Totally screwed and tired

I just recently installed a new graphics card into one of my computers, and some weird shit started to happen.

The computer:
Dell Dimension 8300 - 2 years old.
2.8 ghz p4
some intel motherboard
512 RAM (I believe coursair, but not sure :cuss: )
Graphics card -- Used to be a Intel pos, but I bought a ATI x700 Pro from Fry's (not OC'd btw)
2 hard drives(will be explained in the problem), one new Seagate 160 gig ATA(primary master), one 14 gig IBM about 5 years old(primary slave)

The Problem:
About 2 months after the graphics card was installed(no probs or anything), my hard drive failed(as in making clicking noises). No big problem, it just had some games that i didnt play much. It was the original HD that came with the dell btw--was 120 gig Hitachi ATA. Thus, i went and bought a new HD, that being the 160 gig Seagate. I installed the windows that came w/ my PC (XP home w/ SP1) and all goes smoothly.
Now the problems start.I do some stupid shit like trying to do a virtual partition, setting off 15 gig for a linux partition to play with. The hard drive gets fucked up, so I stay patient and reinstall windows xp. I still want linux, so i strip the IBM 14 gig harddrive from some old comp i have and set it as the slave (through a few hours of trial and error). Everything works for about a day. The computer stays on all night. I wake up the next morning and the thing just goes bitch ass slow. I do a few things online (like check email). Then I restart the pc because of the real slowness(its not a process, im pretty sure). It starts up.
The computer tries to load windows, but has a "corrupted file" or some shit. I spend a few hours on it, and I eventually install everything again. The same problem happens. Another day passes and I check the HD for problems. It has a few bad sectors, and i fix those and do a low level format. It should be fixed I guess. Same shit happens a 6th time(i tried a few things, nothing helped). This ends my week.
I end up asking my dad, who is a low level OS programmer for his own business, and he suggests a few things. That was to see if my bios was not compatible w/ the size of the HD. That is not the case(its the latest version, and it sees it as a 160 gig hd). But i do end up finding about how windows dont like the hds over 127 gig, so i partition, leaving a huge partition open. It installs fine, but I end up having problems with growing the partition after updates. XP can supposedly support my HD size if it has SP1 i believe. Thus, i get a lil pissed about spending over 24 hours on one problem, and figure out that what i was doing again is doing nothing. I try to grow the HD, but a few problems make it mess again.


Note: Linux was working on my old IBM hd fine, but this computer is a family one(im 15), and My family does not know how to use Linux, and a few family members basically cant learn(as in Windows was too complicated, let alone linux). The hd is having a problem now too. The seagate diag's not allowing the fuckin thing to boot, and is trying to do a Dynamic Drive Overlay, or w/e the hell that is. I try to reinstall Linux on the thing, and the same problem happens. Now BOTH Hds dont work for no reason.


Help WILL be appreciated.

 

I would make the 14 gig IBM Primary master and the new Seagate 160 gig ATA Secondary master.
Any optical Drives should be slaved - preferably only one, and slaved on the Primary would be good for reading/writing to the 160GB.
To dual-boot WinXP and Linux, you need to have a FAT16 partition on the Primary controller, as C:\
The largest FDisk will make is 2GB.
You can then make all your little Linux partitions on the rest of the 14GB, and install WinXP on the new Seagate (one partition, NTFS).
If you currently have WinXP installed on the Seagate, this in theory would work out okay for you - you would need to configure as above, and repair your WinXP to startup from boot files (ntldr and boot.ini) on the new system drive C:\
The command:
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
will direct the startup to the Secondary master harddisk.
But in the real-world, your OS thinks it is on C: drive and you will have hell to introduce this new FAT16 C: (required to dual-boot) into your system without re-installing your WinXP.
In a perfect setup, you would have both HDs blank/unpartitioned.
Configure hardware as above. Create the 2GB FAT16.
Leave the rest of the IBM HD untouched (Linux can claim it later).
That's it! Start WinXP install from CDRom, point it to 160GB (unpartitioned) for the Windows installation.
The hardware setup is very specific, and both your drives plus a DVD burner should all DMA satisfactorily in this configuration :^)
Tip:
When you get your WinXP running in this configuration, you can move your swapfile to the 2GB C: partition.
This will increase system performance.
Regards

 

Oh yeah - if you want to do this DEMORIS, you could use the 12GB on the IBM HD to keep your most 'precious' files (is that enough? Do you have a DVD burner to store stuff if the 12GB is inadequate?)
If you wish to start fresh like this, to dual-boot, PM me and I will EMail you Micro$oft delpart.exe
It will easily restore any & all harddisks to factory-new condition, ie. completely blank.
You will also need a 3.5" floppy bootdisk, easy stuff - I will help you if you req.