Windows Vista

[WokMaster1]

I just deleted about 38 GB of zhit off my old laptop's HD & transferred my pictures & videos to a portable HD. The 120 GB hard drive is full so I decided to clean it up to regain more space & use it as my backup to my other laptop & iPad. The OS is Windows Vista

Then I emptied my Recycle Bin. Why does the C: Drive still show no improvement & why is the thing still so damn slow? Avast is current & so is Malwarebytes.

Help?

[Peter.Steele]

CCleaner

Defraggler



That's about all you can do, unless you feel like a clean install. You hit on the problem with the 11th and 12th words of your OP.

[WokMaster1]

CCleaner

Defraggler



That's about all you can do, unless you feel like a clean install. You hit on the problem with the 11th and 12th words of your OP.

Thanks Peter. Yes, it's old & was thinking that it would be still OK for my sons to use. Maybe not.

Is there a good way to store photos & videos without sacrificing security besides a portable hard drive?

[WokMaster1]

Just found a PICTURES folder at 40GB & a Windows photo gallery at similar GB. WTH?

Is it a dupe & which one should go?

[repubconserv]

If the pics need to be backed up, do so and then delete. Only you can tell if the pics are dupe... it sucks, but go through and see if they are the same or not

[repubconserv]

Oh HDDs are super cheap (installation maybe not so much) so think about buying a bigger one.

Other things you can do to speed up the computer is check if there are any unneeded programs. If there are unneeded/unwanted programs, get rid of them.

There are also certain programs that start with the computer (startup programs), too many of them can hog memory. Turn off some of the unnecessary start up programs.

[JDay]

Is this an SSD or a HDD? If it is an SSD you should perform a secure erase on it to regain speed.

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20115106-285/how-to-securely-erase-an-ssd-drive/

[paul0660]

Open task manager and see what is sucking up CPU.

Put all the picture folders on the external drives and run a duplicate file finder.

[I_Love_My_.38]

pritform the maker of ccleaner also has an uninstaller that deletes every file left behind by uninstalled software

+1 on Ccleaner and Defraggler, must haves

[JDay]

pritform the maker of ccleaner also has an uninstaller that deletes every file left behind by uninstalled software

+1 on Ccleaner and Defraggler, must haves

Defrag programs are useless on Vista/7, in fact they will most likely cause the system to slow down (Vista/7 move files around based on what gets used the most). Both Vista and 7 defrag your drive in the background when the system is idle, check your drive manually sometime and you'll see it is not fragmented.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/01/25/disk-defragmentation-background-and-engineering-the-windows-7-improvements.aspx

Best practices for using defragmentation in Windows 7 are simple – you do not need to do anything! Defragmentation is scheduled to automatically run periodically and in the background with minimal impact to foreground activity. This ensures that data on your hard disk drives is efficiently placed so the system can provide optimal responsiveness and I can continue to enjoy glitch free listening to the Eagles :-).

[Peter.Steele]

Defrag programs are useless on Vista/7, in fact they will most likely cause the system to slow down (Vista/7 move files around based on what gets used the most). Both Vista and 7 defrag your drive in the background when the system is idle, check your drive manually sometime and you'll see it is not fragmented.

This works a lot better in Win7 than in Vista. My old Vista workstation, I'd get 5-8% extra fragmentation each day that I didn't run defrag, until (if I just left it) it would stabilize at about 60-65% fragmentation after ~10 days. My new Win7 workstation I only ever see about 2% max fragmentation, and it's always in about 3 files.

Defrag with Vista is still important.

[JSolie]

You might also want to check how much space the system is using for "System Restore." It's usually a pretty good chunk of space and you can get quite a bit of space back by adjusting it down.

[WokMaster1]

Thanks everyone. I am going to go sort through the photos & transfer them to an external HD. The 1TB ones are pretty reasonable. Any idea which brand is good? There's Hitachi, WD, Iomega, Seagate, etc.

Is there an online photo/video management site that you can recommend? Non public of course.

[Peter.Steele]

WD is generally considered the best. Seagate would be a second choice to that. I'm not familiar with Iomega's hard drives - I suspect they buy someone else's drives, put them in their own enclosures. Hitachi DeathStar - I mean DeskStar - is never a good option.

[repubconserv]

Thanks everyone. I am going to go sort through the photos & transfer them to an external HD. The 1TB ones are pretty reasonable. Any idea which brand is good? There's Hitachi, WD, Iomega, Seagate, etc.

Is there an online photo/video management site that you can recommend? Non public of course.

Western Digital has always been good to me. I have had one seagate 500gb External drive fail (click of death, common complain with Seagate) overall though seagate is not a bad choice