hard disc formatting

[nanosani]

My hard disc is slowing a little bit ... I reinstalled windows on an ntfs file system ... but it didnt matter .. now if I format all my hard drive ... will it restore its speed or there are other factors that affect the speed of the hard drive ??

[Catweazle]

Cleaning the system of spyware and nasties, getting rid of unused or unnecessary installed software, cleaning out temp files and other rubbish, and defragging the hard drive are all things to cosider to restore the responsiveness of your system. It gets cluttered and bogged down over time.

A format and fresh install is the best way to maximise the benefit, of course, but it's impact will be lessened if you simply load the rubbish back onto it.

You do need, of course, to be sure you load the latest motherboard and other component drivers after you install windows.

[Coconut Monkey]

What do you mean by slowing down exactly? Is your computer "thrashing" the hard drive more often than usual? If an operating system runs low on available system RAM, it is forced to swap out to "virtual memory", which is an area set aside on your hard drive. Accessing the hard drive is much slower than accessing system RAM, so everything can slow to a crawl if there's too much stuff running in the background. Catweazle's suggestion to remove unnecessary garbage could free up some memory, but you might want to consider a small RAM upgrade if the sluggishness continues. How much RAM do you have, and what is your OS?

[nanosani]

I've got win xp .. with 256 mb of ram ... and swaping is not a problem as the core kernel files are specified as always remain in the memory. I defragmented all the drives, removed spyware and adware, completed a full virus scan ... but its not working.

[Coconut Monkey]

I've got win xp .. with 256 mb of ram ... and swaping is not a problem as the core kernel files are specified as always remain in the memory.

As you would expect, but what about all the other programs fighting for system memory? 256Mb is bearable on a Windows XP system, but there is still a fair amount of swapping. You will notice a fair increase in performance with 512Mb. Get 1Gb, and you'll have no worries.

[Catweazle]

Agreed. I'd personally consider 256Mb as a bare minimum for Windows XP, and with only that amount installed the dependence on your hard drive would certainly lead to fragmentation and performance drop.

[nanosani]

Nope I dont see much page file usage even when I am working with microsoft office ... so I dont think ram is a problem ... I have the windows classic theme turned on.

[Coconut Monkey]

Nope I dont see much page file usage even when I am working with microsoft office ... so I dont think ram is a problem ... I have the windows classic theme turned on.

So where exactly are you seeing this slowdown? When does it occur?

[nanosani]

Its on when I boot my pc ... the other pc which is a p3 I've networked with boots faster than my pc.

[Catweazle]

A couple of points to consider.

Firstly there's the drive itself. If you've reset CMOS or made BIOS Setup changes at some point, it may not be configured adequately in BIOS to work at full efficiency. Ensure that all IDE settings are set to 'Auto' to ensure good performance. You should also check in Windows to ensure that the drive is using 'DMA' or it will not be functioning with full efficiency. Sometimes drives get confused about DMA in Windows, and there are Knowledge Base articles addressing various situations and problems in this regard.


Secondly, that problem of slow startup may not actually be the drive itself. Your PC is networked, and network connections, unless configured correctly, can cause significant delays at boot time. I'm no networking 'expert' I'm afraid, so I can't offer specific advice about that aspect, but I am aware that most such problems occur when related BIOS options are fiddled with or when Networking is manually configured rather than configured automatically by the OS. A discussion in the 'Networking' section might identify any such problems you may have.

Try these for starters:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325487

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;832161

[nanosani]

Hey thanks very much catweazle and coconut monkey ... You gave me some of the most useful advice .... now that I have repartitioned all my hard drive ... now my system looks speedy. I have compared the speeds of both the pcs ... now my system is booting faster than the other one and I am pretty content and it was not possible without you:) thanks very much again.

[mark_vasty]

maybe your hard disk speed is only running at 5400rpm and try to buy for a new one with a 7200rpm ide hard disk or if you have an extra money, try to use a SCSI hard disk... hope it will help.......