How can I remedy a slow running computer?

Hello and thanks for your great help in advance:

Would appreciate whatever help some of you folks can give who possess greater tech/computer skills and experience than I.

I am using an HP desktop computer running Windows XP (home). It is an older model (purchased 2003 – I realize I need an upgrade and am shopping!), so the hard drive only has 80 Gig capacity. (very low by today’s standards, I realize).

Problem is, I’ve never used the HD to store all that much really, except in recent years I’ve taken lots of digital photos and scans and put them on the HD, but I just summed up all the file sizes, and they – in total – are less than ONE Gigabyte.

I used to run Windows Explorer Web browser, but over the years, it got worse and worse – slower, more "buggy," problems galore, etc. Now I use Firefox and have been much happier (far fewer problems/bugs/crashes), and just a couple years ago it – and the computer in general – ran fast; like a top. Since, I’m now on the 3rd generation Firefox, and the computer doesn’t run as efficiently. I’m always skeptical of "new and improved" versions of various software, etc. – they are usually a mess, one way or the other.

Anyway, my computer now runs much more slowly and I’m having screen freeze problems, etc. Never much happened before. Why?

Here’s what I’ve done to try and help myself: I ran the "Disk Clean-up" utility, and it was able to rid my hard drive of ca. 1 and one half Gigs of useless files, data, etc. Also, I ran my virus scan, and it searched through all ca. 1 million files, yet returned no virus detections. I thought these utilities might make a difference, yet they have not.

Here’s the rub, too. I used to check my hard drive capacities on "My Computer" just to see how much hard drive space was being taken up. I’ve always heard/read that the more hard disk space is taken up, the slower your computer runs. Heretofore, I’ ve always seemed to have ca. 10-11 Gigs used up and the computer ran fast. NOW, however, mysteriously it reads (even after the Disk Clean-up) ca. 18.3 Gigs used up, with 52.1 "free." I am wondering where in the world I acquired all this gunk taking up hard drive space? Also, I forgot to say, I searched through all "programs" and software titles to delete ones that are useless or that I don’t use and got rid of lots of junk to free up space.

I’m wondering if music files may be the culprit, though my iTunes library isn’t really that big (fewer than 80 songs). Hard to figure this out, actually.

But, other than that, I am mystified as to why the computer runs slower than a 7 year itch (worse than ever) and why it’s so "buggy" these days??!!

I have noticed that since I loaded the Magic Jack software on there (VOIP service; cheap), the computer runs slower. I’ve taken to unplugging the thing when I just read and write emails; surf, etc. Seems to run faster.

I’m wondering if junk I’ve accessed on sites like Hulu.com (internet TV) stays on your hard drive?? Or is it "streaming video," meaning (I hope) that the files do NOT stay on your hard drive? Or do they?? If they do – HOW can I find those useless files in order to delete them? And any other useless file? Often, when I type in the "search for files" thing for a file by name, it returns the message that "no file by that name found" – or whatever.

Any help you can provide would be much appreciated. Especially how to FIND useless file downloads and delete them. But then why does the computer run so bad, with apparently no viruses and AFTER the disk clean-up??

Thanks,

Dave


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How do I get to my HD data when the system will not boot (Pt 2)?

less than 200 MB free.

Anyway, the space on "E" we didn’t need, so I decided to make "J" bigger by taking all but 5 GB of the free space
on "E" and adding it to "J".

I used Partition Magic to move the free space at the top end of "E" to the beginning, which made it contiguous to the
top end of "J", which, as I said, was right at the 1024 cylinder boundary (Partition Magic marks the boundary).

Moving the free space went fine,no problems at all.

I then used Partition Magic to add the free space at the bottom of "E" to the top of "J", and this is where everything hit the fan.

A warning showed up in PM about crossing the 1024 cylinder boundary, but I didn’t think it applied because all I was doing
was adding free space. Naturally, I was wrong – shouldn’t have done it!!!

