computer geeks only

[hedgerow pete]

I was just about to have an accident with my computer and a large sledge hammer when lightning stuck and i had a great idea.

at the moment by baby lap top here has a 75gb drive which is now pushing into 50gb used. so after a mamoth defrag and deleting surgery we lowered it some what but not much.

my biggest problem is windows is using 20gb and work programes another 3 gb and doc's is up to 15gb.

i dont want to go down the new hard disk route because i cant down load all the programes and then reload them,
so i was thinking are these small external hard drives any good?

i was thinking 360 gb for £40 from amazon as a plug and play jobbie,

any suggestions on makes to use or avoid and what pit falls do i have to look for

and by the way whats the process for removing windows vista for windows seven and will it lower its hunger for memory and at what costs

 

[Nellie]

Yes Windows 7 is less resource hungry and better optimised than Vista. I generally don't recommend upgrading an Operating System, you're generally better off biting the bullet and starting from scratch in my opinion.

An external drive is fine, easy to use and should just plug in and work. I wouldn't install programmes onto it, but it'd be easy enough to move your "My Documents" folders onto the external drive instead.

In order I'd get the external drive, transfer all your documents, photos etc onto the external drive and then look to update your version of windows. In theory all your stuff is now on the external drive and it's just a case of installing Windows and your applications onto the existing internal drive.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Hi Pete - the external drives are fine, though may be a bit slower. If it was me I'd go for a brand name rather than something cheap and cheerful, your data is too important to pee around with.

One very important thing to consider is backing up though, if either the PC or the external drive failed do you have vital stuff saved elsewhere?

The Vista/ Windows 7 upgrade can be a bit flakey and I wouldnt try it if you dont have technical knowledge, it is quite possible that programs, printers etc will break. While Windows 7 is definitely beter than Vista, I'm not sure its worth the risk. I'd wait until you are ready to upgrade your PC.

No doubt the linux pencil heads will be along in a minute smugly proclaiming that all the worlds ills are Microsoft related, but I'd suggest you ignore them.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I'd wait until you are ready to upgrade your PC.

No doubt the linux pencil heads will be along in a minute smugly proclaiming that all the worlds ills are Microsoft related, but I'd suggest you ignore them.

I have a Mac and I'd agree that OS upgrades are a waste of space.
Both Apple and Microsoft make sure of that so it's best to get a new laptop when you need to upgrade.
And yes back up ....onto an external drive and on the net...cloud storage is it called?

 

[Storm™]

I have an old laptop. 40 gig hard drive. This was nearly full. It's about 7 years old so I thought fair enough. But looking through add and remove programmes i found a tonne of crap from windows hotfix.

After many hours Hunched over the PC doing exactly what you did I freed up a single gig. So still buggered. Then I accidentally noticed by looking at the windows files a huge huge huge amount of space taken up by files with the name "spuninst.

A search on the net found these were Service Pack Uninstall files. As it turns out every time windows updates your system with a hotfix or whatever it also adds a huge uninstall file as well.

After deleting these off my hardrive when looking at the diagram of hard drive usage - previously the free amount was like a tooth pick, I suddenly had three quarters of my hard drive back. Could not believe it.

Also if you have ITunes - delete it off and search for any apple software afterwards and delete that off also. Watch your hard drive sigh with relief. You will of course need it to update any apple things like your iPhone. Just reinstall it or use someone else's iTunes but make sure you sign out of theirs and into yours.

If I remember rightly spuninst files were found by going to C drive, windows, and it was the top file. Oh and when I clicked on properties windows lied about how much was in there lol.

 

[hedgerow pete]

i would love to go down the linux route as its a better one , but the progs i have for work dont get on to well with it and if i was to have conflict problems again its back to the big hammer/programing device

i like the idea of transfering all of it onto the new drive and keeping the docs out there as well

 

[Brosville]

better not mention that all our computers run on various flavours of linux then!- economical on disc space, will turn an old computer into an absolute flyer, no viruses, trojans etc - oh yes, it's also free (as is all the software) and doesn't crash........

In all seriousness, well worth trying to revive an "oldie" computer (which is how I started) - "Linux Mint" particularly highly recommended

 

[barratt_sab]

The other thing to think about is whether you want the drive to be powered by your USB port or an external power supply ("portable" USB drive vs "desktop").

We use several, both at home and at work, and they work well. Some routers now have a USB port on the back; you can plug a drive into the router and access it over the network.

However, M. A is correct - you should consider your backup options. A friend had all his music and photos on one, because he'd run out of space on the internal drive... which was great, right up to the point that it wasn't anymore!

