Hi,
I have just purchased a cheap PC for one of the kids. It has been wiped but only has a 10 gb memory. I wouldn't know how to open it and mess about inside it so I wondered if I bought, say, a 40 gb external memory, would that be all I would need to do? Secondly, how do I transfer her photos and music from the old one to the new one. She is only young and my PC knowledge is worse than hers!
Thank you.

For future reference it is known as "Hard drive space". Memory is something a little different;) Also from whom did you get this PC? If it were a friend, you may want to see how much they know to see if they can help you. Also would you be adding this as a slave drive or replacing the other one completely because if u were replacing it you would have to burn the information that you want saved or put it on an external media, install the new operating system on the new hard drive after it has been installed then copy the files from the external media to the new hard drive.

Hi, I don't know the owner personally, it was off eBay.
My daughter only needs it for browsing the web basically. I have read on here somewhere increasing the memory helps speed up a PC and assumed this involved the memory on the hard drive. Could you put me right on this please.
Thanks.

RAM is the PC's internal memory that runs programs used at the moment. Increasing it to a minimum of 512MB should be fine. Hard drive storage is where you install your programs and save your files. I imagine you are running Windows 98 or XP on that PC. Since the computer is so old as to only have a 10GB hard drive you'll need to find out if it has USB connectors since that's how you would connect an external hard drive (also you could transfer files using a USB key).

Thanks theecho and NeedKarma.

This unit has 512 mb of RAM apparently. It is advertised as with USB, although I don't know how many. I only paid today so I have emailed the guy to ask how many it has.

Cheers.

You should see the amount of RAM during the boot up procedure and you can also see it by right-clicking on My Computer icon and selecting Properties. What operating system does it have?

Window XP pro installed.

You can transfer the photos using a USB key but I would wait until the additional external hard drive is installed to move the music as it takes up much more space.

Do you plan on keeping the 10 gig in the computer if not you will also have to have an operating system to install on the new hdd(Hard Disk Drive).

Hi. I hope you understand from the above answers that the kind of memory that sometimes can make a computer faster is RAM, not the external hard drive you are thinking about buying. RAM is cheap these days, so if you can find a friend who can open the machine and install another 512MB chip for you, go ahead. Otherwise don't worry about it - for web browsing alone it won't make much of a difference.

On the other hand the external hard drive can be very handy for moving files from one machine to another, and also for storing large files you don't often use. It's difficult to find one as small as 40GB these days though. Depending upon your storage needs, you might consider starting her with a large USB Flash Memory of 8GB or 16BG. These key chain sized marvels can be found for as little as $15, and are currently about the same size as your 10GB hard drive inside the computer.

Newegg.com - 8GB, USB Flash Drives, Flash Memory & Readers, Computer Hardware

If you have the xp disc, reinstall it on the new hard drive, then make it your master, and use the 10gig hard drive for the slave. You have enough memory if you have 512mb ram. Looks like all you need is storage space.

Thanks very much to all above.

I have found your help really useful.

Have a good Christmas one and all.