here is what i got from the analysis: Analysed : "D:\" April 12 2010, 22:47.21 Processed in 1 minute 46 seconds =================================================== Number of Files : 94276 Number of Folders : 19066 Size of Files : 23.14GB Size of Files (on disk) : 23.33GB Disk space wasted : 193.25MB Null files : 105 Empty folders : 0 Average File Size : 257.34K Average Files/Folder : 4.94 Largest Folder : \Windows\ (11.43GB, 67% of files) Largest File : D:\pagefile.sys (3.93GB) User with largest share : SYSTEM (9.69GB, 20%) : Quantity Size Programs : 2608 :: 2.54GB (11%) System : 21342 :: 15.21GB (66%) Graphics : 11383 :: 279.95MB (1%) Movie : 202 :: 298.27MB (1%) Audio : 704 :: 66.73MB ( Office : 6406 :: 159.68MB ( Programming : 378 :: 4.78MB ( Compressed : 4159 :: 318.93MB (1%) Other : 47094 :: 4.29GB (19%) Custom1 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom2 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom3 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom4 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom5 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom6 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom7 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom8 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom9 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom10 : 0 :: 0 bytes =================================================== Analysed : "C:\" April 12 2010, 22:51.31 Processed in 1 minute 37 seconds =================================================== Number of Files : 82894 Number of Folders : 15777 Size of Files : 17.37GB Size of Files (on disk) : 17.53GB Disk space wasted : 167.86MB Null files : 1768 Empty folders : 0 Average File Size : 219.67K Average Files/Folder : 5.25 Largest Folder : \Windows\ (10.87GB, 74% of files) Largest File : C:\hiberfil.sys (2.95GB) User with largest share : TrustedInstaller (9.21GB, 66%) : Quantity Size Programs : 2214 :: 797.99MB (4%) System : 17599 :: 10.46GB (60%) Graphics : 7221 :: 481.60MB (3%) Movie : 159 :: 555.87MB (3%) Audio : 669 :: 65.39MB ( Office : 9583 :: 128.44MB ( Programming : 374 :: 4.70MB ( Compressed : 78 :: 356.16MB (2%) Other : 44997 :: 4.57GB (26%) Custom1 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom2 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom3 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom4 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom5 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom6 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom7 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom8 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom9 : 0 :: 0 bytes Custom10 : 0 :: 0 bytes ===================================================

msconfig i run periodicly and check to be sure only programs i want are running. i deleted the 2 ms products to free up disk space, they were not desktop icons. several programs in startup are norton/symantec named. if i check them off then i won't have virus protection when going to web sites or downloading emails... no??? i am pretty nervous about viruses and worms etc so i would not normally consider not having nav 2005 running. is AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5 free via download? effective against virus and such? as far as costs, in january i was pricing a mac the one with the dual core processor (apparently many mfg now use dual core processors) and the price was $1700 to 1900 depending upon the monitor. nice system but way beyond what i really need and the price !!! so i assumed a descent pc for web surfing, word processing and email (all i care to do) would be $900 to $1200 again more than i want to spend. it seems (assumption) a pc less than $500 is just impractical and add 1 or 2 bells and you are at $900. 1 thing i could justify is a monitor at least 17". dsl is just $18 vs $10 for netzero but i wanted to keep my email address, i know that's minor, the cost for the new pc is the bigger issue. tom

I've been using Vista for 3 weeks. It works just fine. I think its the same as but somehow a step or two nicer than xp. Takes about a week to get used to the changes. You do do twice as much clicking to get to most system settings. They've seemed to want to hide things, that most people probably wouldn't mess with anyhow. There are some old faithful third party programs that havent been Vista-ized yet and a few that I've tried that say Vista compatable which they havent fully worked out their bugs. Microsoft gave me a wifi NIC upgrade, my only blue screen - but miscrosoft has done that for years with hardware drivers - WQL approved = Windows Quality Labs ;) Vista with MS-Works Laptop here uses 15-20GB of hard drive with no other major programs installed.

Raven - I have one of my posts that got eaten by goblins - and one of your posts that is missing from this thread. I will paste them both here - for the sake of keeping the integrity of the thread. Let me know if this is what was missing that you posted (or did more disappear) Here's my missing post: Damcoy - I'm always forgetting to do a google search. Raven - it was an OEM drive from Dell - no instructions. I vaguely recall that I'd want to format in NTFS and not FAT32 - though I don't recall what each of those are. When i first booted up my pc it did see the new hard drive - but I haven't known how to find it again. It seems to be suggesting that it's being labelled as a canon something or other. I don't know what that means to go into the boot menu at start up to see how it's listed. It did not give me an option of which to boot to - of course there's no operating drive on the second drive (at least I guess there's not since I didn't put one there). I also don't know how to back up my existing drive - which is part of what I want the second drive for. I'd like to back up my programs (and drivers? how would I do that) - perhaps on one partition. And have one or more partitions for files - like video, picture, music, data (word files, emails, etc, saved pages from the web?). So again, how do I go into the boot menu and see how they're listed? There is a difference in size - the second drive is 1/5TB =- the first is 500 GB. How could I mess up my existing original drive? by reformatting it? seems i have to have a place to back it up to before i back it up - I guess I could back it up on my external 640GB hard drive. Thanks. Lynn. ------------------------------- And here's the one from you that was emailed to me: I would use an imaging program and make a full copy of your existing drive to your external hard drive so that you have it should something go wrong. There are good free imaging programs, for those with vista and windows 7 there is now a built in imaging feature. On my computer as soon as it starts to boot up it flashes up and says to enter the boot menu hit esc, I just keep tapping it so I am sure I hit it at the right time, your computer may be different this is not uniform on all computers. Once you get into that area you will see the drives listed, you can choose which one to boot to and what order. I would do some research on what you are wanting to accomplish. I did a lot of reading and researching before I did mine and it really paid off. One thing I had not expected was for the SATA cable to come loose from the mother board after it was all set up, scared the you know what out of me! Luckily I have a see through case and saw the cable dangling. (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php ) CopyWipe free imaging program (http://dottech.org/featured/6194 ) 8 free software to image/backup/ghost your computer (free alternatives to Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost, etc.). ---------------------------------------------------- It lookslike some of your post didn't get copied and pasted intact - but it's mostly there. Or was there more than this? Thanks. Lynn. PS - I'm on my way out for the evening (and tomorrow's a day trip that could turn into all day) - so I don't know if I can get to this in the next day or two - as eager as I am to do so)