[Ham-Computers] Computer Operation Question

[Herb Gerhardt]

I have a new HP laptop which has had a couple of problems since the day I
bought it.  Not a show stopper but I want it fixed while it is still under
warranty.

The problems it has is that the SHIFT key does not capitalize the character
every time.  It does not matter which of the two shift keys you press but
almost half the time the letter does not get capitalized.  The other problem
is that the touch pad is way too sensitive.  Just resting my hands on the
case is enough to make the curser jump randomly at times to anywhere on the
screen and even off the screen.  So it makes it quite annoying typing a lot
of stuff on this machine.  Yes, I have the touch pad desensitized as much as
you can and still use it.

HP had be do all sorts of things including a complete reformat of the HD.
None of their suggestions solved my problems so now they want it back.

Now for my question.  This laptop has two 100 Gig HD's and yes, I have them
pretty full.  On my second HD I have installed the MapTech Pro mapping
program including the photo maps for the entire state of Washington.  That
comes out to around 60 Gig of data!  My normal drive which contains the OS
(MS XP Media) also has over 60 Gig of programs, files and data.  So, I need
to remove most of my stuff from the HD before I send it back, especially all
my personal data and thousands of photos.  I do keep all of my personal data
in the My Documents folder so it should be relatively easy (hi, hi...).

I just bought a 400 Gig external HD and want to transfer my data to this
external drive.  Yes, I moved all of My Documents folder to this external
HD, but since I am still using the laptop, it is getting very confusing in
keeping the external drive current also.  Is there a way in XP Media edition
where I can specify to use this external drive for all of my "My Documents"
instead of the normal C drive?  If so, how do I change that path?

Also I use Outlook 2000 and would like to again store and use this external
HD when running the program.  Any ideas how I can accomplish that?

For all the CD's for the many programs I have loaded on this machine so I
can re-install them all again but that will be a very time consuming job.
Is there an easier way of doing it?  Perhaps drag and drop all of the
programs I loaded on the machine to my external HD.  Would that work?  I
think it would but HP already told me that they will have to reformat the
main drive before they return it to me, so in my mind, once the reformat the
main HD where the operating system is located, all the references in the
registry would be lost and I don't think I would be able to just click and
drag those programs to the main HD.

Any and all hints would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Herb, KB7UVC
NW APRS Group, West Sound Coordinator
Our WEB Site:  http://www.nwaprs.info