It's safe to move your music-pictures-documents-videos to an external hard drive if it will make enough room on the laptop. I suggest you don't move or delete any files from the laptop having to do with Windows itself or any of your installed applications unless you're prepared to deal with a lot of grief and confusion.

If there was enough room in the past but not now...why not?

Not really sure I had loaded the system a couple of other times and have several "windowsold" files. Can the operating system be stored on an external hard drive?

Yes, as long as you have a program that will "clone" the hard drive. Several free ones will do this. I use EaseUS ToDo for this purpose. It can copy files or make an image (clone) of the entire drive including operating system (Win 7, in your case) as well as all programs and applications. Look up some of these programs and read what they can and cannot do.

But if you have the original Windows 7 disks, you have other choices as well. If you format your hard drive, you should start with a clean drive and then just re-install the OS and any programs plus your pictures, documents, etc.

I don't understand why you would now be out of drive space just because you "loaded the system a couple of other times." How did you go about doing this?

I don't know either but it says I only have 9.3 gb out of 105 available, maybe I will look up how to wipe my hard drive as I do have the disc.

Why dont you run disk clean up .. you might be surprised if you do system files & restore points too by right clicking your C drive & choosing properties, press clean, then when it shows how many bytes,, check all the boxes, and then push the clean system files too.. then when it shows the bytes, check all the boxes then the choose the more tab and push the button for System Restore & Shadow Copy cleaning too. That leaves the last restore point. And cleanup will remove the windows.old properly.

The disks you used to reload the operating system, are they OEM copy of Win7, or restore disks that you made when the laptop was new. If the HD has never been formatted or partitions deleted, you may be able to restore back to factory condition by using the restore partition...What make is your laptop ie Toshiba, Acer etc model may help too..the thing about restore disks that are made when the laptop was new, when you use them, all the appropriate drivers are on those disks too..Using a store bought copy of the OS, you must also go to the manufacturers website and download all the drivers for the hardware that is on your machine