Good Morning Sweet13
First you have barely enough memory to get buy the suggested ram according to MS is one GB and you have less. Since you said that it did work with those specs before, lets see what we can do.
http://www.emachines.com/faq/vista/SUPPAGE01faq102.html. This will show the ram you have is really less then suggested.
Based upon the number of beeps at boot the computer is ok.
This is going to be different from when your buddy helped, since you have to do the work and I do not have an oppotunity to work hands on. So many questions will have to be asked and answered
This is from our tutorial on speeding up the computer, it will help it work without freezing, too.
Read it ask questions and make as many of the changes as you can. Then tell me which ones you made. And we will go from there
Your friend made it look easy, he or she did the same thing that we are doing. There is no magic button that can be pushed to make this work. One by one features have to be removed.
Make all the changes that you can. Report back and tell me what you did:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/81176-speed-up-performance-vista.html?ltr=S
Take your time. I will be here for you an hour from now or next week. Lets do it right, not quick.