LaCie 500gb External Hard Drive advice please?

Lizbetty

I'm hoping to buy this but I'm wondering if anyone could advise me on the following please? Did post on Hot Deals but everyone must be busy

Sorry for being a techno numpty...but we need some extra space as our pc is sloooow (192mb?!), tried to install more memory to speed it up but it kept crashing so thinking an external hard drive will take some of the programmes instead? Will I be able to upload Windows XP onto here without a problem does anyone know please? Our pc is full of kids photos too (prob why it's so slow...) so we're hoping to get some sort of backup, maybe this? And lastly, (sorry folks) does this just plug into usb port?

We're tight on cash so I'm trying to make sure it'll be the right one before I part with the dosh..

I just don't get the USB 2.0 thing either - we have a couple of 'VIA Rev 5 or later' things under Device Manager, but I really don't know if this means we have a USB 2 port or not, and whether not having it makes this deal no good for us.

Thanks lots, sorry for lots of q's!

Luce

custardy

right lets see whats what 1st

have you checked what programs are running at start up?

checked for spyware?

how much free hard drive space do you have?

have you looked ot see if you can fit a 2nd internal hard drive?

an external drive just plugs in via USB and mains power.

usb 2 is faster but the same shape as usb 1 so if you have usb its fine.

Lizbetty

Well..now you mentioned it I did a Zone Alarm free system health check stylie thing which did say I had four programmes running at start up which were affecting my computer, but not sure exactly what they are I use AVG and Zone Alarm, plus CCleaner and there's a Brother Control Centre 3 thing which flashes up as I'm logging on. Starting up this thing takes AGES.

I have a spare USB port, hard drive free space is a worry as I have a RamBooster thing which constantly shows up as '52mb remaining - ALARM'. Doesn't sound good to me, but not sure if this is exactly what you mean?

Thanks for replying, sorry I can't provide the info you asked for immediately...

Lucy

custardy

you are getting confused from ram memory and storage memory.

ram is what the pc uses to 'run'
hard drive space is what the pc stores things like pictures,files etc

52mb is low.
reminds me of when i ran 512mb and the pc would bog down ,2gb now

if you go into control panel>performance & maintenence>system>general it will tell you what physical ram you have installed

go into my computer and it will show hard drives installed

if you hover your mouse over a hard drive icon it will show total space and free space

Lizbetty

Oh, I see! Thanks for clearing that up. My head's a shed and I just don't have thinking time to clarify things myself up there these days.

The hard drive says 28gb free space 38.3gb total when I hover.

I'd love nothing more than to get this pile of pants computer speeded up, but I did try with more memory and it just nadged every time I logged on. Was going to send the memory back in case it was faulty, but then never got round to it Esp as they asked for it back in the fancy bag which I binned not realising it was some protective thing for it. Whoops. The memory is now in my 'in' tray with a heap of stuff in it...

custardy

thats plenty of hard drive space.

pop onto crucials site and it will tell you what ram you have and recommendations

http://www.crucial.com/

however you dont have to buy from crucial,they are a good company though

Lizbetty

Thanks, I'll do that right now

We were also looking at an external hard drive cos all our kids pics are on there and we have no backup - if they went, it'd be horrible! OH is self employed as well so we could put his docs on, we don't download films or music at all, really. Would you say that this is the best way to do it, on this La Cie one, or is 500gb too much?

Also, just a quick question about adding memory...our poastman said you should warm your hands on a cup of tea before you pick the memory up to install it, I've read that you have to wear am antistatic bracelet/earrings/necklace (well, maybe not the last two..) to do it, and all this anti static thing has got me nervous of buying more memory. Is it really so sensitive? Or am I reading too much?

Thanks again for helping me out
Lucy

vaio

Lucyeff wrote: »

The hard drive says 28gb free space 38.3gb total when I hover……

You are using less than 30% of your disc so I’m sure an extra disc is not going to speed things up. It might still be worth getting one for backup reasons although you would be surprised how many photos etc you can burn on a cd

Your slowness problem sounds software based so basically free & easy to fix even if you have to start from scratch

b33r

If you don't have music and/or videos and films on your PC then I really doubt you need a 500 Gigabyte Hard drive for back up reasons.

Average size of a digital pic? 600kb say. Means you'd be able to get 0.8 Million pictures on that hard drive.

I personally think a DVD burner (~£18GBP) would be a better purchase for backup purposes in your case and allow you to back up 4.7 Gigabyte at a time.

As others have said a new hard drive would not speed up your PC at all, upgrading system memory and cleaning up your PC would though. After you have backed up your data, why not consider formatting your PC and re-installing windows. That would probably give the biggest speed increase assume you re-install all the drivers properly.

gtmoon

judging on the spec 192MB RAM 40GB HD, it does appear your pc is bought around 2002.

for start, any version of Windows XP recommands at minimum 256MB RAM, preferably 512MB to make it smooth. it is clear your pc's bottle neck is the RAM, then it's what actually are running.

i very much agree an external HD would not increase your pc performance, but would be a good backup device. as b33r suggested DVDRW might be a cheaper option, but for cost per GB, HD is always cheaper by far.

i would think your pc only has USB1.1 rather than 2.0, which is rather slow in today's standard.

to speed your pc up:

1. get more RAM,
2. find out what actaully your pc is running.

Donnie

It could be that the module that you received is faulty. It's happens. Don't worry too much about losing the protective bag for the memory, I can send you one of those.
Write to the vendor, explaining that it was dead on arrival. When you get a RMA you can send it back, together with the bag I can send to you.
They, by return, should send you a working module.

I'm astounded, that after all this time, you still haven't backed up your important information.

Back up your info, replace the memory and when found working, re-install your OS.
This has really been dragging on for far too long.