I ran into something this weekend when working on a friends laptop that resulted from her removing an external hard drive with out properly using the safely remove icon, she told me she only did it 2 or 3 times normally she did use the icon. And once I looked up the error on google I found many many others that had the same thing happen to them and all of them also had an external hard drive they would attach, from all the info and reading I did that was the cause. What happens is you start to get an invalid drive error message, the one she was getting was invalid drive G:\, any time I tried to go to add remove programs I got that error so could not remove out dated programs, any time I tried to install things it gave that same error, so there was no way to try to update or clean out anything. Could not install or remove due to that error. After researching I found a way to go to the command prompt and type in a substitute code and that would let me remove or install programs however upon reboot it was right back, meaning anytime she needs to add or remove she will need to do that command prompt code first, and when I looked in My Computer it showed a G: drive it was an exact copy of the C: drive it was a ghost said it had the exact same volume etc. I tried every thing I found online to try to get it to go away including some registry edits but on hers the registry items were not changed so I could not edit it. So if you do use an external hard drive and you see that you can not safely remove I HIGHLY recommend just wait till you can shut down if that is how you have to do it because you really do not want to have to deal with that ghost drive mess. for those interested the exact error was Error 1327 Invalid Drive G:\ and to make matters worse on her pc everywhere it showed the G: drive it was grayed so there was no way to change that drive letter itself back to C. Really strange but by the google search not very rare.

Many thanks, everybody, for your advice! That does help a lot. Yes, my photo files do seem to be saved, as they are still there when I turn the drive off and back on. Actually, once I turn the drive off the little "safely remove hardware" icon disappears from my computer screen. So I suspect it's only available when the computer can detect extra hardware plugged in. So is it okay to remove the drive from the computer, as long as the drive is turned off, without going through that "safely remove" thing first? To answer some of your questions, no, there was no pamphlet included with the drive so I didn't get the key code. It is a 500 GB drive and I think it was about 99 dollars that I paid for it. Though, as there was actually only 465 GB free on it, I knew there must be something else on there somewhere--even if it wasn't showing up! I had looked at the Seagate web site before, and I think I saw something on there which said they would send you the software if you gave them the serial number of the drive and a little other information. Though, at the time, I thought they met the installation software and I didn't think I needed that, as it had installed okay. So maybe I'll look into that--or demand a pamphlet from the seller!

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.

Win98 and WinME 1. Disk Clean Up Click 'Start' >'Programs' >'Accessories' >'System Tools' >'Disk Cleanup'. Select the drive you wish to clean and click "OK". Select desired Options. Click 2. Clean Cookies, Temporary Folders, Temporary Internet Files and History From the Desktop, open 'My Computer' >C Drive >Windows >Cookies Select all files..right click and select "Delete". Return to the Windows folder. Scroll to and open the 'Temp' folder. From the toolbar at the top of the window, click "Tools">Viewing Options. Check to insure that "Show All Files" is selected. Select all the files within the "Temp" folder and delete them. Return to the Windows folder. Locate and open the 'Temporary Internet Files' folder. Select all files within the "Temporary Internet Files" folder, right click and select "Delete". Return to the Windows directory. Locate the "History" folder. Select all files within and delete. Return to the C Drive directory. Locate the "Temp" folder. Open it and delete all files within. 3. Remove Unwanted or Unused Programs To view programs installed on your computer, click 'Start' >Control Panel >Add/Remove Programs. To remove a program, select and click the 'Add/Remove' button. After uninstalling a program, you should re-start the computer. If you are going to uninstall more than one program, re-start the computer after each is removed. 4. Scan Disk It is a good idea to shut-down your Antivirus program prior to running Scandisk and Defrag. Click Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Scan Disk. Select a drive to scan. You will notice an option to perform a "Thorough' scan. Unless you are having issues with the hard drive, it is not necessary to do a 'thorough' scan. A 'thorough' scan can take a great deal of time to complete, whereas a 'Normal' scan does not. Select "Convert fragmented files to freespace". Click OK. Remember...you cannot do anything else on the computer while running Scandisk. 5. Defrag You should run Defragmenter after running Scandisk. Click 'Start' >Programs>Accessories>System Tools> Defragmenter. Select the drive and click 'Defragment'. Restart the Computer upon completion. Remember... you cannot do anything else on the computer while running Defrag.