New Internal Hard-Drive...what is best from here to optimise my computer?

Well you already seem to be doing the first thing I recommend, which is to run the OS separately from your files. This way, no matter how bad the software problem, the OS disc/partition can be formatted easily without impacting your files.

So I'd keep moving all your files (as in documents etc, not program files or OS files) to the new internal disc, and keep the old disc used for OS and programs only.

You say you can't install more RAM, but why? Is it because you don't have any slots left? Or is it some other hardware limitation? And how much do you have?

RAM is more than likely your bottleneck, and if someone told you you can't put more RAM in just because your slots are being used then you might want to consider getting whole new sticks. Let me explain:

Let's say you have two 256 MB sticks giving you 512 MB of RAM, there may not be any more room to put in an additional stick of RAM, but you may be able to replace them with 512 MB sticks of RAM (or more).

Computer speed is largely based on:

1) RAM
2) CPU
3) Graphics Card
4) Disc speed

Now depending on what your CPU is, this could be a big bottleneck, but for years this hasn't really been a bottleneck for average users, so you'd have to be dealing with a VERY slow processor for this to be a factor. If you are, you should really stop spending money on this computer. For almost any other average user's bottleneck, it's the RAM.

Graphics cards make a big difference on graphics intensive things like high definition video, gaming and photo or video editing, but they don't tend to have much impact on the average user. In fact the only computer I have with a decent graphics card is unused, and my other 3 computers just use onboard graphics and I have no problems with speed.

Disc speed is an issue for some power users, but for most average folk the slowest disc around isn't going to be very noticeably different from the fastest.

So, more than likely, you probably want to be looking at the RAM as an upgrade. If you tell me what you have, I can make a better recommendation (right click "My Computer" and select "Properties" and it will show you on the "General" tab. Note that the processor and RAM info may take a second or two to show up on a slower computer).

And the good news is that RAM is very cheap. Have a look here or here for examples. I'm seeing 4GB for under $30, and that's at least twice what you need (if you are running XP, I recommend 1GB minimum unless you like waiting, and 2GB maximum unless you have some crazy RAM needs).

And if you can't upgrade through RAM, then just wait and buy a new computer. I can buy a very powerful computer for $300-$400 stateside. I know you guys have crazier prices but I still think you can get a great computer for under $500 and an upgrade here or there to your existing one will soon add up to the cost of a new one.

Here's an example of what I mean. It's $299 and it comes with "AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ / 3GB DDR2 800MHz / 250GB SATA II / 20X DVD-RW". All you are missing is an operating system (which I imagine you already have access to) and you are ready to roll for the cost of upgrading your existing computer a few times.

I don't know what you have, but based on the size of the original hard drive, I suspect you are at that point where it makes more financial sense to replace the whole thing and even Australian prices can't be changing the basic financial reality too much, for example I did a quick ebay Australia search and found a computer that blows yours out of the water for $399 AUD.

496 MB Ram.

And only two slots.

Actually, I know this sounds dumb, but I often have huge trouble moving stuff to the new disk...how do you actually DO that?

Often only the shortcut seems to move, and I have had to redownload lots of stuff, like iTunes and various players, to move them.

I have priced a new computer at various places, and really, for what I want, I am looking at well over $1,000.

I have paid less that $100 so far to upgrade, so, if I can optimize this one for a while, until I have paid for some things that are way more important , that suits me fine.

Yeah, no matter what else you do to your computer it's going to crawl with that RAM.



Unless there is some other limitation that's still enough for you to go to up to 4GB, and if you go to 1GB I bet you'll feel like you have a new computer. You can't do anything to your computer to make it fast without more RAM, and it's also the cheapest thing you can do to your computer. You should really see if you can get more RAM into there, that might be all you need to do to have the machine flying. The one caveat is the processor, if it's very slow (and I mean something like a 1.0 GHz processor, and even then you might be fine with just RAM) you may not be able to do anything to make it faster, but I suspect all you really need is RAM.



Sounds like you are trying to move programs like you move files, and that's not going to work.

Programs for windows typically are structured like this:

1) In "Program Files" there is a folder with all the files the program uses.
2) In the registry, there are configurations, which may include things like file paths
3) Some programs may save user data to an application data directory.

So you can't just move them, they are expecting files in certain places and unless you want to hunt around all of the above you will need to reinstall them.

So you need to treat most installed programs very differently than files, you can't use the basic file system commands to move them around, as they store configuration in places like the registry that are not changed when you move the files.

I'll look into RAM.

I gather it's a bit hard and pricey to source for an old computer.

Is there a simple way to move programs? Or just keep deleting and re-downloading?

Not really, RAM doesn't change too much and there are a lot of tools out there to help you find out what kind of RAM you need (just google "what kind of ram" and there are a bunch of different tools on the first page).

However RAM tends to have very wide variance in prices, you can often find the exact same RAM listed at $30 and $150 depending on where you get it, so the key is finding the right place to buy it more than anything else.



First of all, you shouldn't "delete" programs, you should "uninstall" them. I don't know if this is just a wording issue or if you are actually deleting program files but as I explained earlier most Windows programs put entries in the registry and you can't treat them like normal files.

And as to your question, I'm sure there are tools to try to move them, but I don't think they'd be any easier than uninstalling and reinstalling the normal way.

Nah...I am uninstalling.