So, the status of the machine now is this:

(1) the space was moved

(2) the machine comes up in dual-boot mode (as it always has) and asks which OS to start

(3) DOS runs fine, but, of course, sees only the 2 GB "C" drive

(4) If I select booting WIN 2K, it starts normally, at least at first, but then asks to check each drive for errors.
If I let the drive check proceed, it checks each drive and finds no errors. Then the system pops up the blue screen
of death with some message at the top that’s too quick to read (but I did figure it out – see below…), and then
the system re-boots. It just keeps on doing this, and it does the same thing whether or not I allow the disk check
to proceed.

Question is, WHAT TO DO???? I’m ready to make the machine into a boat anchor, but I really need what’s on it. I’m not
concerned about losing applications, and I’m willing to reformat the drive and start from scratch, but we must get the data
back (mostly photos not yet backed up to CD).

(5) Booting from another device? Seems like a good idea – but it doesn’t work! Even if I enter the BIOS at power-up and change
the order of the boot devices, trying to boot from a CD drive, it will not boot! For example, if I insert the Win 2K steup disk
in the CD drive, it still boots from the hard drive. The system does boot from a 3.5" floppy, and I’vedone that several times
using Win 98 and Win ME boot floppies. But they start the system in DOS, not Windows, and it seems like there’s no where to go to
retrieve the hard disk data.


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Rewritten; please review my book?

Hey! I am a 14 year old girl, and I absolutely love to read. Being an author would be great, but right now im just jumping from idea to idea. Be honest, please. I can take criticism. I’ve already posted this story before, but i adjusted some things.
——————————–
Ugh. Not another human disturbance run. That’s the branch I work in, Human Disturbances. A strange name, because it was made by the strange. I am a Myst. Made of pure magic, no blood flows through my veins, just magic. We are the most powerful of the supernatural race, which is why we own the whole Kingdom. At fourteen, even though humans are still in school, we work hard at our jobs. Human disturbance runs only happen if the regular guys aren’t there. By the way, an HD run is when a human is creating waves of, you guessed it, disturbance. This one was especially unusual. This is the one when I lost my life. And on a Tuesday, of all days.

My name is Zeela MacKenzie. I don’t especially love my job right now. In the past i’ve dealt with witches, trolls, faeries, and vampires. Don’t get me started on vampires. Whatever the human race has made up about them is all a lie. They are completely cowardly creatures, who spend all their time trying to play the best practical joke on you. So it’s kind of ironic that a vampire came to my rescue. Anyways, I was walking up to an especially expensive place, when I got a visible vibration coming from the top floor. Oh boy. This wasn’t going to be easy, but dang it, if it has to happen, so be it. On the way up, I thought about what I should do to let myself in. I could use easy flattery, or maybe brute force. Haha. Brute force. Since I’m only 5’4, and built very daintily, then that would probably not be the best way in. The girl who opens the door is an AMAZON. No joke. She has swaying golden hair with ice blue eyes, and along with being super tall, she has muscles. Big ones. "Hi, I’m Ashley Green, and I was wondering if you would like to buy some cookies from me? I am trying to raise money for the Cancer walk on Friday." I say this as innocently as I can. It’s good being short, since I can slip into unsuspicious teenager mode. "Excuse me," she sneers, "but I don’t buy anything from the supernatural." I was so shocked I didn’t even notice the whole coven of witches standing in the center of the room. Well, they had another thing coming to them. I clasped my hands together and invisioned the purple fog stretching over their minds and collapsing their brains. I smiled with satisfaction, until I realized I forgot to include a stray from the coven, looking at me with a mixture of awe and hatred. "Ane, mu gensi!" Oh crap. I looked down and noticed a white circle of chalk. And I was standing right smack dab in the middle of it.
——————————

Okay, this is about a girl teen named Zeela. She is very cynical, but loves to exercise her powers. I honestly can’t tell you the rest of the plot, because I don’t want to give too much of it away. Just tell me what you think, and I’ll take everybody’s opinion to heart.


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