There are partition size limits, and your new drive exceeds these limits for some formats. Did you first format the drive? Your earlier drives may have be pre-formatted. If the new 160 GB drive has been formatted as one partition, it is either formmated as a NTFS drive or used special extentions for a FAT32 drive. You will loose this special formatting if you format the drive again as a FAT32 system. Refer to instructions that came with the drive. If the drive has not been formatted, then you can not write to it until it is formatted. NTFS or FAT32 ? NTFS provides greater partitions and more reliable disk operation. NTFS uses log files to keep track of all disk activity. Win XP can use this journal to repair files after a system crash. Windows 95, 98, ME can not recognize NTFS volumes. You need a FAT32 volume as the boot volume for these operating systems. This restriction does not apply to files on a network. The boot record must be on a FAT32 partition for these earlier Windows sytems. On partitions greater than 8 GB, NTFS manages the space more efficiently than FAT32. The maximum partition size for a FAT32 drive created by Widows XP is 32 GB; A single NTFS volume can be up to 16 terabytes (16,384 GB) using default settings. The Fdisk utility in Windows 98/ME can make a partition greater than 32 GB on a FAT32 disk. Use a bootup disk from one of these two systems to do this. After formatting the extra large partition, Win XP can use it. The main reason for using FAT32 is compatiblity to the older system and/or software. If you are constructing a multi-boot system and one of these sytems is the older Windows system, the FAT32 system is needed for the older version of Windows. If you have only Windows XP or Vista, I recommend NTFS. Its a good idea to scan a new disk for bad sectors before using. Presumably, the manufacturer has already scanned and marked off the bad sectors, but I did have one 80 GB external disk where this had not been done. It gave me trouble until a complete scan was performed. A few bad sectors were found and marked off. After that, the disk performed flawlessly. So first, format the disk and then scan for bad sectors. This will take some time for a 160 GB disk, but it well worth the effort. If the disk is already formatted and is what you want, scan it before using. With a disk of 160 MB, I suggest that you break this into 2 partitions of approximately 80 GB each. The partitions will not be quite as large as 80 GB because part of the space is used for file management and directories. Put the operating system on the first partition and use the second for data. The next question: Do you at any time have two hard drives connected to the computer? If so, the hard drive with the operating system must have its jumper set to "master" and the other disk to "slave" (assuming that both drives are connected to the same cable). While setting up a new drive using the existing computer, you may find it necessary to switch the jumpers a few times depending on the job at hand. Hopefully, your computer's BIOS is capable of auto-recognizing the hard drives and can make settings accordingly, else this has to be done manually. Please let us know if any of this information was useful.

I bought a really cheap Dell at Walmart two years ago while traveling. Our laptop got virused on the trip and we needed a computer fast. I think I paid $299.00 for a 17" running Win7. It had a year warranty so I figured I could return it at any Walmart during the trip. Never had a bit of trouble with that machine. I don't even know what size hard drive or any specs. Its just used for photos and works well. I have bought computers at Best Buy. Never had any problems either. Never had to return anything. Still have an old HP Win XP netbook (remember those), which works great. We have a bunch of old Dell desktops and laptop which still work. They were purchased from Dell directly. No problems there either. I don't think it really matters where you buy unless you require support after the warranty runs out. Never had that happen and I don't buy contracts. Our problem is - what does one do with all these old computers which still work? I wouldn't worry about where to buy a new one. Jane

AZ, I understand what you are saying, but Emma makes a lot of sense. If users are not prepared for progress we would all still be using Commodores or in the least Win3.1. We have a whole bunch of Dell XP SP2 systems in our building. Six in our office alone. Ours are going to be replaced by a governmental entity due to security, non-MS software demand, and future anticipated expansion. You can bet many of the other offices will have to replace their systems via their budget as their offices have systems integrated for use with our data. And, we did survive without a burp when we switched from Win98 and Win2000 to WinXP. Bobbie, Hope you are sitting down. You know how I was dragged kicking and screaming into the post Win98 era as I loved my Win98 system. And, yes you know I love my Vista system even more and have defended it for all the bad publicity it received. My plans right now is to buy a entry to mid-level laptop with W8 just so I can play. See why I said I hope you were sitting down. Even though I think there is way too much going on now with the Internet, and can only guess as to what the future will bring we users have a choice. Be part of it or allow it to pass us by. Do I think everyone with a W7 should race out and purchase a W8? Of course not. However, two generations of O/S behind could become the future limit. DA

Another option: You could install a new, larger hard drive and transfer an image of the old drive to the new one. You'll need software to transfer the image. I have sucessfully used "DriveCopy" to do this. This requires some 'fiddling' around with both drives attached to your computer. If you are uncomfortable with hooking up two drives and setting the master jumper, then pay a technician to do the job for you. If the new drive is not already formatted to the newer NTFS system, consider doing this. Also, its a good idea to format a new drive because during the formatting process, bad sectors can be found and marked off. Most of the time, a new hard drive that is already formatted is ok, but I had one that contained a few bad sectors and that produced strange failures. However, beware that formatting a huge drive, say a terabyte, can take a very long time when the surface scan option is chosen. (think 24 hours) After an image of the original system has been copied to the new drive, set the jumper of the new drive to 'master' and swap drives. You will be left with the old drive unchanged. If this drive is less than 2 yrs old, you could use it as a second hard drive. Before installing it in the computer, set its jumper to 'slave' so that the system will not be confused about which operating system to use. Once both drives are running sucessfully, you could re-format the old drive and set it up anyway you wish. Its an older drive and probably was formated using a FAT32 table. Consider formating it to the newer improved NTFS system. The NTFS format can handle large drives. The FAT32 format has a size limitation. Many disk drives made in the last few years are larger than the size limitation of the FAT32 format. This requires one to divide the disk into two or more logical drives to make full use of it. Some external drives are formatted using FAT32 with a special extended table to increase its size range. Reformatting such a drive destroys the manufacturer's special extended FAT32 table.