ITunes cannot backup because it says hard drive is full but I have 292gb available

I (my girlfriend) have a MacBook 1,1 from 2006, an iPhone 4s, an iPad Retina and just bought an iPhone 5s.
I'm trying to backup the phones and ipad to MacBook but iTunes is saying that the MacBook doesn't have enough room.
I've checked and I do have enough room 292gb - this is what I would expect because the original hard drive burnt out and so I had to buy a new one (the Macbook has hardly anything on it).
I'm not sure if it's related but i'm also trying to backup this MacBook to an external hard drive (Seagate) and Time Machine doesn't list the external drive, or any other drive at all.
Thanks in advance.
Ryan

@Ronald,
I'm glad to know that you can get by on only 120 GB .  However, that's not my experience on Windows.  Admittedly, Mac and Mavericks in particular seem to manage memory a lot better than Win.  But I've been using PS since ver 4 and it's always been a huge memory drain. 
In CS6, I'm finding my scratch disk often exceeds 100 GB.  I have dedicated almost 300 GB to mine and it's still not enough for everything I do. But I know how to manage my resources so I can get by on what I have until new computers arrive.
Nancy O.

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