New desktop arrived - what next??

longwalks1

windows home screen is up, mouse works on screen but disc is still whirring away, should i wait til it self-ejects?

JasX

As above, 64bit OS will be best, partitioning advice is sound, you did well to up the partition to 100GB as looking at the rate XP grew windows 7 will outgrow 40GB in time I'm sure.

Best to install the OS in the primary/first partition as this sits on the fastest outermost part of the disk and will be the best performing.

Unsure why you needed the additional small partitions but its your disk space.

Once OS is installed hopefully your PC will have come wiht a hardware driver disk of some kind so should install your main hardware drivers from that. (or you'll need to go online and track them down)

Finally would be good to install a reputable antivirus (one of MSE / Avira / Avast) and perhaps even Win7 service pack one offline BEFORE connecting to the internet if possible, then update your AV, run windows update and browser if needs be as your first task.

If you're being particularly organised look into taking an image of your hard disk at this point so you can easily 'factory restore' yourself.

longwalks1

cheers people

Jasx, was gonna ask about security next, on my Vista laptop i use Avira and malware-bites, whats best for Windows 7? (I usually get my progs from download.com)
Lately ive had a lot of 'pop-up' blocked messages (even for autorun when i plug in a usb drive or external HDD)

birkee

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

You need to partition your drive and then install an operating system (OS).

Whatever OS you choose, I would make a small partition of around 30GB to 40GB for windows or Linux and a home, swap and boot partitions for Linux as Logical partitions. Linux root, the first one I mentioned is probably best as a Logical partition too. It's only windows that needs primary partitions.

I wouldn't let an OS do partitioning, I always prefer to do it using separate software on a boot CD.

[EDIT after seeing that you have windows]
For windows I would make a primary partition of about 40GB and the rest of the drive I would have as a logical partition. That way it is far easier to re-install windows as all your data can be stored on the Logical partition and you just copy the few document files from the primary before you re-install.

You could have a swap partition but it won't really be of benefit if you only have one drive. I like to put a swap partition on one of my other drives at the beginning of the drive for speed. That can be a logical partition as well.

Someone says they are useless with computers, and you point them straight at partitioning, dual booting and Linux?
Care to try that again?

longwalks1

PS not sure why i allocated 3 x 100gb, one for the OS and any upgrades/service packs, the other 2 for, in case anyone suggested it at a later date really (not too concerned about the HDD space/using it, all my work is held on external or flash drive

longwalks1

birkee i was a bit lost tbh, but think i managed to fight my way thorugh it (bits i understood anyway)

longwalks1

right, it seems to have finished and loaded, but the disc is still whirring away, is this normal or should i eject it please? screens been loaded for 5 moniutes now, reloaded a coupel of times, now on what looks like my home screen

longwalks1

.........................

longwalks1

now i cant access the internet, i go to control panel, connect to internet, set up connection, connect using Broadband (PPPoe), then it asks for name my ISP gave me????
and password my ISP gave me????

Then connection name????

Any ideas please

It says connecting through WAN Miniport Then connection failed with error 651... help

JustPassingBy

britishboy wrote: »

now i cant access the internet, i go to control panel, connect to internet, set up connection, connect using Broadband (PPPoe), then it asks for name my ISP gave me????

Over a landline broadband is PPPoA. Cable? Dunno.