I've a quad core HP Pavillion PC, fairly new but only a 500GB HD.

C: has my programs and stuff on it. 97GB free from 228GB. How there is 125GB on there I do not know - any ideas ?

A: has all my stuff that I've put on there. 190GB used from 222GB so only 30GB left.

I have an free expansion slot in the PC as well as a Pocket Media Drive Bay and my general DVD burner drive.

I know I can get a USB linked HD up to 1.5TB or so but can I put anything inside or in this expansion bay ? At least 1TB would be good. Inside the PC would be good as well.

Any ideas ?

Just buy an extra hard drive and build it in.

With just 1 hard drive in there (and a DVD) you should have at least some free sata ports on the main board.

An extra HDD is the answer. Internal drive is the cheaper and tidier answer.

If you can recognize what connections you have SATA - IDE. Turn off and unplug the power. Take off the cover and have a look. Buy the drive and install it.

Google "installing drive on HP" and the HP site has all the info.

If you don't feel comfortable with this take it to HP and they will do it for you. Will be more expensive than taking it down to the local computer shop.

You should be able to pick up a Tbyte HDD for about 3100 Western Digital (3060 at JIB in Chiangmai)

Edited September 21, 200916 yr by newcomer01

Deleted second entry,

Entered 2 replies- 1st reply got an error message back Flood Control so I sent it again

Edited September 21, 200916 yr by newcomer01

Have you emptied the Recycle Bin recently?? You should.

Now download Ccleaner, http://www.ccleaner.com/

Install and run.

This will delete a lot of rubbish from the disks, like old log files, cached files from IE and the like.

See how much space that has recovered.

If it still looks bad then I suggest go into the File Explorer and start looking at the various folders on your disks so see what is there.

Unless you are downloading Music, Photos or Films the space should not be filling up quickly.

Have you emptied the Recycle Bin recently?? You should.

Now download Ccleaner, http://www.ccleaner.com/

Install and run.

This will delete a lot of rubbish from the disks, like old log files, cached files from IE and the like.

See how much space that has recovered.

If it still looks bad then I suggest go into the File Explorer and start looking at the various folders on your disks so see what is there.

Unless you are downloading Music, Photos or Films the space should not be filling up quickly.

I'm happy with my downloaded stuff and I know where that all came from and I use ccleaner as well now and then. I have accounted for some of the other stuff on C: but I'll monitor its size as nothing should really go thee except for program stuff.

So what is the best drive to buy and what should I be looking at ?

Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 7200RPM 32MB Cache S-ATA II

As for your main drive, use JDiskReport (free) to check your hard drive. It will produce some neat graphics showing you where your large files are hidden.

As a rule of thumb, you can delete everything that's inside a /cache or /caches folder.

be careful with ccleaner - it's tempting to try to "really clean up" but when I used it I found it rather easy to select some options which then made some programs not work anymore. leave it at default options.

I had an HP and did install a second HD. I agree it is the neat way to do but not sure it is the best due to power/heat. Computer is now history (although probably not directly due to the HD). HP power supplies are known for being under performers and measurement of voltages on mine were vary far from what they should have been. I would use an external drive with its own power supply if doing again. I bought an Acer 1TB USB several weeks ago for 3290 so not that expensive and runs very cool.