You can get more expensive drives that will store the same data on two disks, so if one goes wrong, you've still got the other, but they are quite a bit more expensive, so you might be better off just burning a CD / DVD with your most precious data every now and again.

As my brother-in-law says, a backup is just the opposite of a f**kup.

 

[Nellie]

Linux is fine if you can get the apps for it and don't mind doing a bit if tinkering.

Yeah yeah open office is just as good as ms office, except when it's not, blah blah blah.

I'm a windows developer who uses a mac desktop so I'm not averse to using the "best" apps on the best OS and on the desktop Linux is still a solution looking for a problem to fix. Stunning server operating system though.

 

[Nellie]

Actually, if you're going to change the OS anyway nows the time to try Linux and see if it meets your needs. At worst you spend a few weeks getting frustrated that this works differently in Linux than it did in windows and you still haven't found an app that does whatever task it was you found easy to so before.

If you do go for it, "forget" windows and try and embrace the Linux way of doing things. It'll do some things better and some things worse and a lot of things will just be different.

I still think it's wasted in the desktop trying to compete with cheap commercial software compared to where it shines in the server world competing against incredibly expensive license fees.

 

[SimonB]

What is your rate of disk space consumption?

Does your usage stat include everything (swap disk etc) so you do have at least 25Gb free?

Without wishing to play devil's advocate but am curious what your issue is with the amount of disk space used. Is it general performance, if so then that could be a result of the disk drive itself.

Does the external drive need to be highly portable? If it was me, and I wasn't considering looking into a fuller NAS type solution, and did not want to have carry around an external drive I would like at a high capacity USB pen drive. Depending on your budget you could get two, one as a backup. The only issue I have with these are the propensity to lose themselves.

As for Windows 7, I'm pretty sure you can download a compatibility checker from Microsoft to see how a PC will cope.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

You can get software that will make a complete image of everything on your hard drive so that you can change your hard drive, then when completed, put everything you had on your old drive back on your new one.

An external hard drive is a cheaper option, plus if you want to use more of the space on your laptop hard drive, you can install any new software to your external hard drive, then copy the icon onto your desk top so you can run the program.
You will need the external hard drive connected for that software to work, but will save space.

Brian

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

As for Windows 7, I'm pretty sure you can download a compatibility checker from Microsoft to see how a PC will cope.

You can, but its not a clever as it like to think, only tests certain things, and unsurprisingly doesn't allow for situations it knows nothing about. Not to be trusted.

 

[Brosville]

I mentioned Linux because it's "worked for me" - I'm a "point and clicker", and really don't want to spend time faffing - I'm not a gamer, and linux either gives me all I need "out of the box", or I can add it with a couple of mouse clicks - I love it's speed, stability, absence from viruses and other threats, the fact it's free, and it's not Microsoft.........
For anyone wanting to try it out, I'd suggest downloading something like the "CD version" of "Mint" - you can run it off the cd without installing to "get the feel" of it- at first, it's all "a bit strange", but you soon find there's Firefox ready installed, and the Thunderbird Mail programme - "Chrome" is a couple of mouse clicks way to install in the software centre..... (as are 30,000 odd other free programmes).
I think the big mistake is to try to "think Windoze" and try to demand Windoze programmes - accept that its a Bentley, Ford spares don't work too well.....
I struggled on and off for years with Photoshop (to my mind the most un-intuitive piece of software ever devised), then discovered "Gimp" in linux - fast, powerful, intuitive......... THEN discovered one even more photo orientated - (Digikam) - rock and blooming roll!

I could go on, I am a bit of a fan.......

 

[Ellem]

Pete, I'll PM a place that my husband & I nearly always buy hardware from. Tend to be cheaper than the usual bunch and we've always had good customer service.

 

[Hombre]

SUSE and Inkscape are my favourites.

If you really hate Linux, then consider consigning your Tom Tom satnav to the bin as it along with a lot of other devices are Linux based. Not that they support Linux users of course,but that's another story.

 

[DanBee]

Back to the original question... HP, have a try of Piriform CCleaner. It's free, works with Vista, and offers a reasonably safe way to clear out accumulated crap, e.g. removing the service pack uninstalls etc. mentioned above. Just use the 'cleaner' tool to free up disk space, have a look at the options it gives you for windows and for common applications.

This site is an excellent resource for finding free tools and applications for Windows - it's how I found the Piriform tools in the first place.

