Starting a fresh help - +4 rep (aww only 4? yeh soz)

[AlexOC]

Hey my HxF friends.

Soon my new computermachine will arrive, its only a simple 1tb HDD, 4gb Ram, windows 7, amd athlon, not the super machines that some people have on here, but decent for school work and habboxforum surfing none the less.

Anyway i've not had much luck in my last computing journeys, my first machine a laptop i broke and my last PC set on fire (oh the stories). The laptop broke because of poor care, the PC set alight because of dopeyness.

So when i get my new comp i want to treat it like a baby, perfectly, and i want to know what things to do from the start before i start doing anything, such as..



make a partition on the HDD for the recovery thingymajig maybe?
all programs i should download and install first (the essentials, such as spyware and virus)
things i shouldnt do and stuff..

Thanks for listening HxF.

Alex.

[Markeh]

Essential programs:
Good anti-virus - Microsoft Security Essentials seems to be getting good reviews at the moment
CCleaner - Remove all the preinstalled crap
Your preferred office suite, photo editing program, etc.
Partitions:
Do a recovery disk instead of a partition, but KEEP IT IN A SAFE PLACE, such as in the same place you keep important documents, such as passports and such.
Do a specific partition for data - then in a reinstall situation you won't lose your stuff
Things not to do:
Don't try and overclock it if you don't feel 100% confident
Don't set fire to the thing.
Keep food and drink away
Don't drop it.
If doing an upgrade, ground yourself first. Even better, get an anti-static wristband.

[Jahova]

A recovery partition could be nice. Also I suggest pre-downloading main programs and saving on a memory stick to load while offline, or somthing.

[AlexOC]

Essential programs:
Good anti-virus - Microsoft Security Essentials seems to be getting good reviews at the moment
CCleaner - Remove all the preinstalled crap
Your preferred office suite, photo editing program, etc.
Partitions:
Do a recovery disk instead of a partition, but KEEP IT IN A SAFE PLACE, such as in the same place you keep important documents, such as passports and such.
Do a specific partition for data - then in a reinstall situation you won't lose your stuff
Things not to do:
Don't try and overclock it if you don't feel 100% confident
Don't set fire to the thing.
Keep food and drink away
Don't drop it.
If doing an upgrade, ground yourself first. Even better, get an anti-static wristband.

The partition for data bit, i don't get it, make a partition for all my files like images, songs....

and the fire one is a good one thanks :P

[Markeh]

The partition for data bit, i don't get it, make a partition for all my files like images, songs....

and the fire one is a good one thanks :P

Yeah, thats what I mean, make a partition for all your files. Then, if you ever need to reinstall, or decide to put a new OS on there, you won't lose files or have to reload them onto the computer.

[AlexOC]

Ahh ok thanks (Y)

[The Professor]

If you want a recovery partition just install windows 7 onto another parition and leave it there so you can boot into it if the main partition goes boobs up. Thats what I have and it's saved me several times :D

[AlexOC]

Sorry for the bump and stuff...

But i have just got my computermachine. And in my computer there are two hardrives with roughly 500gb each, one is called acer or something with all program files, user, windows files in and the other is called DATA with nothing in..

Should i use the acer one for installing all programs onto ETC. and use the DATA one to save ALL my songs, images and videos? So then if anything happens it should only effect the acer drive and not my stuff (right maybe possibly?)

thanks

[Markeh]

If a problem occurs, and you have to reinstall, it should only affect the Acer partition. If the hard drive goes belly up, BOTH bits will go wrong, as they're the same hard disk.

Use the acer drive for programs and (if your not bothered about losing saves) games.

Use DATA for all personal data, including music, pictures, video, and especially any school/college/uni coursework.

If it's an acer you may find there's a small hidden recovery partition, too.

[N!ck]

Is it two drives or one partitioned drive?

[Suspective]

I have an Acer Aspire (Vista) and it already has a recovery partition as stated above. It is a good back-up, even though I haven't used it. I completely forgot about making a back-up disc on the first start-up.

[Markeh]

I believe the recovery partition actually uses a copy of XP. well, on my old Aspire, when I had to use the recovery partition, it came up with the XP loading screen.

[The Professor]

I believe the recovery partition actually uses a copy of XP. well, on my old Aspire, when I had to use the recovery partition, it came up with the XP loading screen.

That's nothing, the recovery disc for my packard bell came up with a windows 98 loading screen :D seeing that 10 years later brought back some memories (A)

[AlexOC]

in my computer it says:

______________________

Hard Disk Drives (2)

Acer (C: ) 498gb total
DATA (D: ) 498gb total

________________

thats two seperate hard drives right??

I'm installing all my programs on acer, and gonna put all my files in data (its empty atm)

[The Professor]

AFAIK windows explorer doesn't know the difference between paritioned drives and separate physical drives because thats essentially what paritioning is; tricking the computer into thinking one hard drive is two. Its unlikely your laptop has two separate hard drives in it though that is usually a high end thing.

[AlexOC]

Are you talking to me?

If so, it's a PC :O

[The Professor]

Oh lol why did I think it was a laptop? :P

Erm open it up and take a look then :)

[AlexOC]

Eeh By Gum.

No thanks, i have a tendency of breaking things. Never mind i will just store of files in data and programs in acer :)