If he really does not know what he is doing he runs the risk of wiping out his C drive, personally I do not suggest trying partitioning for those that are not fairly computer experienced, with out guidance at hand. I see every day, people who were trying to partition their windows to put in linux or some other OS on part of the drive, and are now frantic because some how all their stuff is gone. Since he already has the 2 partitions, I think you have the best way to go with what you have told him to do use it exactly as it is and keep his C drive nice and clean, put his data and stuff on the other partition. At the same time go through and clean out and eliminate completely what is no longer needed. Every linux live cd comes with a great partition tool built in and you can get a linux live cd free or burn an iso of a distro to make your own live cd. This link is one that was given to me way back when I first needed to partition a drive for my linux, it does a good job of covering the basics. Studying several of these tutorials is always an excellent idea. How To: Repartition Your Hard Drive For Free Without Formatting or Losing Data and before doing anything I sure would get one of the free drive imaging programs and do a few images of the drive in case something goes bad.

Laptop is a Dell Latitude (C-Series). I've always hooked up a mouse... could never work those little pad areas well enough. Has separate "floppy-disk module as external device"... cable to connect. Only has ONE USB port... before it went into extreme SSLLOOWW mode, usde a gizmo that turned one port into 4-5. Has a little cord (about 4" long) marked composite TV-out adapter cable. I have CD reinstall disks for MS Windows XP Professional (including service pack 1a and 2). Has a CD drive, but that doesn't show up when I go to "my computer", but I used it to initially install XP?? And a spare battery pack that has just been sitting in the carrying bag for... since purchased? This computer was loaned/given to me by someone who had purchased a new one... but I was told I could do whatever I wanted with it. When I go to "my computer" and click properties for C, shows 18.6 GB capacity, 7.18 GB used & 11.4 GB free. This is a little odd?? Last time it was hooked up to DSL, showed 80-90% or more used... would get frequent low memory warnings... would have to do a disk cleanup that would briefly and ever so slightly improve speed. Went to control panel and checked to see what programs are on C... 18 different items. Most say "rarely" used, 4 say "frequently" used, but 2 of those I KNOW I don't use?? Rough extimate is almost 800 MB... could list, if that would help. Under system properties: ...system: MS WIndows XP Professional v 2002, service pack 2. ...registered to: my name and 20 letters/numbers. ...computer: Intel Pentium, 1.00GHz, 256 MB Ram. Took it in to Staples with a coupon for a free check-up. Fully expected them to tell me it was gravely ill with some virus... they didn't. I KNEW it didn't have a virus. Said it was pretty much out of memory. Guy tried to find something but nothing matched where it would have to go. Said because computer was "older technology", additinal memory would be difficult to find and expensive... advised not to waste my money and plan for a new computer when possible. Had Spyware Doctor with Anti-virus v 8.0... recommended by former co-worker a few years ago. Over time, it would catch occasional minor infections and fix right away. WOuld be encouraged to BUY something... Registry Mechanic "Optimizer" to get rid of registry errors. Have NO idea what that means, but wasn't something that seemed to make much difference, and I wasn't willing to spend any more money. OK... getting long-winded, so I'll stop. If any of my gibberish makes sense, and anyone has any advise for thie "dummy"... I will be very grateful!

tumblenweed in case you are not aware of this you can download and burn many of the linux distros/versions to cd as an iso, they are called live cd's. You can take the cd put it in your computer cd drawer and then reboot the pc so that it boots from the cd drive, then you simply select to run linix from the live cd. you can do pretty much anything you want to do from the live cd, just like if you had installed it on your hard drive but you didn't so everything that was on your pc is untouched. You will be able to use the firefox browser on the live cd to go online and surf, use the office program on the live cd to do word documents, use the audio or video programs to listen to music or play videos, every thing you normally do you can do in linux from the live cd. It is the perfect way to try out linux, you do not change a thing on your pc all you do is stick a cd in the drawer and boot up. When you are done using it select the shut down button on linux, when the cd drawer opens remove the cd, let the pc reboot and you are back as it was before you ever put the cd in the drawer. If you don't want to burn your own cd you can order them for just a few dollars from several sources online. I would get several so you can try out different distros, ubuntu is not the only one to try, I really like Mepis it is very easy for new users, you can get some that use KDE some that use Gnome and there are some that have like 4 different managers on them. you can take a look at some of the versions here. Linux at distrowatch, on that site you will see links to sites you can order cd's from. Get a few and give it a try! Plus everyone should have at least one linux live cd handy in case their windows dies, you can use a linux live cd to still get into your system and often use it to get your files.

More memory is good but at some point there is a diminishing return on the investment and that point is a function of what you are doing with your computer. Things like first person shooter games, video editing, photo editing (of very large files) all benefit from lots of memory. Writing an email to Aunt Betty doesn't require very much memory at all because the computer can process information far faster than you can type. Same thing for the Internet, your computer can render pages faster than your connection can supply the information. So if you have a slow internet connection, you're not likely to experience much, if any improvement. With that said, 4 gigs is probably a pretty good number. If you really want a WOW factor, get a solid state drive and use that for your O/S and critical applications. To try and answer some of your questions: - Windows doesn't care about the physical drive or any logical partitions. It does make good sense to install Windows 7 on the newer, faster drive. You'll get the best performance that way. When it comes time to get rid of XP, everything will be on one drive and that, if nothing else, should help you keep things mentally organized. - My understanding is that you have two physical drives, one with a functioning version of XP and the other blank. If that is not correct, say so NOW. - When you go to install Windows 7, it will recognize that there is another operating system (Windows XP) already installed. Windows 7 won't do anything to XP other than to set up the dual boot. Essentially it's computer language that says, "XP is there, Windows 7 is here, which one do you want to use?" - Logical partitions to a drive a largely a function of personal preference. Understand that it is more difficult (but not impossible) to non-destructively repartition a drive after you put data on it. If you, for example, have a partition for music, another for videos, and a third for pictures and find down the road that you have a lot more videos than music, it becomes more difficult to rearrange things. My suggestion is a single, large partition and use folders to organize your data.