Did you start with a clean operating system install on the laptop you just purchased?

I'm not getting this. I thought you bought "a screamer" and were asking about switching an hdd out just the other day.

I don't think we ever found out if your hdd was the problem the other time...

Uvah, tell us what's up.

     Okay folks...here's the deal. The laptop is a refurbished Compac 8510w. Centrino vPro dual-core cpu @ 2.2gHz 2 gigs DDR2 ram, 150 gig HDD with the Enterprise Edition Win 7. The OS had only the basics you get with any new purchase, nothing extra. The old one's mobo burnt out, most likely the video chip from overheating. First thing I did was run CCleaner and there were very few remnants, mostly temp files from IE8.

     Security on this one is way up there, IMO. Has a credentials manager, a fingerprint sensor (disabled until I figure out how to go super slow to get it to register my fingerprint). Already installed was CCleaner, MalwareBytes and MSE, which btw has already stopped and deleted four threats ID'd as malware.

     Anyway...Doc was right when he said the old one might not work so that one's been put to the side (not throwing it away because of what's on the HDD) until I can replace the mobo. So...i've got CFX waiting patiently for a solution as to why the cursor becomes invisible after install and stays that way. Objectdock is working fine and Nexus is without the shelf, not a big deal. What I would like is a way to recover Bins. I understand the RC was a paid for app but the beta worked very well on the old one. SMX is working fine too, I just need to rebuild the library. Actually more than one as WB is seriously skinny. Photoshop I uninstalled because, for some reason, its a bit querky. Why that is I don't know, it worked fine on the other one. That's about it...for now anyway. If I think of anything else I'll add to this thread. Oh...and I have DX installed too.

Hard drive is good. It just isn't compatible. Gonna check out the enclosures. If I do that I'll have two externals drives. A whopping 1.15 tb. Pretty cool huh.

Trying to figure out why people need so much storage. My notebook has a 250 GB drive and even with all of my data I have yet to use half of that. With all my programs and data I'm only using 72 GB of storage. A 1 TB drive would be overkill for me.

My storage drive is full of skins from WC, backed up programs, about 50 gigs music (I'm in the business), labels and such from the business, etc.

Totaling about 630 GB. 

Only 50 gigs of music...I've got you beat, 150 GB for me and climbing. I been converting all of my LPs and CDs to MP3s for the past few years and only have about a couple hundred left to go. I've been using 320 bitrate which tends use a good bit of hard disk space but has no quality loss.

When I was younger, I  dated a DJ when the radio station closed down and then converted to christian broadcasting. The new owners were happy when I volunteered to dispose of all that heathen rock and roll for them.

The only bad thing is, back in those days they used a nasty station logo sticker over the front side and spine of the album. It was used in their cataloging system and as they aged, it ruined most of the artwork on the covers. 

Dang CG, we need to dropbox together....lol.

Hehe, I've been converting all my old tapes, singles, LP's and CD's to MP3's since first getting a computer about 8 - 9 years ago.  All up I have 346 gigs of music on a dedicated media drive.  Shoot, that's music I've been collecting since the 70's, and while I replaced many LP's with CD's [of which I have 2012.. counting box sets as individuals], I still have 232 LP's, all of which are rarities and/or collectors editions.  Yeah, it's good to hear music on vinyl, with all the pops and cracks, etc... so much more character than the digital stuff.

My mother always wondered why I needed so much music [while still living with the oldies I'd buy 2 - 3, sometimes 4 or 5 albums a week] and I'd say that I'd rather have the dilemma of having to choose from a large selection than being bored shitless with a small one.

As usual, I get carried away and digress.... [as my father used to say, I'd talk under water with duct tape gag and a mouthful of marbles]

Yeah, I think many of your ills would be cured with a reformat and clean install of the OS.  Yeah, I know it's a pain in the arse and time consuming [getting all the updates and service packs, reinstalling ally your proggies] but at the end of the day you'd have a more stable/reliable system. 

A friend of mine bought a 'refurbished' laptop and discovered that not only had it NOT been refurbished, but that it still had the previous owner's files stored in the 'My Documents' folder.  I knew bugger all about computers back then - even less about laptops - so I advised her to take it to my trusted techie, who in turn advised her that the machine had some dodgey RAM and needed a new HDD... which suited her perfectly. 

Instead of getting the OS with all the 3rd party proprietary crap restored from the recovery partition, she got a neat, no bones clean install of XP with a disc.  That's one thing I never liked about laptops... the recovery partition instead of a disc.  Call me too fussy or over particular, and maybe they do the same thing [install the OS] but I like a clutter free installation, which proprietary brands never are, and an installation disc that can't/doesn't suffer hardware failure. 

My mother's first laptop suffered the fate of the HDD dying after about 2 1/2 years.  It was a case of either replacing the drive or going new... she opted to trade it in for a better model.

Anyway, Uvah, me old cobber, you'd probably be better off biting the bullet and reformatting.  I mean, if the hardware's all good, why fuzz it up with ify software!

Well..........looks like I'm gonna be a busy camper today. Really didn't like this edition of W7 anyway.

^ Damn fine and pertinent question, kona.  

Nope, no OS disc came with it. No biggie though, I have my own W7 Pro disc 64 bit. I did a variation on the upgrade. Booted up, put the install disc for W7 in the tray, opened it up, clicked on setup.exe and boom, four hours later after I did a backup restore from my external HDD, all folders skins and other nice stuff. Did a reinstall of WB, DX, CFX, which BTW is working now, and my anti-virus apps. Trying out PS now to see if its still working. If not out it goes and I stick with PSP. Pays to have your own install disc. I did learn however that you can only put the OS on two machines. I always thought the limit was five, had to get a new product key. But, knock wood, all is good in the land of insane folks.......

Like starkers and a few others who should remain nameless but..................

GOTCHA!

I always thought it was one copy per machine. that's what the ELUA reads.