Please help my laptop is broken

aliEnRIK

-MRS_T- wrote: »

I am on windows vista

goto START and WINDOWS UPDATE
Update EVERYTHING you can (Youll probably find it needs to be done a few times with reboots included (and it will be slow to start up as theyre installed))

aliEnRIK

-MRS_T- wrote: »

you are very informative and certainly know your stuff. Can you tell me what does windows defender do please as I have this little brick wall on my computer bar at the bottom and wondered what it is

Windows defender is another windows security program. It comes with vista as standard and keeps an eye out for certain malicious programs and any dodgy looking activity.
A scan CAN be done with it.

-MRS_T-

aliEnRIK wrote: »

goto START and WINDOWS UPDATE
Update EVERYTHING you can (Youll probably find it needs to be done a few times with reboots included (and it will be slow to start up as theyre installed))

I am doing this as we speak I see there is a lot of optional updates but im not really sure wether to download those or not so have left them unticked and just do the important ones

aliEnRIK

-MRS_T- wrote: »

I am doing this as we speak I see there is a lot of optional updates but im not really sure wether to download those or not so have left them unticked and just do the important ones

The optional ones arent 'important'. But if there are any HARDWARE updates, then you may find your computer runs better if you installed them

-MRS_T-

Hello

me again and problems again with this bl**dy laptop. Its not even a cheapy laptop either and ive only had it a year it cost me £700 its an hp

Anyhow I am trying to back up and it says there is no space left on the hp recovery d drive. I have tried disk cleanup but it only comes up with recycle bin and there is nothing in that.

Any ideas on how I can fix this as I cannot back up until I sort this problem, and with the way my laptop is these days I think I had better back up soon

thanks
mrs t

GunJack

right, download CCleaner, run the cleaner and let it delete everything it finds.

You're using vista, right ?? So, you need to open Computer (should be icon on desktop), and then do this for each of your HDDs (I'm imagining it is partitioned to at least C and D drives)...

right-click on a disk, and select disk cleanup. Once it's scanned to tell you how much space it can remove, go to the tools or more options tab, and select the option to clean up any old restore points, shadow copies, etc. I think it's OK twice then, and let it do it's stuff.

Remember to do this for every HDD shown....

Oh, and it may be an idea to defrag each drive also, especially if you haven't done it before/ever/for a long while, and then repeat the cleanup process once the defrag's finished

Vista keeps far more of this crap than XP ever did, so should clean up loads of space on your HDD....

aliEnRIK

System Restore and Volume Shadow Copy service will be using some space as Gun has said.

But follow THIS advice to keep it from filling up again

http://www.davescomputertips.com/articles/vista/change_vista_system_restore_size.php

***EDIT*** Just realised you said D only.
Im really not sure how you go about clearing that to be absolutely honest. Let us know if any of Guns ideas work.
(and switch OFF system restore on drive 'D' if its on (Which it shouldnt))

Unstoppable_2

The D drive will always report no space as it's kept to the minimum size needed for the recovery data in order to maximise how much you have to use on the C drive.

As for antivirus software, I know of a very good one - Eset NOD32. Costs £23 a year but as you've no morals and don't mind thieving software, I'm sure you'll find it on Limewire or The Pirate Bay....

aliEnRIK

Unstoppable wrote: »

The D drive will always report no space as it's kept to the minimum size needed for the recovery data in order to maximise how much you have to use on the C drive.

As for antivirus software, I know of a very good one - Eset NOD32. Costs £23 a year but as you've no morals and don't mind thieving software, I'm sure you'll find it on Limewire or The Pirate Bay....

the unstoppable Conor eh?
What did you do THIS time?

GunJack

aliEnRIK wrote: »

***EDIT*** Just realised you said D only.
Im really not sure how you go about clearing that to be absolutely honest. Let us know if any of Guns ideas work.
(and switch OFF system restore on drive 'D' if its on (Which it shouldnt))

RIK, have had to do this on MIL's pc running vista, same process for each partition. The need to do the full cleanup again after the defrag is because vista seems to open each file as it's defragging it, which in turn creates ANOTHER round of shadow/backup copies :mad: ...the net effect is that you end up with LESS free disk space AFTER you've defragged

I always thought vista sucked

Oh, and I'm assuming you're manually backing up ?? If so, make sure you specify the larger HDD partition to save the backup image on