Manually cleaning-up Windows XP #3?

October 15, 2009

I recently acquired my brother’s old laptop as he bought a new one, he has a lot of his old files & stuff on here, but doesn’t have the start-up disks. I could wipe out the hard drive but then I’d be stuck using Vista and if I’m as computer illiterate with Vista as I am with XP, then that’s a whole other can of worms.

Anyway, I’ve actually got two questions this time around.

1.) He has two folders marked as My Backup w/ the created date following them. I’ve tried to delete these files completely but to no avail. There is nothing in them that he needs that he doesn’t already have, so any advice on how to get rid of them in their entirety?

2.) What is this file: regedit cache.reg ?
Answer #1: The link you gave, the downloaded file doesn’t work.

Answer #2: I’ve already ran CCleaner.

I just need to know how to get rid of the backup folders & if it is safe to delete the regedit file.

How do I clean up my C: Drive so my computer runs efficiently again?

September 10, 2009

In my approximately 30G C: Drive, the Program Files and Windows folders pretty much take up the entire drive, leaving me with only 896MB available. I have an additional 240G drive with plenty of space, but my computer stills runs slow because of the C: drive issue. Is there a way to clean up the C: drive or possibly transfer the folders in question to my other drive? Please help…

What is wrong with my Western Digital external hard drive? ?

September 2, 2009

I’ve had a 750gb Western Digital external HD for nearly 4 months. I’ve only used this drive for housing photographs for my business. Currently, there are approx. 60 GB of photos on the drive.

A week ago, I noticed that the drive didn’t seem to be functioning properly. It was really slow (more than normal) and sometimes would freeze up.

I tried to get a particular photograph off of the drive yesterday and it was a complete failure. I have approx. 35 different folders of photographs (each for a different client) on the drive. When I open the folders, 1 of 3 things happen:

-Everything is completely normal. Some of the folders are totally fine.
-I can see all of the photographs as thumbnails, but when I try to open them, they freeze. I can’t even copy them to my desktop.
-Some of the folders will open and half of the thumbnails will show up as the actual photographs and half will constantly remain the default blue sky.

Needless to say, I’m a little panicked. There has been no physical damage to the drive. I’m not really sure what changed.

After doing my homework, I downloaded the drive diagnostic software from WD. These tests "failed" claiming that there were "too many damaged sectors." If I restart my computer with the drive attached, it attemps a chkdsk but freezes up halfway through.

Now, I’m manually checking the disk. Though, it has been going for nearly 20 minutes and I can really tell if anything is happening.

Of course, my main concern is getting these photographs off of the drive. It is especially frustrating when I can see them as thumbnails but not access the actual files.

What can/should I do? I really appreciate the help.
Nope. Completely quiet.

How should I clean my computer without completely reinstalling the OS?

August 30, 2009

I just want to clean my computer off so it will generally run faster. All the programs I do not use anymore I want totally gone, and I find when I uninstall things from the control panel, the files and folders are still in my Program Files folder. I know to perform defrag, error checking, and virus scans, but since my C drive is getting full, I need to clear a bunch of stuff off so its like semi-new and runs faster. Any suggestion on how I should do this?

What is an easy fix for my slow computer? Any free legit virus/spyware scans/removal?

August 8, 2009

What processes should be running in my task manager with no applications open? What is safe to remove?

Where is malicious software or folders commonly found and how do i remove these items?

I own a Toshiba Laptop if that helps. I got some things on here I would like to keep therefore I cant restore my harddrive. Thanks for your help guys.