New Hard Drive

[KhakiBlueSocks]

Hey guys--I have a bit of a problem...

I just got a new 160GB 8MB cache hard drive for my computer. My original intention was to format both my old and new hard drives and reinstall Windows cleanly, but the hard drive came with software that allows me to clone the old hard drive to the new one. So I decided to clone it.

It completed successfully, and the drive works great, but it just seems a bit slow...not by much...but just a bit slower than normal. I tried cleaning the old files, defragmenting the drive, and put it through a burnin test, but everything checks out.

Should I do a clean reinstall of Windows XP?

[JesusFreak84]

What was the RPM of the old drive versus the new?

[KhakiBlueSocks]

What was the RPM of the old drive versus the new?

The old drive is 5300 RPM and the new drive is 7300 RPM.

[Kenshin17]

Reinstalling Windows always (well almost always) speeds things up. If you have a good backup of your data and all that jazz, I would personally say go for it and do a clean install. With good backups it can't hurt is the way I see it.

[KhakiBlueSocks]

Reinstalling Windows always (well almost always) speeds things up. If you have a good backup of your data and all that jazz, I would personally say go for it and do a clean install. With good backups it can't hurt is the way I see it.

Yeah, I spent most of Friday Night worrying that I didn't back up everything. Kinda like leaving for a trip--there's ALWAYS something you wind up forgetting.

Anyway, I'll give it about a week (seening as though I'm not going to get a day off until Saturday....stupid iPhone...) and see if things speed up. I defragmented the hard drive again and changed the drive to a dynamic disk. It seems to have helped a bit!

[Kenshin17]

Cool. That was my personal opinion

But I also like the moto that: "If it ain't broke...don't mess with (fix) it"

[KhakiBlueSocks]

Cool. That was my personal opinion

But I also like the moto that: "If it ain't broke...don't mess with (fix) it"

Thanks, dude! I appreicate it.

The only thing I hate about doing a complete reinstall is that I have to take off all the junk the computer puts back on after restoring Windows XP Home. Then I have to redownload the Windows Updates and anti-virus program, then reinstall all my software and drivers. It's a hastle, but something that I might need to do!

[Kenshin17]

Oh dang....yeah restore disks are a pain.

I was running with the notion that you just had a clean XP disk. When I do reinstalls I use plain old Windows disk...so no extra software.

I totally understand your hesitation. My lack of hesitation comes with the fact that when I install Windows there is no "bloatware" so all I have to do is install what I want, tweak windows to how I want it and thats that.

Well and of course download all the programs I forgot to back up the installers of XD and updates...if your into updating Windows....kinda seems to me like an oxymoron...update windows XD

Ok I am done XD No more anti-MS ranting XD

[KhakiBlueSocks]

Oh dang....yeah restore disks are a pain.

I was running with the notion that you just had a clean XP disk. When I do reinstalls I use plain old Windows disk...so no extra software.

I totally understand your hesitation. My lack of hesitation comes with the fact that when I install Windows there is no "bloatware" so all I have to do is install what I want, tweak windows to how I want it and thats that.

Well and of course download all the programs I forgot to back up the installers of XD and updates...if your into updating Windows....kinda seems to me like an oxymoron...update windows XD

Ok I am done XD No more anti-MS ranting XD

My copy of XP Home is on the recovery disks--

I have XP Pro on a clean install--sadly I can't just reinstall XP Pro because I'll loose all my drivers. It'll take the better part of two hours to uninstall all the preinstalled junk!

Ah well, it's a good weekend project! But, I also got a copy of Red Hat Linux from the library that I might wanna try out before renewing my commitment to Windows.

[Kenshin17]

That sounds like a plan.

[JesusFreak84]

ubuntu is also a good Linux distro for new users, I'm told. Fedora Core is the free version of Red Hat. Red Hat has more strings attached to it. FC6 and later actually, I'm told, can read and write to NTFS drives.

Also, you CAN reinstall Windows XP without reformatting (Windows calls it repairing,) but you DO have to download Windows updates again. Not sure about drivers or anti-virus updates, though. However, I've never had a repair operation for the OS itself work well.

If you go to Linux, though, you don't even need an anti-virus or anything like that. Not sure how easy it is to get on dial-up with Linux, though. Like AOL has no Linux version that I know of. And Linux often has driver issues. Like I have no wireless internet in ubuntu because my wireless card is so poorly supported (that is, Broadcom won't make a Linux driver, and what the Linux community has done hasn't worked for me.)

For Linux, you're better off to download (um...have someone with high speed download for you...) a "Live CD." You boot off of it, and you don't have to change anything about your computer, and you can tell right there whether it will work or not. ubuntu will acutally mail you a disc-thinger that has both a Live CD and the Installer Disc in case you decide to keep ubuntu. There's also a port of ubuntu out there, Christian Ubuntu, that comes with a Bible program and filtering software.

Sorry for the long rambling post.

[KhakiBlueSocks]

ubuntu is also a good Linux distro for new users, I'm told. Fedora Core is the free version of Red Hat. Red Hat has more strings attached to it. FC6 and later actually, I'm told, can read and write to NTFS drives.

Also, you CAN reinstall Windows XP without reformatting (Windows calls it repairing,) but you DO have to download Windows updates again. Not sure about drivers or anti-virus updates, though. However, I've never had a repair operation for the OS itself work well.

If you go to Linux, though, you don't even need an anti-virus or anything like that. Not sure how easy it is to get on dial-up with Linux, though. Like AOL has no Linux version that I know of. And Linux often has driver issues. Like I have no wireless internet in ubuntu because my wireless card is so poorly supported (that is, Broadcom won't make a Linux driver, and what the Linux community has done hasn't worked for me.)

For Linux, you're better off to download (um...have someone with high speed download for you...) a "Live CD." You boot off of it, and you don't have to change anything about your computer, and you can tell right there whether it will work or not. ubuntu will acutally mail you a disc-thinger that has both a Live CD and the Installer Disc in case you decide to keep ubuntu. There's also a port of ubuntu out there, Christian Ubuntu, that comes with a Bible program and filtering software.

Sorry for the long rambling post.

Oh no! Keep rambling! You basically said everything I was thinking about Linux! I go through this everytime I do a wipe and restore of my computer--I try Linux out, first as a dual boot with XP then as a stand-alone OS, leave it installed for less than a day, then cave in after I can't access the internet and reinstall XP--kicking myself the whole way that I wasted time installing Linux.

[JesusFreak84]

XD Your ISP probably doesn't want you using anything but Windows (and probably OSX) with Linux because they don't want to support it. :p That's really what it boils down to most of the time.

[Mithrandir]

Out of curiosity, what's the ISP? Nearly every ISP I've ever had didn't mind that I used linux. I'm curious why you couldn't access the internet, though. If you've got a firewall/router, your linux install should be able to get a DHCP address from that and run with it. If not, there *are* PPPoE functions within most Linux installs.

[JesusFreak84]

Well, when we had AOL for dial-up, you COULD NOT dial in without the AOL software, and that only had Windows and Mac versions. There's also the issue of drivers for the modem.

I've never heard of dial-up using PPPoE, but it's been so long since I've had dial-up.....