Good afternoon -

After the previous post I made regarding virus scan and MalwareBytes running EXTREMELY slow, a couple suggestions was regarding asked what I was using my computer for.  Here's the low-down.

First it's a Dell Inspiron 1520 about 3 years old.  I am running XP with service pack 3.  When I bought this laptop and my daughters' desk top a couple months later, I did so with the intension of getting XP.  I didn't want Vista – I'd heard too many horror stories – I actually bought my daughters on the last possible day to get XP.

Hard drive capacity is 226 GB with 103 GB free (45% free)

this is a home computer with 'home' type files in word and excel mostly.  But I also run Quicken (Turbo Tax once a year), and The Master Genealogist occasionally.  Then I have LOTS of pictures – some taken on a digital camera and some have been scanned.  I am hoping to start doing some scrapbooking, possible with a computer program or an online service… not sure about this yet!  lol

I used to store everything on flash drives after having my old computer crash and loose almost everything.  Then my laptop fell off the table and landed just right to damage the flash drive that had everything on it (saving to take it to a data recovery company you recommended last year).  So I'm back to putting everything on the hard drive and using Carbonite to back everything up.

If you're still with me – thank you…  here's the bottom line…

Should I be storing my pictures on an external hard drive instead of the hard drive on my laptop?  Would that make my computer run faster and the scans to run faster?  Do I still need to back up the informaiton on the external drive?  Carbonite only works for the laptop hard drive, no other external devices.  Is there another, reliable, service that is similar that would back up external devices too?

Thank you so much for your help…  I wanted to call in today, but I was on the road servicing "Mom's Taxi" and didn't have all my info in front of me..:)

Cindy Corwin Lobb

Westland, MI

I'd advise against storing your photos on an external drive in your case.  You said you use carbonite as a backup.  Assuming you're using the consumer version, any photos on that external drive won't be backed up to carbonite.  If you want an external drive for additional BACKUP, that's great.  I just wouldn't advise having your only copy of ANYTHING on an external drive.

Getting back to your original issue, I'm concerned that the speed (or lack thereof) of your scans is stemming from a flaky hard drive.  If you have some difficult-to-read areas on your drive, it could very well be causing the symptoms you're describing.  There's an OUTSTANDING software package out there that will "fix" a problem like this.  Unfortunately, it costs more than a brand-new drive.  So I don't recommend it unless somebody has a catastrophic failure and the NEED to recover some data from a 'dead' drive.

The solution I'd recommend is, in my opinion, underutilized (mostly because it can be time-consuming): The nuke and pave.  Back up your stuff, wipe the drive, and start with a fresh copy of Windows.  Even on a machine with no malware, "bit rot" can slow an otherwise good computer down to a crawl.  If you haven't done so in the life of that PC (3+ years?), I'd pick a rainy Saturday and do it.  I do it to every machine in my house annually.  It doesn't take THAT long, and every machine in my house always runs as fast as it did when I took it out of the box.

Let me restate that I have concerns about that drive in your computer.  PLEASE make sure you have EVERYTHING on that drive backed up.  

asi said:

 

I do disagree about storing photos and data on an external drive. You can go to one of the online computer sales businesses (TigerDirect and NewEgg come immediatley to mind) and purcgase a USB hard drive dock, which will work with either 2.5" or 3.5" SATA drives, for under $20.00. The last hard drive I purchased was less than $90 for 2 Terabytes of storage.

I subscribe to the addage that if you don't store computer info, images or files you want to keep in two separate places besides on your computer you're looking for trouble. Storing data to an external SATA dard drive is so much simpler and faster than buring data to CDs or DVDs. 

J. R.   

I want to clarify what I said regarding the external hard drive.  While I agree 100% that an external drive is perfect for BACKUP, Cindy was proposing storing photos on her external drive INSTEAD of her internal drive, not in addition to it.  That, along with the fact that anything on her external drive wouldn't be backed up to Carbonite (and thus not backed up at all), is the reason I advised against it in her case.