT copy back to the laptop for some unknown reason.

 

maybe you should try copying them onto your laptop bit by bit not in a whole bunch.thanks

[Bolan-Boogie 0]

Should have bought my Pentium 3 1GHZ laptop in the FOR SALE SECTION

 

Now only £125 :dan+ju:

[dj007 0]

Should have bought my Pentium 3 1GHZ laptop in the FOR SALE SECTION

 

Now only £125 :dan+ju:

 

WOW! what a bargain. im still tempted to go for one of these though Clikety Click

 

[bluejools 0]

thanks for the reply bluejools.

not really using the laptop for gigs as i dont do that many anymore and its really only for backup.

my main use is a lot of DV editing and transfer to dvd. a couple of weeks ago i was converting an avi file to dvd and both cores were running at 100% and the 1gb of ram was on 98% and an on screen message said cannot complete as run out of memory???

thats why i was thinking of getting the 4gb of ram. also alienwear has free support lines.

even worse support than dell has to be mesh unless theve changed their tune lately.

jim

 

Done a bit of looking into this over the years.

 

For the sort of things you are doing more and more memory is the only way to go - and will make so much more difference that clock speed. Memory is cheap and if your laptop can take it throw more in.

 

Your CPU;s would have been so busy as they try to free memory (swapping) to fit current stuff in.

 

Just on video, music etc. Stick with current intel cores. They are great for compression, ripping etc. Next year, start buying AMD quads (when they are on general sale)