Asus G73J - Two 500 GB harddrives? How do I access the 2nd?

My computer is supposed to be a 1 TB, in the form of two 500 gb hard drives. The first is 3/4 full so does anyone know how I can acess the 2nd hard drive when I need to for additional video storage? Thanks for any help.

Dustie

 

Is the second hard drive partitioned?

 

I don't know. How would I ascertain that?

 

It's quite simple really, check in computer, how many drives/partitions do you see. Also, which G73 model do you have, not all models came with 2 HDDs pre-installed.

 

I clicked on Computer, but it only shows one drive. Here are my computer's specs...

ASUS G73J h

Specifications
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Display: 17.3-inch Full HD LED-backlit Widescreen (1920 x 1080)
CPU: Intel Core i7 processor 720QM (1.60GHz-2.8GHz Quad-Core)
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5 VRAM
Wireless: 802.11 b/g/n (@ 2.4GHz), Bluetooth v2.1
LAN: 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet
Memory: 8GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM, 4 x SODIMM (up to 8GB)
Storage: 1TB 7200RPM hard drive (500GB x 2) dual HDD
Optical Drive: DVD Super Multi drive
Camera: 2.0 Megapixel
Speakers: Altec Lansing speakers with EAX 4.0 sound
Microphone Digital Array Microphones
Card Reader: 8-in-1 card reader (MMC/SD/Mini-SD/XD/Memory stick/MS Pro/MS-Duo/MS-Pro Duo)
Input/ Output: 1 x Mic-in, 1 x Headphone-out, 1 x VGA port/Mini D-Sub 15-pin for external monitor, 4 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x Gigabit LAN, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Kensington Lock
Battery Pack: 8 cell
Dimensions: 12.56 x 16.38 x 2.25 ~ 0.08 –inches
Weight: 7.48 lbs. (with 8 cell battery and single HDD)
Color: Matte Black

I purchased it Refurbished. Surely they wouldn't have taken out one of the hard drives, would they have do you think?

 

Some models of the JH (Best Buy for example) come with only one 500GB hard drive. Not to mention these have lower resolution/lower quality screens (1600x900 to be exact) and only 6GB of ram.
Just to be sure remove the panel underneath the laptop and check how many hard drives are actually there.

 

Your model is the G73Jh-?

The letters and numbers after the dash are important since they will tell us what is the exact configuration.

For example, mine is the G73Jh-A2 which has the specs you mentioned. The -A1 had a blu-ray drive and other models had different configurations in terms of lcd panel, HDDs installed, amount of RAM installed, etc.

 

Here you have the manual on how to create a partition on the second drive if there is none:
Resize a Partition for Free in Windows 7 or Vista - How-To Geek

You should see in the Disk Management actually how many drives you have, so it should show two harddrives (one with the C: partition and others on it) and a second with probably no partition. Also you should see there your optical disc drive.
If you have only one drive listed there, it's either not plugged in correctly, broken or simply missing.

pato

 

Well, Well....looks like I have only the one hard drive. So can a 2nd internal hard drive be installed, does anyone know? I shoot a lot of video, and they play choppy when stored on an external USB source, and they take a lot longer to load to and from. To play a video that's saved on my external hard drive, it must first be copied to the internal hard drive, played, then deleted.

Saving them to my internal drive is quite quick and painless and they play wonderfully.

 

Please check the sticky's in the forum also for answers. Most issues have been resolved and you will save yourself countless hours: Asus Gaming Notebook Forum

This was in the sticky's: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...d-hard-drive-g73jh-bestbuy-4.html#post6894691

 

Wow! Thank so much!

Thanks to everyone for all your help. I've got a direction to head to now...

Dustie