Ask Owen

I’ve noticed that my computer takes an age to boot compared to my mates computer. What can I do to make it quicker?

There are a few things you can do to make your boot time quicker. One thing you’ll notice is that as your computer gets older and you install more software, it tends to get slower and slower. Part of this is due to the organisation of the hard disk and part of it is caused by all the different things Windows needs to load up. There are a couple of things you can do; removing software you’re not using any more, defragmenting your hard disk and running a clean up program (I like CCleaner, it’s free and very effective)

One other thing you might want to consider is moving your boot disk to a faster device. Solid state disks are lots faster than mechanical drives and are getting more and more popular especially as they get cheaper. One such device is the Kingston SSDNow SNV125-S2/30GB Solid State Drive. It’s on sale from Buy.com for $75 and is much quicker than a normal hard disk. Using this as your boot disk will improve your start up times considerably, so it’s worth considering.

It’s an interesting option, though would require quite a bit of effort to implement. It will make a huge difference though, so check it out.

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