Disk clean up is a good place to start, although you may have simply run out of space. Videos tend to take up the most space, followed by pictures and music.

As an aside, modern computers generally don't benefit significantly from defrag.

Tks, Mike. I guess it's time to use this new external hard drive that my DH so thoughtfully bought for me a couple of months ago, huh? I have two grandbabies with lots of pics and videos. Need I say more?

My concern is not being sure that things are safe on external HD's. That's been my concern. This is a Verbatim brand. I'd be crushed if any of those things were lost. Lemme know, ok?

Tks again.

Any drive, internal or external, can fail. Things you really don't want to lose can be stored on the external drive and on dvd's and also stored on line. adrive has been recommended on this forum. Looks like they allow 50 GB of free storage.

Bob, you said "Any drive, internal or external, can fail. Things you really don't want to lose can be stored on the external drive...."

Are you saying that an external is as safe as an internal hard drive? I know how computers can crash, etc. BTDT. I guess I'm a little confuzzled. Nothing new for me. :)

Also, do CDs come with different capacities?

another online thast's great is Dropbox and also 50 GB or more free, and put a dropbox folder on your desktop..

If things are extremely important to you give a thought to multiple backups using different media. Everything is potentially corruptible due to aging or product failure so the odds against loss are reduced if you do so.

Does your system have a DVD burner? If so, a DVD has much more storage than CDs.

Finally, CCleaner left at it's default settings gives a much better service than Disk Cleanup, and Defraggler is a faster defragging application than the Windows utility.

DA

How big is your hard drive and how much is used? Do you ever uninstall or delete programs and files you no longer need? And how old is this computer?

Tks, everyone.

Yes, DA, I have a DVD burner. Great suggestion. Why didn't I think of that? DUH! I have CC and use it frequently. Unfortunately, it hasn't solved the problem of the overloaded PC. I'll give that Defraggler a whirl.

Kudzu, I've forgotten how to find the information about my hard drive. I'd appreciate any help with that. I do uninstall and delete programs, etc. once in a while. My computer was built for me about 3 yrs ago. What can I say? I've been a busy girl, lol.

To find your disk info, right-click on Start, Explore All Users, right-click on C:, and click Properties. This will tell you how big, and how much is used and free.

YIKES!

Capacity - 74.5 GB
Used - 70.6 GB
Free - 3.87 GB

Methinks I'm in SERIOUS trouble!

YIKES!

Capacity - 74.5 GB
Used - 70.6 GB
Free - 3.87 GB

Methinks I'm in SERIOUS trouble! After I get these videos and pics onto the external hard drive and DVDs, my problem should be solved? Or no?

I'm so afluttered I typed it twice in the preview and submitted it... lol.

From one grandparent to another, we tend to keep too many pictures. I personally acknowledge that it is difficult to delete anything as to the grandchildren, I have three myself, but I force myself to delete the lack of quality and lack of meaning pictures. If I had to voice a number I would say 10-15% can be deleted without regret.

DA

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly, DA. There's going to be some serious deleting going along with the downloading.

Might be bothering you good people again if this doesn't solve my problem.... Just a BOLO... ;)

gale-
I'm sure your grandkids are almost as cute as mine, but you really have to ask yourself: Do I need 400 variations on a kid holding a spoon with food on his face?

My mindset is: Is this a unique picture that would be worth printing out or copying to a digital picture frame? Is it in focus? How often do I want to look through all of these unsorted shots? Is anything lost if I only keep the best one out of many similar shots? And who is going to take the time to want any of this in the future if it's not pared down?

Do some weeding out. Transfer the keepers to an external hard drive and to a second location, like a CD or DVD. And then enjoy your speedier computer without all those timeless treasures hogging the disk space and slowing it down.

I do have to say that it was easier years ago when it cost money to take pictures and print them out...my parents took shots so infrequently that we once got two Christmases on one roll of film!

I have to laugh regarding K's comment about years ago. I tell people I have a 100,000 pictures of my first born, 10,000 for the middle one, and for the youngest (who is soon to be 33) two shots left on the roll in the camera.

DA

Memory cards are getting so cheap these days I fill one up and just buy another and keep the originals on the memory card then I can use it to back them up to DVD or external or where ever. It does not take up much room to store those tiny cards, I have a memory card wallet I got at I think walmart, I make a little label and stick in the slot with the card. I don't tend to put many of my pics on my computer itself unless it is something I know I will be using often.
I buy the 4gig memory card and the 4 gig Kingston flash drives at Big Lots all the time, they run them on special for $9 regular I think they are $12 now, I stock up when they are on sale and I also use my buzz club 20% off coupons on them.

I have used Adrive online storage for several years now, have never had any problem there and it is very easy to use the fact they give 50 gig free is a big plus.

you have a fairly small hard drive in realation to the sizes of today. you might consider replacing it with a bigger size drive, there are some great free programs that allow you to clone the entire drive operating system and all and just put it all on the new drive. Installing one is pretty simple and they are not very expensive.
To find out all the info you need about your pc go here and download the little Belarc tool it will give you a nice read out which you can print.
Belarc Advisor

In my opinion, you're always going to have space problems with such a small hard drive. If I were you, I'd get a bigger hard drive, create a disk image of your current drive on the external drive, create a boot CD, put the new drive in and restore from the backup.

