shanenin

the motherboard may be bad

did you recently update itunes? maybe that version is buggy.

Is it an option to just manually transfer the files. If it was me, I would just copy their "favorites", "desktop", and "My documents" directory. Maybe also take a peek at the root of the C:\ directory, often people put files there. Then Just manually transfer these back to XP. If needed, I also would do this same thing with outlook or outlook. express.

Is their an actual scsi pci card installed, or is this onboard? From what I read onboard scsi controllers are very rare. If you just have the card in their and it is not connected to any scsi devices can it be removed? Did you let windows update look for the driver, I am surprised it can find some difficult ones on occasion.

Thats odd. I can't imagine what kind of scsi device that computer would use. Are both the harddrive and cdrom using regular ide cables or scsi cables?

Has anyone heard of a more exact time? Considering 50% of what I do all day is updating windows XP machines, SP3 will have a direct effect on my productivity :-)

When you check the task manager, under the process tab, check to see what individual process is spiking.

Thats great. I would imagine this whole ad campaign has been huge for mac sales. It makes me want to buy one.

it was system restore, after turning it off, I had recovered about 100gbs. The mystery was caused by the fact vista does not let you see disk space being used by files that do not have full read permission even as an administrator. That is why my properties of the windows directory was just showing 8gbs.

You might be on to something. I would assume the restore points would be somewhere in the "windows" directory. I will have to look into that. edit added later// I think you may be correct. system restore in vista which is based on shadow copy uses huge amounts of space.

I actually have two 320gb drives running in raid 0(striped). So the size of the drive is 640gbs before formatting. I gave the figures of the drive after it was formatted. I just r-clicked on the C: drive then properties, then used those figures. Maybe if a file is hidden, it does not show up as using space, for what ever dumb reason. I will check that.

I noticed my C: drive is using 270 of 600 gbs. 109gbs - media directory 2gbs - program files 8gbs - windows directory this would mean I am using 151 gbs in my user(vista's documents and settings) directory. This includes all of my family members. I have about 10gbs in my account, my oldest daughter has 3gbs. then my wife and other two children just have a few gbs together. Where is the rest of my free space. I have been checking space of directories by r-clicking and choosing properties. I suspect the space is in a user account that I do not have permission to view, so it is not registering a

it sounds as if the drive may be bad. Have you tried both CS and SLAVE settings?

that limitation is for only old laptops. I can safely say yours with a 2.0 ghz proc and ddr memory will not have any problems with it.

Is it Panda or just good surfing habits I don't even run anti-virus on my main workstation at my shop. Maybe it si dumb, but I am pretty certain the computer is clean.

I personally think they all suck. When it comes to the most common and annoying infections like vundo and smitfraud, they seem worthless. For what its worth, if a client asks for an opinion, I recommend nod32.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/...ons/choose.mspx

Cool

I see know reason why your laptop could not use the large one. It is relatively new as far as compatibly goes. Any luck finding the caddy?

if every thing is working, don't update anything. You should be fine.

From what I remember, the xp installer does not work correctly if the disk is formatted with a linux file system. Try booting the system with a live linux cd, then use the program "cfdisk" to delete all linux partitions, this should leave the drive as unallocated. You may have better luck running the XP installer.

BFH?

Welcome to besttechie.net :-) It looks like a great system. My only thought is using the old hardrive. A big part of performance comes from harddrive performance. I would get a new hardrive then use your old for backup for important stuff.

Does the plastic bezel need to be slid down before pulling it out?