[winterlady]

I may be past any help on this one but I thought I'd ask anyway. My PC is quite old, purchased 2000, it's a Gateway with a self installed upgrade to Windows XP a couple years back. I know it is quite full and I've removed a lot of things from it, ran clean up utilities, registry cleaner, defrag, etc. etc. But now the hard drive makes such loud noises as soon as I turn the system on (sounds like I'm making coffee using an old perculator) and the "low disk space" warning keeps popping up, even after removing quite a few things and it is very very slow.
I realize I need a new system but at this time I can not afford one so is there ANYTHING I can do to quiet this hard drive down and make it live a little longer without a huge expense??

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Hello winterlady...

When the HDD starts making noises, it's a pretty good indication that it's failing physically. There's just not a whole lot one can do about hardware that's wearing out other than to replace the device. You may be able to find out a little more about what might be causing the noises by listening to the sounds listed HERE.

Hard drive replacement is not a difficult task in most cases and, if you have your XP installation cd (and one from an earlier version of Windows if the XP disk is an Upgrade cd), you can be up and running on a fresh operating system in a few hours time. A HDD can be replaced at a fraction of the cost of a new computer.

I would highly recommend that you back up all of your important files (photographs, music, documents, etc..) to removable media (cd's or flash drives) or an external HDD. If the drive does completely fail physically, it can be very difficult and expensive to recover the data it contains.

[wannabe1]

Hello winterlady...

When the HDD starts making noises, it's a pretty good indication that it's failing physically. There's just not a whole lot one can do about hardware that's wearing out other than to replace the device. You may be able to find out a little more about what might be causing the noises by listening to the sounds listed HERE.

Hard drive replacement is not a difficult task in most cases and, if you have your XP installation cd (and one from an earlier version of Windows if the XP disk is an Upgrade cd), you can be up and running on a fresh operating system in a few hours time. A HDD can be replaced at a fraction of the cost of a new computer.

I would highly recommend that you back up all of your important files (photographs, music, documents, etc..) to removable media (cd's or flash drives) or an external HDD. If the drive does completely fail physically, it can be very difficult and expensive to recover the data it contains.

[winterlady]

Thanks for your quick reply! Unfortunately I figured that's what I would find out but it was worth checking out. I guess it's time to start saving for a new system and get some flash drives or whatever to back up my stuff. I really appreciate your time and suggestions to my problem, Thanks Much! Have a very Merry Christmas!!

[wannabe1]

You are very welcome...

Happy Holidays to you and yours, as well!