USB drive to supplement small hard drive?

M

Mike Roma

New Member
Hello everyone!
New guy here.

I bought a laptop for fifty bucks. It's the first one I've owned. I'd like to use it for a while to see if I'll really use it much before I buy a new one. I'll also get to see what I use it FOR, so I'll know what to look for in a new one.

Obviously it's an older laptop, but it works well. My only problem is that it has only a 1.5 GB hard drive. It has Windows ME, and only ~100 MB of free space, so I can't add much of any kind of software to it. I'd rather not put the money for a bigger drive into it. (I might, if I have to, though) A new HD would cost more than I paid for the laptop.

Would a USB flash drive be a solution? I can get a 1 GB drive for $59, and I can still use it for other things if I end up getting a new laptop later.

Some things I'd like to add:
Office, or OpenOffice
Photoshop 7, or Photoshop Elements if it will run on this laptop (optional, I can use my desktop for this).
Whatever software I may need to add if I buy a digital camera.
Antivirus program, and Firewall... I don't know what I'll need.
etc...

How would the flash drive work? Can it hold an entire program, and allow me to remove and replace the drive? I did find a site for OpenOffice that said this would work with that program. I don't know about other programs, though.

What little I know about the laptop:
Compaq Presario 1610
Pentium 150 mhz (MMX)
1.5 GB HD
48 MB ram
(2) USB ports... I don't know if they are 1.1 or 2.0
Has a dial up 56k modem that works. MSN Explorer and Internet Explorer.

Thanks for any suggestions or help.:)

BTW, I don't know how to do much more than add RAM to a computer.
 
Yes, it's USB 1.1.As for getting a gb stick, you might as well get a 2.5" mobile HD for that much and not risking bending that thumbdrive since it'll be sticking out of your unit the whole time. Same price can get you at least a 40gb HD. As for upgrading RAM, it's a really old unit, if you were to buy a new lappy later, the HD you can take with you, but not the RAM. Also, since it's an old unit, it may be using both slots already, you'll have to check it out. It could be 32+16 or 32+32 with some shared to video or 64+0 shared. I'm sure the max was set pretty low, maybe 128 or 256mb.
 
well, not really. the last time i check, it was very limited.

you can use the usb flash drives to store stuff like media, pictures, etc... but to directly run programs off of it.. its not a good way.

it is possible, but only limited programs exists that allow the runnning of programs on a usb flash drive. for example like some IM clients, browsers, some music programs, etc.. for a listing of those, you might have to google around.

you can probably install openoffice, winamp for music, trillian... they will most likely require some tweaking for it to work properly. if interested, let me/us know.

adobe, i highly doubt it because its a huge program and for it to be running on a flash drive will probably effect the speed and usability of it.
 
you could get a 3.5 inch external enclosure off ebay or equivalent for about 20 bucks, and a decent sized HD probably somewhere in the 30-40gb range off ebay for chump change. Youd have the same amount invested as in that 1gb stick, with about 40 times the storage.
 
Thanks for the replies. It sounds like an external HD would be the way to go. If I go that route, would some programs be on the internal drive, and some others on the external? Would I still be able to use the laptop without the external HD plugged in, using only the programs I have now?
 
You would be able to use the programmes that are on the computer at the moment if the drive was detatched yes. You may run into problems if you save a file on the external HDthen search for it and it will say "unable to locate ....." But thats not realy a big error as you can just plug it back in.

Ohh and you wont be able to run photoshop on that laptop, and ifyoudo get it working it will be increadibly slow due to a lack in ram and processing power.

Also as the computer has little ram I would keep it offline and not slow it down with antivirus programmes. I mean like norton uses around 30mb of my ram on its own and you only have 48mb and other processes will eat into that aswell.

Basicaly I say you have a word processing and spreadsheet machine there. I suppose it could also be used to play mp3s and that but im not sure but video clips may be a problem (could anyone shed light on that).
 
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would the seagate pocket drive work? that way you can carry it around. it is also 5gig though price might be an issue
 
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