Hi Dorothy. In looking back over the posts on this thread, I see there
is some confusion that should be cleared up first.
Memory is like the blackboard that the professor uses during his
lecture. All the applications and programs are loaded into memory,
where they actually "run". When you boot up your computer, the first
thing that gets loaded into memory is your Windows operating system.
When it gets all loaded, you will see the desktop and of course your
mouse pointer. If you then click on an application, like Internet
Explorer or your Photo editing program, that will also get loaded into
memory where it runs so you can use it. When you turn the computer off,
all the data that you changed or saved gets written back into the Hard
Drive, which is the permanent storage medium, and the Memory we were
discussing goes blank, just like erasing the blackboard.
If you right click on My Computer, and choose properties, you can see
how much Memory, more properly call Random access Memory, or RAM, is
installed in your computer.. This will probably be 2 Gbytes in your
case, judging from what you wrote in some of the posts.
If you open My Computer, it will show you all the drives. You C drive
is the main Hard drive where all the data is stored, as well as the
Windows operating system files that get loaded into memory when you boot
up. If you also have another Hard drive show up as the D or E drive,
that can either be a separate hard drive, or it may just be a partition
(part of) the same physical unit that the C drive is part of. It is
like a drawer. you can either have 2 separate drawers, or maybe you
have one drawer with a divider in it. Windows will treat each part of
the drawer as a separate drive, and you will not know the difference in
most instances.
If your C drive is getting full, like over 90%, Windows will not run well.
That is enough for now. Post back again if this helps you pose a new
question./
Ardell
Ardell Faul
Computer Monitor Service Inc.
Ardell's Laptop and PC Repair
10816 E. Mission Ave.,
Spokane Valley, Wa. 99206
ardell@icehouse.net
509-891-5188
On 8/29/2011 12:57 PM, Dorothy G wrote:
>
> Mike, my hard drive is 120 GB. I don't understand Partitions at all.
> 51 GB
> on the first are almost full. Can I just start putting things on the
> second
> ???
> Dorothy
>
> The size of a hard drive is specified by the amount of information
> that can
> be stored on it. It has nothing to do with the amount of memory
> installed in
> the computer.
>
> If your hard drive is indeed a 2GB drive (means it can hold 2
> gigabytes of
> data) it certainly could be getting full. A 2GB drive is small into
> today's
> world where drive sizes are often measured in terabytes (1000 gigabytes).
> Your computer will tell how much of your hard is used (filled with
> data) and
> how much space is free (available to be filled with data). Removing files
> from the had drive will increase the amount of free space on the hard
> drive
> but it doesn't change the amount memory installed in your computer.
>
> I seriously doubt your Acer 5050 laptop has only a 2GB hard
> drive....those
> were sold with a minimum of a 80GB hard drive. You need to look again
> to see
> how big your hard drive really is.
>
> Mike Stone
>
> Maybe I am confused. A couple of weeks ago, I got a message that I was
> down
> to less than 1gb of memory. When I click on Properties for my C drive, it
> shows less than 2gb now. I took that to mean that my hard drive is almost
> full, not sure why. So, I guess I need a bigger hard drive and not more
> memory ??? Why doesn't taking off programs increase the memory on the Hard
> Drive ?? Just when I think I've learned something, I find out that I am
> waaay wrong !!
> Dorothy
>
> Removing files from your hard drive will not increase the amount of RAM
> (Random Access Memory) installed in your computer. It will only
> increase the
> amount of free space on your hard drive.
>
> What makes you think you need more memory (RAM)?
>
> Mike Stone
>
> I have an Acer Aspire 5050 laptop, 120 GB HDD, 1 GB DDR2. For the last
> couple/few
> weeks, I have been moving things to an external hard drive, then
> uninstalling them from the laptop. But, I just cannot get more memory.
> Properties says I have 1.88 gb
> of 51 gb. I have run some the of the things suggested, not much
> difference.
> Can more memory be added to this laptop ?? Who would I have do it, if so,
> Staples, or a PC store in my area ???
>
> Also I would like to not start everything that is in my start up, but
> there
> are so many
> Microsoft, I am afraid to really mess things up by not starting them !!
> HELP !!!
>
> Dorothy
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/simplycomputers2
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.