I may be wrong, but I think you can only use external drives as main drives if they're SCSI or SATA. If you're dealing with USB devices, they're too slow. Some programs will not install on external drives. I may be misreading Ravencajun's last sentence. If you're looking for an external drive, you want to make sure you get something that is a portable drive. It would probably include all the cables. For a laptop replacement drive, you don't need the cables. What is probably the easiest way to upgrade a laptop hard drive is to get one of these EZupgrade enclosures with a drive. The nice thing about the enclosure is that it will work for either SATA or ATA. It includes software so that you can basically do the image and restore in one step, then just swap drives. Since your laptop is 5 years old and had a 6 gb drive to start, it's probably ATA/IDE/EIDE rather than SATA. You could get something like this with the EZ upgrade for less than $100. You'd put the new drive in the enclosure, run the software to clone the drive, turn everything off, pull the current drive, put in the new one and if all goes well, you can just start right up.

Raven - I have one of my posts that got eaten by goblins - and one of your posts that is missing from this thread. I will paste them both here - for the sake of keeping the integrity of the thread. Let me know if this is what was missing that you posted (or did more disappear) Here's my missing post: Damcoy - I'm always forgetting to do a google search. Raven - it was an OEM drive from Dell - no instructions. I vaguely recall that I'd want to format in NTFS and not FAT32 - though I don't recall what each of those are. When i first booted up my pc it did see the new hard drive - but I haven't known how to find it again. It seems to be suggesting that it's being labelled as a canon something or other. I don't know what that means to go into the boot menu at start up to see how it's listed. It did not give me an option of which to boot to - of course there's no operating drive on the second drive (at least I guess there's not since I didn't put one there). I also don't know how to back up my existing drive - which is part of what I want the second drive for. I'd like to back up my programs (and drivers? how would I do that) - perhaps on one partition. And have one or more partitions for files - like video, picture, music, data (word files, emails, etc, saved pages from the web?). So again, how do I go into the boot menu and see how they're listed? There is a difference in size - the second drive is 1/5TB =- the first is 500 GB. How could I mess up my existing original drive? by reformatting it? seems i have to have a place to back it up to before i back it up - I guess I could back it up on my external 640GB hard drive. Thanks. Lynn. ------------------------------- And here's the one from you that was emailed to me: I would use an imaging program and make a full copy of your existing drive to your external hard drive so that you have it should something go wrong. There are good free imaging programs, for those with vista and windows 7 there is now a built in imaging feature. On my computer as soon as it starts to boot up it flashes up and says to enter the boot menu hit esc, I just keep tapping it so I am sure I hit it at the right time, your computer may be different this is not uniform on all computers. Once you get into that area you will see the drives listed, you can choose which one to boot to and what order. I would do some research on what you are wanting to accomplish. I did a lot of reading and researching before I did mine and it really paid off. One thing I had not expected was for the SATA cable to come loose from the mother board after it was all set up, scared the you know what out of me! Luckily I have a see through case and saw the cable dangling. (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php ) CopyWipe free imaging program (http://dottech.org/featured/6194 ) 8 free software to image/backup/ghost your computer (free alternatives to Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost, etc.). ---------------------------------------------------- It lookslike some of your post didn't get copied and pasted intact - but it's mostly there. Or was there more than this? Thanks. Lynn. PS - I'm on my way out for the evening (and tomorrow's a day trip that could turn into all day) - so I don't know if I can get to this in the next day or two - as eager as I am to do so)

I have a 2019 cross trek and she's just fine. This is our 3rd subaru. I don't think you can beat them for safety or reliability. I specifically was looking for AWD and for the safety features as, I figure as I'm aging, I'm not becoming a better driver. I especially like the headlights that turn as you turn a corner and the auto hi/low beam adjuster. The back up cameras, side lane warnings and front collision signals are wonderful. I did turn off the lane drift feature though as, driving winding country roads which I do all the time, I often cross the yellow line and the warning was annoying. But it's great that you can turn these things off. I'd turn it back on on the highway especially if it was late at night and I'd worry about getting drowsy. I'm looking to give this one to DH and get a new little sweet ride for myself. And one thing I really like about the subaru is how they integrated the screen into the dash so it looks intentional. So many vehicles, they pop the screen on top so it looks like an after thought. I would love to get another subaru for myself, but I'm looking for small, and the subaru sports car is RWD which I won't go back to. So my search continues.

Everyone - Thanks for your very helpful feedback. There actually is a separate HVAC system in that finished 3rd floor space. It's a small unit that is built directly into the top of one of the walls that provides both A/C and heating, as needed. The space is about 320 square feet, and it would be heated/cooled via this unit. I don't have the manufacturer of model, but it's to control the environment in that space without relying on the main HVAC system. It sounds like the consensus is to add the R38 insulation (upgrade). Once we move into the house, we can always evaluate the extent of the temperature extremes and possibly add foil after closing, although it wouldn't be as good as a full-on radiant barrier installed during the construction process. Perhaps things will change over the coming months and these materials will be available again. Thanks so much for your expertise and feedback! If anyone else has an option, please feel free to weigh in! :-)