Low memory

[happy hippo]

I have just registered and it is my first forum so please bear with me.

I am Happy Hippo and I am in the UK.

I have a HP Pavillion running Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition version 2002 service pack 2. It has 256MB of RAM

I am having difficulty because the memory on my C drive is only 21.4MB out of 13.7GB and I cannot do a lot of things through this.

I have tried cleaning up, taking off anything unwanted, defragmenting etc to no avail. What can I do now? I was wondering if I could make use of the oodles of free space on the D data drive which has 16.2GB free out of 19.2GB. What do you think or will I have to buy more memory?

[Broni]

C, and D are separate drives, or partitions of the same drive?

[patio]

First off Welcome to CH !
Free disk space and memory are 2 different things...
You have issues in both areas.
From what info you provided you have a 14G drive and a 20G drive.

Xp will gobble up between 2 to 7G of that storage space alone, once you start adding programs it will be gone before you know it.
A hard drive (storage) needs about 15% of Free space to function properly with Windows...you're C drive is well below that and is one reason for the performance issues...

The 2nd factor is the RAM.
This is the Memory part of the equation.
256M of RAM is the bare minimum XP will run properly on.
Anyone including Microsoft who tells you different needs help...

To summarise the best thing you could do right now is add RAM.
Travel to Crucial.com to see what your machine takes and write down the specs and go shopping locally for at least a 512M stick of RAM. You're in luck right now because RAM is cheap.

2nd consideration is HDD space.
Those 2 drives although useful in their day are a bit small; however they may be fine for your needs.
Whether or not to invest in another drive is up to you and what you use your machine for ...and economics of course.

Post back with those details and we can walk you thru the upgrades...
But the first thing i would do is the RAM.

[Broni]

Anyone including Microsoft who tells you different needs help...

[happy hippo]

A great big thank you! 

I have taken your advice got more RAM memory and an external hard drive that is compatable with my computer. Installed it this evening and am finding the difference amazing.

You were a great help to a novice. Thanks for not finding it amusing. We all have to start somewhere.

Happier Hippo

First off Welcome to CH !
Free disk space and memory are 2 different things...
You have issues in both areas.
From what info you provided you have a 14G drive and a 20G drive.

Xp will gobble up between 2 to 7G of that storage space alone, once you start adding programs it will be gone before you know it.
A hard drive (storage) needs about 15% of Free space to function properly with Windows...you're C drive is well below that and is one reason for the performance issues...

The 2nd factor is the RAM.
This is the Memory part of the equation.
256M of RAM is the bare minimum XP will run properly on.
Anyone including Microsoft who tells you different needs help...

To summarise the best thing you could do right now is add RAM.
Travel to Crucial.com to see what your machine takes and write down the specs and go shopping locally for at least a 512M stick of RAM. You're in luck right now because RAM is cheap.

2nd consideration is HDD space.
Those 2 drives although useful in their day are a bit small; however they may be fine for your needs.
Whether or not to invest in another drive is up to you and what you use your machine for ...and economics of course.

Post back with those details and we can walk you thru the upgrades...
But the first thing i would do is the RAM.

[Broni]

Now, you're happy hippo