Upgrading the Acer Aspire 3050 80GB Hard Drive to something bigger??

Hey there gothicarcher, this is possible to do on your own. you will need to purchase an external drive case, that does exact copies of drives. You can also use this as an external drive when you are done. You could buy a kit for upgrading that also provides the external drive case and the data copying software you will need ( EZ Upgrade kit ). Next cleanup your old harddrive of any unwanted files, and defragment it. Next, mount the new hard drive (ensure it is compatible with your laptop) in the external case. Connect it to the laptop and transfer the data. Next turnoff laptop, remove battery, and following instructions in your manual, open laptop to access the hard drive. Remove it paying extra attention to the way it mounted and any guides that may be attached. Switch guides from old to new and place new hard drive ensuring all connections are made. From here you are good to go. The old harddrive can be mounted in the external case and used. By the way, you can run programs fom an external, but they still use up some admin space on your main hardrive and the speed of the program can be hindered due to the limitations of the connection, causing the occasional stall. Good Luck! p.s. ensure you have the manuals necessary and follow all software recommendations. Lost data can hurt. Back up on disk anything that can't be replaced easily