need help with using external hard drive also my recovery drive(d)showing full?

[fibrogal]

Hi all,
 I purchased a external drive to back up files on our desktop and laptops. I am looking for easy way to do this, do I do all files or do I have to go into all of them one at a time. I say this because one laptop is my daughters, can I just send all her pic and music files all at once.
Our main computer(desktop)is windows vista, everyday it's getting louder and louder and each morning its shows a message says configuring and it's like counting down. This takes long time. I looked at the space left. It shows space available on (c) and on d it's full which is recovery so I don't have a clue how files got on there.
My hubby doesn't know much about even getting on computer, but when he does it seems something goes wrong. I want to clean up and get rid of files so my son who's 11 can use it for games. It's so slow and I don't want to delete wrong things.
 From reading here and just knowing not to delete recovery. How do I clear out space on D...I tried opening some files on it but they all seem to do with the windows system.
 What can I do with my desktop ?
And is it possible to clear out all files from laptop...it is about 5 yrs old...and she has alot of music and pics on there..just wondering if it's worth time to clean out the files. It takes forever to get online and when we do its so slow.
Hope I'm not sounding to confusing.
any suggestions
ty
great site so far

[Geek-9pm]

Welcome!
Computer Hope is the number one location for free computer help.
The forum will help everyone with all computer questions.

You have presented more that one issue. The forum will help you, but some detail is needed. What OS are you using?  What make and model of eternal drive do you use?

The proper way to remove programs is in the con control  panel.
But Music and pictures files can be copied to a CD-R or DVD-R and removed from the computer.

The external drive can also be used to transport files from on PC to another. But using DVD-R or CD-R is preferable.

The best use of an external drive is to make a backup of the operating system and programs.

Avoid putting files on the recovery partition.

[fibrogal]

my desktop computer is windows vista the external hard drive is a WD ELements 1 TB....

I am not sure who put files on the recovery drive or what those files are I'm afraid to remove any of them. I have backed them up on the external drive just in case while i'm going thru them, I don't delete main files.

I know I can burn the files to cd's...I don't want to do that. My daughter says she took ones she wanted off that laptop,but I want to save them in case she didn't. So for that laptop I can put them all on external correct?

yes I realize I'm asking a few ?? and I'm sure if I took days I would find the answers here....wow there's a lot of info on other posts.

I guess it's the most important to clear up space on my desktop. How do I do this??when the issues is the recovery (d)
the other one is (c) and it is half full.
I have 2 family members who do things on desktop and don't have a clue when they download things were to put them, they just click away.
 We have had a lot of issues running windows vista...would you advise just updating the whole modem to windows 7 and how do I do that without spending a lot of money.
sorry I have fibromyalgia and my brain is often confusing to me, very hard to get my brain to communicate with my fingers.

thanks for your quick reply
how are the chats here? I would love to pick some computer brains but don't want to sound stupid.
thanks again

[Geek-9pm]

Don't feel bad. I have been here awhile and sometimes says really stupid things. Here are some of my observations.

Many people complain about Vista. But it was, and still-is, one of the best made operating systems for a personal computer. Yes, Windows 7 is better. But I would not recommend you throw away you investment.

The recommendation to put stuff on DVD-R is not just my own. It is the general consensus of users who have found their computers were getting full of stuff they want but seldom use. Highly recommended to transfer photos and music and videos to DVD-R for you personal archive.

With your 1TB drive you can many many backups of you OS of both computers. Pay attention to to the documentation*. Do not assume you can just copy individual files from one place to another. That may seem to work, but can led you into bad habits.

Leave the recovery partition alone.

* I mean the documentation specific to the external 1TB drive. Some issues with these drives has to do with the habits of the users. Please look of the documentation that came with that model.

If you have lost some of the manual and the CD that came with it. Please look  over the information at the WD site. With you model number and serial number you can get more help from them.

Of course CH will help you a lot. Still, you need to take advantage of  all the services that WD offers for free to owners of their products.

Specifically, look over the backup software that came with the drive. It should explain to you the difference between do a backup of the system and doing copy of individual files.
http://support.wdc.com/
Please come back here with you questions.

[fibrogal]

thanks I will check out their(WD) website no cd came with it nor did any  info. just how to plug it in.

I was taking the advice of my brother who works on computers a lot.
I will take your advice on the music files and pics onto cd.

Do you have any ideas what I can do with our desktop it's running so slow and makes really loud noises.
Is it an issues to have the recovery drive full?
Every day and many times a day it auto runs this configuration thing which takes forever like over hour .
I have noticed a thing called driver robot on there. I didn't download it and I tried uninstalling it and can't.
thanks again
for the help and great ideas

[Geek-9pm]

fibrogal, if you suspect that you have some kind of virus, you need to check out another area of this site.
Look here:
http://www.computerhope.com/vlist.htm
..and see if you PC has symptoms of a virus. I will not be able to help you. but there is great expert help in another part of this site.
Here is where you get the expert help:
http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/board,7.0.html

[truenorth]

Could you try to be more precise as to the "noise" you are referring to. Noise can come from a variety of sources and the commonality that they all have  is they should not be ignored and they are Never good. If you can identify the source of the noise ie: fans/ hard-drive/optical drives. If you cannot determine it's source try to describe it and where it sounds like it is coming from.truenorth