 

[hedgerow pete]

right the ideas are these, due to some of the work based programes i have to use, windows office pro, windows project manager, pdf writer pogs ( adobe version 6)
and now i have been told i need to start to use a form of CAD for drawings, plus all the docs i down loaded for work and the massive bee folder i have on this lappy i am now at about 60% od hard disk usage

i wanted to source some thing befor the lappy starts to slow down and also before the hard drive was full, i did think about a large memory stick but saw a external hard drive usb feed power jobbie seemed a better way cost wise.

i would love to get off windose as every single computer geek i know uses it and they do know what they are doing but all have warned me that there will be some form of clash with linux and windose some where and thats when you need a geek to fix it. the other problem is that every thing i emal out would have to be converted to another form for my boss, he cant even open some of my docs because the companies operating system is so old, and they have thisweek stopped using window project manager and started to use another thingy instead so theres another prog to load up soon, but when i leave this lot i will proberly have to use another system or one of the old systems,

but since i dont use them all at once when i work for a company it seems a good idea to keep the free programes i upload onto the lappy and store the other ones off the lappy, a sort of pick and mix hard drive set up?

do you think it will work

 

[Brosville]

I think you're probably right, as a pragmatic cost-effective solution, get an external usb hard drive, and shovel "stored stuff" on to it, so that when you do migrate to a new computer (of whatever flavour in the future), you can take with you what you want, and soldier on with your existing laptop.
Going on the "what would I do in your shoes" train of thought, I'd certainly experiment with one of the more user-friendly forms of Linux - often people will happily part with an "old" computer for free when they update - if it's made for XP or later it'll be a relative flyer unencumbered with Windoze, and perhaps run it as your "home" or "fun" computer- in 6 months you'll wonder why you didn't change earlier......... I first tried Ubuntu on an aged ex-corporate laptop that had slowed to a crawl running XP (20 minute bootups), and was destined for the scrap heap - running linux it became very usable, and lasted another 18 months.
Now I'm "used to linux" I don't find any compatibility problems at all, but as I said earlier, it all " feels a bit strange" at first, and it'll take a little while to get used to it - hells bells, you switch the bally thing on, it fires up, and "just does it" (unlike Windoze), so it does take acclimatisation

 

[DanBee]

right the ideas are these, due to some of the work based programes i have to use, windows office pro, windows project manager, pdf writer pogs ( adobe version 6)
and now i have been told i need to start to use a form of CAD for drawings, plus all the docs i down loaded for work and the massive bee folder i have on this lappy i am now at about 60% od hard disk usage

So you have 40% free? sounds like plenty. Bung your bee folder, documents and downloaded stuff onto a USB device and you'll have even more free. Consider an online backup service like Dropbox or Spideroak for additional safety.

i would love to get off windose as every single computer geek i know uses it and they do know what they are doing but all have warned me that there will be some form of clash with linux and windose some where and thats when you need a geek to fix it.

If this is your only or main work PC then be very careful. Practice on something else. You wouldn't start an engine swap on a saturday morning if you needed the car to get to work on monday, would you?! Your best bet is to simply buy a new hard disk and swap it with the one currently in your laptop - keeps the old working configuration safe, gives you a whole new (bigger?) hard disk to play with.

Beware the 'grass is always greener' brigade. Some see it as a badge of honour to use Linux, and to be honest if they call themselves geeks then they are not, like script kiddies who call themselves hackers

I have both Windows & Linux on my PCs, and it's horses for courses. I have one XP machine that sits there just to use a labelling machine - the alternatives and kludges just aren't as reliable as running proper XP. I turn it on, it works, I turn it off. My main PC dual-boots between XP and Linux because the new HD video camera just works with Windows, doesn't work well with Linux. It's little un-obvious things like the exFAT file system drivers not being available for Linux that stop you swapping the memory card into a PC's card reader, instead your have to use the slooow cable transfer...

The "old Windows PC that slowed down to a crawl" line is often trotted out and then there is surprise when a fresh install (of anything!) runs faster compared to five or six years of accumulated stuff. Well I never! You might find a fresh install of Windows is just as effective, and will be totally familiar and compatible with the software you are required to use for work. With 40% disk space free, a thorough defrag may restore good amounts of speed after a tidy up of unnecessary files. You do defrag regularly?

I have to be honest and say that from your posts I don't think you are confident enough yet to wipe and rebuild your main PC without a lot of frustration. Play on a 2nd machine until you are more confident.

Have a look at the following two links. If either of these looks too daunting, or indeed if the idea of taking your laptop apart and swapping hard drives around sounds daunting, then you're probably best not doing anything drastic to the PC you rely on for work. Get a cheap 2nd PC and play on that. It's almost essential to have a 2nd PC available if something drastic goes wrong in the re-install, so that you have internet access to search for advice/tips/updates, regardless of what you are re-installing with.

Optimise Ubuntu for SSD drives
Optimise XP for SSD drives