what to do with a spare HD

[systemcrash]

I have a spare 12GB external hard drive that i got from a old computer a while ago, and its just doing nothing taking up space. I dont know what to do with it except get rid of it, although other ideas ran through my head.

My current system is:

Windows xp sp3, 512MB RM, 1.10GB Hard Drive
HD is partitioned to.. C:\Windows D:\Program Files + windows user profiles + Temp Folder E:\Virtual Memory F:\My documents + games

I have a 500GB external HD, that is also partitioned: General Files, Documents, Pictures, Videos and music. So i dont need the 12GB for data storage, and being so small would hardly backup any of my stuff.

I thought of using it as a recovery drive for my computer but when i go to make a image backup of windows its more then 12GB

I looked at ramdisk aswell but 2 programs i found i had trouble with on my system
I also heard of something called a scratch disk, but im not to sure what that is or if my drive could become one.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[MidnightCowboy]

You could always stick a version of Linux on there to play with

Try this one - everything designed to work out of the box and even looks like Windows if you want it to.

http://zorin-os.webs.com/

[crank]

Originally Posted by systemcrash

I have a spare 12GB external hard drive that i got from a old computer a while ago, and its just doing nothing taking up space. I dont know what to do with it except get rid of it, although other ideas ran through my head.

My current system is:

Windows xp sp3, 512MB RM, 1.10GB Hard Drive
HD is partitioned to.. C:\Windows D:\Program Files + windows user profiles + Temp Folder E:\Virtual Memory F:\My documents + games

I have a 500GB external HD, that is also partitioned: General Files, Documents, Pictures, Videos and music. So i dont need the 12GB for data storage, and being so small would hardly backup any of my stuff.

I thought of using it as a recovery drive for my computer but when i go to make a image backup of windows its more then 12GB

I looked at ramdisk aswell but 2 programs i found i had trouble with on my system
I also heard of something called a scratch disk, but im not to sure what that is or if my drive could become one.

Anyone else have any ideas?

MC's idea is a good one, playing around with linux is endlessly absorbing and becomes addictive to where you start leaning towards forsaking windows forever.

That said, I am curious about your description, 1st, is your hard drive 110GB? Plus, you have your apps and docs on a separate partition, yet 12 GB won't hold an image of your XP system partition. I am wondering if you might have files on that drive that you don't need on the system partition. Most imaging programs will compress significantly, are you using one of these, or accessing the option for compression level?

Anyhows, 12 GB is paltry these days, my phone has more than 3.5 times! that much storage, even my camera almost 3 times. I have extra drives I use to abusively play with as a way to learn things. Do you own a skeet hurling thingie?

[systemcrash]

Crank: In total my HD is around 110GB, I have tried imaging programs befor to creat a full image so C:\Windows D:\Program Files + windows user profiles + Temp Folder E:\Virtual Memory back when i had just reinstalled my system, But everytime i went to use these images to recover my computer there was always some sort of error..(Corrupted image) or something similar. I tried 2 or 3 different imaging programs on different levels of compression. The last time i tried imaging it said not enough space on the 12GB but that could be because my programs were included and the many widows xp could have taken up that space. And i may have included F:\My Documents.

So now im using driver image xml to backup, But i have not tried restoring any of the images yet, just in case they dont work i dont want to mess up my system, so im holding off till that emergancy and i have to use them. If they dont work il start from scratch.

I may give MC's idea a go, i had made a linux cd befor but i never use it. I dont really have a need for 2 OS. But i do use a linux recover CD from time to time apart from that i dont see why else id need another os.

Looking at http://zorin-os.webs.com/ I think il give it a try. Because of it ability to look like windows it looks like a good way to gradually move someone from windows to linux.

But most of my favorit programs wont run on linux unless i use a virtualbox with win XP but then i might as well use my current OS