Computer Problems.

[bcuk10]

When you say new stuff put onto her laptop, are you talking about installing programs or photos and other data like that?

Either way, you can put most things wherever you like. When you're installing a program you can usually specify where to. If you make a Program Files folder on D: you can install stuff to there instead of onto C:.

Likewise, you could make yourself a folder there for photos, videos or whatever else, and save stuff onto that drive.

You could probably give the C: drive a good spring cleaning with ccleaner, spybot and all that as well. Uninstall anything she doesn't use, clean up temporary files etc, get rid of any spyware that's accumulated, defrag the hard drive... A wee bit of maintenance every now and again will keep it in good running order, and the machine will run a bit faster once you give it a good cleanup.

Hi and thanks for you quick reply mrlipring I have used the defrag and done a spring clean and thats what i am left with i wanted to put Adobe photoshop on the laptop how would i get that to install onto the D drive and how would i put a Program Files folder on the D drive. (windows Vista home)

thanks again for your help

[engineer]

think you just open the D drive in explorer, create a new folder for programs, then during installation it'll ask where to install. just browse to the D/Programs/ location and that should be it

[bcuk10]

Thanks engineer.

Would new programs etc automaticily get put onto the data (D drive) when the other drive was full if i left it alone do you know.

[Doorstop]

Nope Bcuk .. you would always have to specify where you wanted them to be installed. This normally happens right at the beginning of the programs' initial installation process anyway so isn't really any bother. Just, as said before, click the browse button when prompted and change the destination from C:/program files to D:/program files (or whatever you've called your new program directory on the D: drive).

If you keep installing to a full (or nearly full) drive then the machine will eventually tell you it can't .. plus - filling the C: drive is never really recommended, any drive actually, as Windows needs the drive to have some space on it in order to be able to perform routine maintenance and the like.

[Dave]

If you have 2 drives in the laptop you should probably store your stuff on the second (i.e. documents, photos etc etc) and leave the first for your operating system and programs. Like DS says Windoze will use space on the drive for routine stuff and will also allow part of it to be used as virtual memory depending on how it's set up.

Better still keep only the 'live' files on the laptop and store the stuff you don't need on an external hard drive, that way if your laptop goes fecked you'll always have your stuff.

[Lone Groover]

Not a problem ----------------- yet !

I'm toying with the idea of getting a netbook thingy. (just as they are about to go out of fashion, I reccon I will pick up a bargain soon.

Thing is. My peecee's have always been wired in, not wireless.

Can any one point me at some basic information on how Wifi etc works? Both at home and when out & about ?
One Q in particular, can I run my peecee on cable and the other one on wifi at he same time ?

Cheers in gadget anticipation.....

Cancel all the above.

Just read this ....http://www.digital-kaos.co.uk/forums/f20/how-does-wifi-work-48/

[bcuk10]

Not a problem ----------------- yet !

I'm toying with the idea of getting a netbook thingy. (just as they are about to go out of fashion, I reccon I will pick up a bargain soon.

Thing is. My peecee's have always been wired in, not wireless.

Can any one point me at some basic information on how Wifi etc works? Both at home and when out & about ?
One Q in particular, can I run my peecee on cable and the other one on wifi at he same time ?

Cheers in gadget anticipation.....

Cancel all the above.

Just read this ....http://www.digital-kaos.co.uk/forums/f20/how-does-wifi-work-48/

I have Virgin media broadband (ntl), i have a internet conection in my bedroom at first my cable went from the wall (ntl box) into my computer (wired in). when the wife got her laptop which was wireless we bought a router which now has the wire going from ntl box into back of the router then my wire fron pc into front of router and the laptop picks up the wireless signal no problems there are 3 other ports to add wierd equipment ,
we have had 2 laptops online and my computer online at the same time and never noticed any difference, and my sons playstation which is wireless works through the router also.
hope this helps.

[bcuk10]

Thanks Doorstop & Dave for your help
I uninstalled some of the software which was on the C drive and reinstalled it on the D data drive which has now got us out of the red and gaind a few GBs.
now am i right in thinking i can only move programs that i have put onto the c drive i cant for instance click and and cut and paste my pictures or othe folders from C Drive to D Drive using explorer, one last question is there a box to tick to make my D Dive my preferd drive to add programs to in windows Vista home.

[Dave]

Thanks Doorstop & Dave for your help
I uninstalled some of the software which was on the C drive and reinstalled it on the D data drive which has now got us out of the red and gaind a few GBs.
now am i right in thinking i can only move programs that i have put onto the c drive i cant for instance click and and cut and paste my pictures or othe folders from C Drive to D Drive using explorer, one last question is there a box to tick to make my D Dive my preferd drive to add programs to in windows Vista home.

Erm, you can open C: and copy the docs etc over to to D: no problem, drag and drop, you will probably need to leave the empty folders in place so once the copy is done and you're happy all your stuff is there you can delete the folders within. Next time you save something just locate the My Documents on D:, I'm fairly sure Vista will keep this as your default location. If not, after installing a peice of software the options (Tools>>Options) should allow you to set a default save location.

A factory install of Vista will take up a hefty section of a 40Gb drive so get rid of anything you don't need, be sure to google for registry tweaks to properly clear any programs or they may come back to haunt you. FTR when I factory reset my Vista laptop I had 30Gb used, Microsoft say Vista should only need 5-10Gb so there must be loads of pish bundled in their that is unnecessary.

EDIT: A few useful links for backing your stuff up online, belt and braces

https://www.dropbox.com/
http://box.net

[HollowHorn]

Erm, you can open C: and copy the docs etc over to to D: no problem, drag and drop, you will probably need to leave the empty folders in place so once the copy is done and you're happy all your stuff is there you can delete the folders within. Next time you save something just locate the My Documents on D:.

Phew! I partially did this last night after reading all the above but have been too scared to empty my Recycle Bin. I feel a bit more secure now but will wait a month or so before deleting and copying over the rest of my photos to the D drive.

Cheers for all the advice.

Btw, Flickr has a facility where you can download all of your photos back to your hard drive in one go, it saved my bacon a few months ago when I lost all of them due to a crash.

[bcuk10]

Thanks for your help, i did not know i had to send programs etc to the D drive thought pc would take care of that for me . proberly because my other computers only had one drive

one last question should you (compress drive to save save space) i noticed that while in properties i have not ticked it but wonderd what you recommend.

[Dave]

That may help, also get rid of system restore points and shadow copies in Disk Clean>>More Options up.

[mrlipring]

I wouldn't compress it to save space. It won't save much space tbh, and it'll slow things down a bit. Best bet is to give it a good cleaning out.

[bcuk10]

Thanks everyone you have all been most helpful.

[busdriver]

Was forced to use Recovery Disc/s to get my pc running normally again unfortunetly that is not happening, original proplem was it wouldnt start up after fiddling with switch it eventually did, then it wouldnt reboot and was telling me varous system files were corrupt and to use recovery for repair (press:R) for repair. Went through the repair process using both discs tells me its copying files to my hard drive then after doing that then says system will reboot from disc 1 on restarting, so I insert disc restart and now all I get is a blue screen saying its copying files but this goes on for like an hour and still nothing is happening.

Any advice to get round this problem greatly appreciated am lost without my home PC hate using public ones.

Many thanks.