So i have gotten a f-in trojan i cant shake on my hp machine running windows media center which i hated from the beging because of trialware, media pc bs, and other factors so i want to take this opportunity to purchase a full version of xp pro and a clean new drive but i have a few questions. I have 2 sata connections on the mobo that i have a 500gb seagate for pure storage since i dont never put files on the system drive and potentially want to add the other as the system drive with the new xp pro i will be purchasing both from newegg but have some issues. 1. I have read that i need a driver to run xp pro as a system drive that needs to be installed during the installation process in order to recognize the drive but when i called seagate the support guy told me that is only when installing a third party pci card and it will without a doubt recognize the sata drive on its own? 2. Will having a smaller system drive 80GB vs 120gb improve performance. 3.Do i really need sata or will a pata ide/100 or 133 be the same performance. 4. Does 8MB of cache vs 16MB make much of a diffrence. I know its alot of questions i have posted but any help would be greatly appreciated. P.S. It took about 8 trys to post this message this trojan is killer, nothing works.....tried vundo fix, ad-aware, sunbelt, norton ect....
1. Correct. S-ATA drives are picked up automatically when you go to install windows XP (all versions) unless you're using a RAID card (if you don't know what that is, you probably aren't using one) 2. Not directly, only if the drive you buy is a newer technology and marginally faster, but in general, OS drives don't vary too much in performance unless your old one is ancient. 3. Use S-ATA primarily so you don't have to have a massive cable. Also, S-ATA drives are marginally faster since they are newer technology drives (the S-ATA interface itself doesn't do anything to increase the speed of the drive) 4. A little, get a 16MB Cache drive if you can. P.S: how about Grisoft AVG or ESET NOD32?
Sammorris thank you and just to beat a dead horse i should just be able to install the drive then xp pro and i am set to go? Do you think that a clean full new install of xp pro will load faster and run smoother that the HP media center edition i got with my pc. Everytime i use a pc with xp pro loaded by a person who has built their own system even if the system is theoretically "slower" (processor, memory ect...) it feels like they respond faster an smoother.
There's no explicit reason why the OS pre-loaded on a PC will be slower. However what you tend to find is they include a lot of rubbish you'll never need in the form of trial software and so on, which will slow the PC down, even after it's been removed.
that was my train of thought because ive removed as much as i can without removing critical file but even then is feels sluggish...
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099 @fredo2121 See here: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/263784
