Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners » hard drive

Rick Answers his Email Videocast – 053

Rick — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:50:27 +0000

The summer has kept me busy and I let a few too many question stack up (remember that you can make a small donation when asking your question to get priority). I answered all the questions you asked the last 2 weeks in these two videos. The first video contains questions from Doris, Henry, Andrew, Jean, [...]

Four techniques for erasing your old hard drive

Rick — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:27:52 +0000

When you replace an old computer, you need to take steps to protect the data that was on that computer prior to donating it, selling it or even throwing it out or recycling it. Too many computer degenerates use the data that can be found on old hard drives to try and steal your identity. [...]

Computer boot time survey

Rick — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:39:44 +0000

I'm experimenting with an online database collection service and thought it would be interesting to put forth a practical question; How fast does your computer boot up? To measure the boot-up time of your computer, time it from the moment you turn the computer on until the desktop and all background applications are fully loaded (i.e. no hourglass present and no hard drive activity present). Click the title of this article above or the read more below to get to the form.

Windows 7 – First Impressions

Rick — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:28:08 +0000

I just finished installing the Windows 7 Beta version released by Microsoft on Friday. I installed it on my Toshiba Intel dual-core processor with 4 GB of RAM. It was running Windows Vista which took more than 4 minutes to fully boot (I consider the boot up process to be finished when the hard drive stops spinning and I don't have to compete with a still booting computer to do what I want to do), and running any applications was like walking through molasses. I can say that my expectations were pretty low, but I am pleasantly surprised...so far.

It took exactly 21 minutes from

Another dead hard drive

Rick — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:21:08 +0000

External hard drives are spacious, cheap and relatively easy to use, but...

I resisted talking about backup this early in the year, but a phone conversation I had today illustrated my philosophy about backup perfectly. The gentleman I spoke with suffered an external hard drive failure, and he used it as the sole storage of his digital photos. Once again, my heart sank with his story of woe. He didn't want to spend the hundreds of dollars it would require from a data recovery company (he also, unfortunately, opened the drive and tried to manually spin the hard drive platters), but was hoping for some sort of magical tech pixie dust that I might be storing in my pocket.

The point of the story is to scare you into backing up your data. Backing up your data means that your important data exists in at least two different locations. By different locations, I'm referring to two different digital media. Hard drive, and external hard drive. Hard drive and CD or DVD. Hard drive and USB flash drive. Hard drive and online backup. External hard drive and CD or DVD. You get the picture.

Exceptional backup systems would include having important data copied

Thwarted by online poker

Rick — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:02:53 +0000

Today marked my second Linux/Ubuntu casualty in almost 2 dozen attempts. As I've learned more about Ubuntu the past couple of years, I carefully selected clients who would have little problems dealing with a non-Microsoft operating system. You may have read my take on Ubuntu usage for the average computer user before, but here it is again to setup the rest of the story: I believe that any computer users who uses only email, word processing, Internet, digital photography, and maybe a solitaire or mahjong like game can function perfectly and happily in Ubuntu. Those who need proprietary Windows programs or like to buy and try out different types of software will not do well with Ubuntu.

Does that computer have enough hard drive space?

Rick — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:13:47 +0000

While counseling a customer on buying a new computer recently, the customer asked if a 500 gigabyte drive was ok compared to another a computer that had a 640 GB hard drive. Other than hard drive capacity, the machines were pretty equal. Unless the person plans to store their 2000 album music collection, edit feature length movies, or are designing the next skyscraper for Dubai, I have them go through this simple exercise:

Double-click My Computer
RIGHT Click the Hard drive icon (usually designated as the C drive)
Click Properties

When the pie chart appears, I ask them to tell me what the total capacity of the drive is (in the woman's case I was helping today, it was 20 GB), then I ask them to tell me how much of the drive is being used (the blue part of the chart and in this woman's case it was 8 GB). Then I ask them how long they have used the computer and in her case it was 6 or 7 years.

The demonstration solidifies the answer for them and will for you too if you need to decide what kind of hard drive capacity is needed when buying a new computer.

Acer Aspire One Netbook

Rick — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:45:26 +0000

Today, I had my first opportunity to get some hands-on time with Acer's entry into the netbook craze, the Acer Aspire One. The young lady I helped bought a blue Aspire One on Black Friday for just over $300. Sporting a 120GB hard drive, an extremely nice 8.9" screen, 1 GB of RAM, and Windows XP, this little unit was very impressive to look at and use. After some discussion with me, she decided that she didn't want to leave the Windows XP on it and have to maintain security updates, anti-spyware software, anti-virus software, etc. She planned on using the netbook for traveling mostly and some email, Internet, and downloading her digital photos from time to time on it.

I decided to try installing Ubuntu's new Netbook Remix (UNR) operating system for her. After doing some research, I discovered that before

Netbooks are NOT made for Windows XP or Vista

Rick — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:50:18 +0000

One year ago, ASUS started a fire storm of new computers that now go by the name of netbooks with the release of their EeePC. I wrote about this subject just a few months ago, but with the holidays approaching and netbooks are high on gift giver's radar screens so I want to explore netbooks a little more in depth.

Netbooks make attractive gift giving ideas for a few reasons:

They are inexpensive; usually cost less than $400.
They are extremely portable (2-3 pounds).
They are cute.

Here are some facts you need to know about netbooks:

Setting up a new computer

Rick — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:17:58 +0000

Prevention is the best medicine when it comes to avoiding illness in ourselves. Prevention in the computer world is no different. And like a newborn baby, a newly purchased computer is subject to many terrible diseases and problems if not properly cared from the moment it is taken from its cardboard box. I follow these steps when setting up a new computer system for my clients, and recommend this methodology for all new computer setups: