You have a 163 GB hard drive and its full of "programs"? I find that...difficult to believe. Thats like, enough to install Dragon Age: Origins almost 8 times, even after factoring in 20 GB for the OS (which is a rather conservative estimate).

My guess is that there is a lot of media on there as well. Movies, music, and ebooks. Move all that crap over to an external. You can access it just fine across the external. I run my winamp off my external, and it works just fine.

Still, replacing the HD on a laptop isn't that hard. I changed mine on my Gateway when it died, and it was super easy. The hardest part about it was driving to my buddy's place to borrow his small screwdriver because I don't own one myself.

The advise I was given when mine burned out was first to figure out what model you have. Right click "My Computer", and go to properties. One of the tabs says "Hardware", click there and open Device Manager. In there, you'll see a menu that says "Disk Drives", click that. One of them is your hard drive. For example, mine says "WDC WD800JD-75MSA3". Once you have that, do a quick search on a site like newegg or tigerdirect for the same model. Generally, it'll also recommend other devices in the same type, just with larger capacities. For example, mine is a 75 GB drive, so the -75MSA3 indicates that. If I wanted to upgrade, I'd look for something like a WDC WD800JD-250MSA3 (for a 250 GB drive) or WDC WD800JD-500MSA3 (for a 500 GB drive). The best thing about changing out like-for-like, is you don't really have to worry about compatability. Its the same exact device, just with a different capacity. Thats the easiest way to figure it out and requires almost no technical expertese at all.