Reformat hard drive to boost speed

[sfendi]

Hello everyone!

I recently built a system with the motherboard P4X400 Dragon Lite SOYO, 256 MB RAM, 2.6GHZ Celeron. I used an old hard disk from my old HP system running originally Windows ME which I also upgraded to Win2000. The HP system (766 MHZ Celeron, 198MB RAM, 30GB HD) was running very slowly after the upgrade to Win2000. That's the reason why I decided to build the new system and put Windows 2000 on it. I was expecting a big improvement in the performance for the new system, but it is as slow as the old HP system (about 25 minutes for startup). This made me think that the problem is with the hard drive which is the only component I used from the old HP. So my question is: If I reformat the hard drive before reinstalling Windows2000, is it legitimate to think this will boost the performance up? Please advise before I destroy all the data on drive!

Thank you.

 

[micker377]

There will be SOME improvement due to a clean (not a large amount of junk on the drive)drive. However, the speed (5400, 7200,etc), will be the same as before. In the old DOS days (MFM), you could change the speed with proper interleave settings. Today the IDE drives operate as designed. The "slow" problems you had before could have been from the normal "upgrade" conflicts.

 

[ricpinto]

I guess it's not a HDD issue. If Win ME is already slow before the upgrade to 2k then there's no improvement. Sometimes it tends to be more slower because some installed 3rd party programs got issues on 2k. So doing a format/fresh install to 2k (not upgrade from ME) will greatly improve the performance. Actually whatever system you have if you do a fresh install the speed will improve, it will only start to slow down when you start to install new programs. There's comes a time you need to do a fresh installation again after so many install and uninstall of programs. It's better to do it this way than to troubleshoot/replace the corrupt files/drivers in there.

 

[Ed2020]

Why not just buy a decent hard drive? The one you have must be pretty ancient in computer-years, and new ones are dirt cheap at the moment.

It just seems a shame to affect the performance of a pretty reasonable PC with an old hard drive.

Ed.

Please do not feed the trolls.....

 

[torturedmind]

for a 25-minute bootup, there are many angles to view from - a dying HDD perhaps (or any other hidden issues, for that matter). if you have a newer HDD that you could test, maybe you can narrow down to the possible cause of it.

sure hope this helps. peace!

kilroy
philippines

"Illegitimis non carborundum!"

 

[sfendi]

Thank you to everyone for your good tips. Your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[DragonQ0105]

I'm sorry, but a 25-mintute bootup will not be fixed by a reformat.

It's got to either be a dying Hard Drive or a damaged/dying Hard Drive IDE Controller (on the motherboard). Of course, it could also be bad RAM, a damaged CPU, or a completely f**ked Motherboard, but these are less likely.

During this 25-minute startup, is the Hard Drive light on, off, or flickering?

 

[BadBigBen]

Could well be that the HDD is set to PIO mode from previous system...

but it is NEVER a good idea to port a HDD with ME/2000/XP already installed from one system to another, unless it is exactly the same (same mobo, same CPU, etc.), as this will conflict with the installed CHIPSET DRIVERS and can cause havock and SNAIL BOOTS...

Ben


If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...

 

[tomaso11]

25 minutes to start your computer? 2.5 minutes is too long.
If you have the cash buy a new bigger faster drive.
If not take a closer look at whats on the drive, save data
etc dowload utilities from manufacturer do a low level format, test drive and do a clean install of your chosen operating system.

 

[Ed2020]

I can recommend SpinRite 6 from

http://www.grc.com

- it's the best hard drive diagnostic and repair tool I have ever come across.

Ed Metcalfe.

Please do not feed the trolls.....

 

[G0AOZ]

Using an old installation even if it is upgraded to W2K, could carry over any unnoticed virues, trojans etc. At least completely wipe it, and at best do as suggested above and invest in a faster drive. The hard disk is still the main bottleneck in PCs today...

ROGER.