A lot of help needed please

[Sandra]

Hi everyone.

After getting my new pc apart from seeing that everything worked I really haven't been able to use it. Now I need to and I need to get a few things sorted before I start to add programmes and save work. I will try to be as brief as I can but it will be a bit long winded so please bear with me.

When I got my pc it came with Windows 8.1 on it. I connected my monitor and then set about registering the OS with Windows. As I was going through the process is said it couldn't connect to the internet until the OS was verified as genuine (or something along those lines) and was connecting me to a temporary connection so I could continue the process and asked me for a user name, didn't matter what as I could change it later. Put the first thing that came into my head JBJ. I looked everywhere for the OS registry key but couldn't find one. Emailed PCS and left it till the next day. Long story short, key imbedded in motherboard now so it was up and running when I turned it back on. Changed JBJ to Sandra or so I thought but when logging in I was given the option of JBJ or Sandra on 2 separate popup screens (hope that makes sense). I seem to have got rid of the 2 separate screens but there is still JBJ on my pc.

I thought JBJ and Sandra might be the same user but their files are different. Is this because I set SANDRA to share files? I want to share with my laptop.

Here's a few screen shots to help you see what I mean.

View attachment 8141 View attachment 8142 View attachment 8143 View attachment 8144

Is there a way of changing JBJ to SANDRA?


The next thing is my SSD and HDD

My C:drive is a SSD of 240GB with a 80GB partition which has my OS, AV and monitor sofeware on it. The remaining partition of 160GB (D: drove) I intended to have to put all other software on. The 1TB HDD is for storage.

I've asked several people and most say that the partitions on my C and D drives are an odd set up. It was suggested I had it this way by one of the advisers from PCS so if my system crashed I wouldn't lose all my programmes. Most have said I don't need a partition, some have said 80GB is not large enough for future updates of Windows. Some have suggested I expand the partition. This then leads me to another huge problem for me in that I didn't realise having more then 1 drive that I would have to then change settings and move files to let Windows know where to save too. It obvious to me now having looked into it but I'm at a lose as to what to more to where and how. I've seen a thread on here where someone is asking similar so is that what I have to do too? Could someone please help me to understand all this and show me a simple way to get my pc usable for me? I know I also have to backup my system before I make any changes and before I update to Windows 10 but I've been told that I need a system for this too? I'm way out of my depth here.

I've also been told that the other partitions on my C:drive have to be copied and saved but I thought that they would get copied if I backed up C:drive?

Here's a screen shot just in case I'm not explaining myself properly.



I think that's all for now! Thank you so much for your time and help. I have to go but I will come back later.

 

[ubuysa]

Your two users problem is because you have actually created two users, as far as I know it's not possible to change or merge JBJ and SANDRA. At this stage my best advice (and what I would do) is to start again with a clean install of Windows and define just the one user that you plan to use during the install.

Your partitions on your C drive are pointless. Installing programs into a second partition will not 'protect' them from a crash. When you install a program Windows adds entries to the registry as well as installing the executables. The registry is on the C: partition so if that partition got damaged you'd lose all the programs installed on your D: partition anyway. You would not be able to reinstall Windows on C: and somehow keep those programs already installed on D:. You should normally install Windows and all your programs into the C: drive/partition. The way to protect against crashes is to take regular backups of that drive - I can recommend a way to do that if you're interested.

I suggest that you do a completely clean reinstall of Windows. Choose a custom install and delete all the partitions on your SSD, then create a single partition the size of the drive and install Windows into that. This will waste a lot of space on your SSD of course, but it will also help to prolong the life of your SSD.

You could create a second partition on your SSD and use it for data that you need fast access to, leaving your HDD for archival data and data to which you don't need super-fast access. Managing this would be a bit more complex though, as you have already discovered!

If you do decide to reinstall Windows let us know on here and either I, or someone else, will show you how to organise your user data so that it goes on to the HDD or into a data partition on the SSD and so that Windows knows where everything is.