Paragon has a free and easy to use program. It will let you automatically resize to the new drive size. I'm guessing you can get a bigger drive for around $50-$60. Look for ATA and/or IDE. I'd look at newegg.com first. Since ATA/IDE is older, a clearance place like geeks.com may have more options.

All good advice and is much appreciated. I've printed out all your suggestions. Some of it is greek to me, so, like I said I might be bach (said in my Ahnold voice).

Get one of the reputed third party automatic defraggers.Some of them defrag with as less as 1% free space if I remember right. And you can also set it on the automatic mode.

Tks, karbon. I'll try that.

What size hard drive should I get?

check the specs on your pc to see if there is a size limit. A 200Gig or so would be a decent size, you can go to 500gig if you want to spend a bit more. You will need to run belarc or one of those type tools so you know exactly what type hard drive you will need.

Hi. I hope it's okay if I jump in on this thread as I have a similar task ahead of me. My 11 yo daughter's computer has a 40GB hard drive - which was sufficient for her playing games and surfing on the computer. Now she's starting to store music in Itunes, some picturs, an Flip Video's, so she's now over 75% full on her hard drive. Her computer is slowing way down and I've run the ccleaner, defragged the drive, run spyware programs and gotten rid of spyware. Clearly need to free up space.

I could either get her an external drive and put her music, pictures and videos there. Or I could replace her internal hard drive. Replacing the internal drive sounds wise bc. she'll she might have difficulty knowing where to go for her music, videos, etc if it's not on her C: drive. But I'm worried about getting the information from her current drive to the new one.

On the other hand, her computer is Dell dimension 4500 - from 2002 (I just updated to 1.5 GB Ram). These specs:

XP sp3
1.8 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 processor
40GB hard drive
CD-RW, DVD-rom drive (I think that means it only writes cd's but will play dvd's)

I think pretty soon this will be too outdated and slow to do much of what she needs. In a year or so, it might be time to get her a new computer - in which case having her files on the external hard drive would be great - no changes needed when getting a new computer. Or I may pass mine down to her then.

If I go the route of changing the internal hard drive, BP suggested above: "get a bigger hard drive, create a disk image of your current drive on the external drive, create a boot CD, put the new drive in and restore from the backup." Sounds great but I am unsure how to do those steps. If I buy her an external drive - and try to create a disk image of her current drive, I have no idea how to do that - or how to create a boot CD, or how to restore from the back-up. (I do think I can figure out physically replacing the actual drive).

She certainly needs more space. Given her computer specs - and soon to be growing need to store music and video, should I just get her a large (500GB?) external hard drive - or go through the work of changing her internal hard drive?

I hope it's appropriate to post this here. Let me know if I should instead start my own thread.

Thank you.
Lynn.

PS - On my own computer, I have an external hard drive that has a back-up of my C drive - and some video files. It's a 600 GB hard drive with 136GB free. For an external hard drive that doesn't run programs, do I still need to keep 15-25% free space?

lynnalexandra-
I wouldn't bother putting a new internal drive in an ancient computer. Get her a quality external hard drive and then, when the computer from 2002 dies, she can just unplug the external drive and attach it to her next computer. I doubt that an 11 year old is going to have a problem figuring out where her music is....

Thanks, Kudzu. I'll do that - just a quality external hard drive.

I would agree I would invest in a better quality large external hard drive that can be used with any future pc and would make accessing the files easy.

There are some very good tutorials for using the imaging programs so any one needing that I can easily link to those for you.

lynnalexandra-
I'm partial to the Toshiba Canvio Plus line of external drives. They seem to be highly reliable, are nice and small, and are very reasonably priced. Check out the prices and reviews on Amazon and you'll see what I mean.

Raven, where do I find the size of hard drive I need on BelArc? Tks.

belarc will tell you the type you need IDE or SATA it likely will not give a size you can use, it is rare that there are limits but I have run into a couple of instances that the larger hard drives were not recognized. I think if you stay under 500gig you should be fine. You would need to look up your actual model of pc on the manufacturers site to see if it lists any other specs for hard drive requirements.

for external drives I use Seagate Free Agent Pro, I like their warranty. Plus they come pre formated in NTFS ready to use, some come in FAT and most people would want to use NTFS with todays windows.

I need an IDE then. (whatever that means, lol) I have a Verbatim external hd with 1.8 trig capacity. Will I be able to get all my pics, videos, etc. on that? I plan to back them up with DVDs. I'm in the sorting and pitching stage now. Why I've let this go is beyond me. Can you say 'procrastination'?

IDE refers to interface or the way the device connects to the computer. Today you'll likely see PATA (parallel ATA) for that kind of drive. The other is SATA (or serial ATA). The two are not interchangeable so just make sure you get the right one.

But those are generally internal devices. If you want an external drive, then you'll want a USB.

An external hard drive has the same reliablilty as an internal hard drive.

I suggest that you burn the photos to quality CDs. You can keep copies in both places until you become short of space on your computer's hard drive. For pictures you definitely wish to keep "forever", consider making a second copy to a CD and store. The fewer times you write something to a re-writeablr CD, the longer it will last.