Windows XP Upgrade and Serial ATA

[Simple_serf]

First of all STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, now that we have that straightened out.....

Get a copy of XP pro....Home edition doesn't work well when you really need to try and pull something weird off.

As to the ATA drives, I haven't messed with them much, so I can't really give any advice to their use.

Oh, and as for ubuntu, it's great for some stuff, but Linux doesn't really doesn't have a good workable desktop....and I say this after using it for some time. additionally, much of my hardware is older "win hardware", and Linux doesn't support much of this crappy hardware. I absolutely do not recommend ubuntu for someone who just wants a system to work, without any hassle. I decided to play with it because I was interested...I started with computers with a Commodore PET, then a 64, then Apple IIGS, then Mac, then PC, so I am not afraid of weird OS's.

 

[DeanMoriarty]

First of all STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't agree more. Win ME is the genital herpes of operating systems.

To the poster; You can also check in the device manager, or in CMOS to find out the drive manufacturer.

NTFS - Not That Fat $hit.

 

[CJREX]

Remember that if you're loading XP with SATA drives, XP can't "see" them at setup.

You will have to press F6 during setup when prompted to load additional drivers and then let XP load them from a floppy or other source.

+100000 on NOT getting Windows ME (Mistake Edition, Many Errors, Mostly Evil) and get XP Pro over Home if possible.

Good Luck!

 

[4x4junkie]

Dang, 8 years and two OS's later and everyone STILL bashes with such virulence on Windows ME.

There must be something I don't do that caused problems for others (gaming?), but ME was 1000x better than 98 for me...
No fussing with the damn OS disc each & every time you plug in some piece of hardware (even with USB devices), USB always worked reliably (although I never could get it to work in 2.0 mode, not sure if its an OS or motherboard issue), Networking actually WORKS on it, System Restore has saved my ass at least twice, BOTH crashed quite often (no difference there),

That said,
I also suggest staying well away from it. Not because it's "the worst... diseased, plague, blah blah blah", but because it became obsolete so damn fast it made my head spin.
Probably a majority of programs & applications are requiring XP & up now, they simply won't run on ME anymore either.

I'd 2nd the suggestion of XP Media Center edition. IMO, Vista is the one with the diseases (all the bloat & DRM crap imbedded into it to spy on you... not that XP doesn't have some also though ).

 

[CJREX]

Somewhat off-topic, but too good...

BEST VISTA COMMERCIAL EVER

Back on topic...

My personal experiences with ME on multiple machines (computer training classroom) were that once it "learned" which programs you used most and wrote them to the edge of the disc for faster loading, and if you didn't frequently add/remove programs, and you didn't try to network it with other computers, it could be OK.

Any combination of 2 of the above scenarios = Chernobyl meltdown

 

[DeanMoriarty]

ME was Microsoft's last ditch effort to milk a little more money out of the 98 platform. Granted, the addition of useful features like system restore were great, since the damned thing BSOD'd and crashed so often. I wouldn't recommend 98 any more than ME, at least ME recognized some drivers. It seems like Microsoft never seems to get any of its OS's stable and secure until years later when they're close to coming out with something else. I stuck with 2k Pro for a couple years after XP had been out. IMO 2k is still a more stable business and networking platform than XP... it just ran short on the multi-media end.
To hell with Vista and DRM.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Somewhat off-topic, but too good...

BEST VISTA COMMERCIAL EVER

Holy F**k that was funny!!!

Sad but true....

ME was Microsoft's last ditch effort to milk a little more money out of the 98 platform. Granted, the addition of useful features like system restore were great, since the damned thing BSOD'd and crashed so often. I wouldn't recommend 98 any more than ME, at least ME recognized some drivers. It seems like Microsoft never seems to get any of its OS's stable and secure until years later when they're close to coming out with something else. I stuck with 2k Pro for a couple years after XP had been out. IMO 2k is still a more stable business and networking platform than XP... it just ran short on the multi-media end.
To hell with Vista and DRM.

My bro ran ME... for all of like 3 months until XP came out and they gave him a free copy to replace ME with.

I love 2k Pro, that's what my laptop has. I loved the features, and falling flat on the media end wasn't too big of a deal cuz my laptop couldn't run any high-end games anyway. When I did have a constant string of crashes on my laptop, it didn't take long to figure out that it was the "deathstar" harddrive in it's death throes, not the op sys. Too bad you can't get it anymore...

 

[Roger]

SOme good info here and just a little disinfo...

98SE was great except for lacking DECENT USB support and drive size limits. ME just sucked. 2K Pro was light years ahead of 98SE, except it no longer supported many 16bit programs I used and played. Oh well, thats progress. At least it supported USB better.

XP Home scares me silly, but it came on a machine I bought for the family and that machien only recently died. This machine I built 2 years ago for gaming and installed SATA 250GB drive and 2GB Ram and 2 vid cards in SLI... I also installed XP Pro. I also installed a smaller 40GB drive recently to allow dual booting with Linux.

I hope I NEVER have to use Vista. I'm running Ubuntu 7.10 on this other hard drive. And while I don't even try to run WINE for my win apps, I've downloaded many similar apps that do the same thing. Shoot, I'm even using Open Office under XP as well as under Linux. I especially like that it is all free (some minor exceptions), and you can try them without installing. http://distrowatch.com has reviews and news, and an easy to see what the top 100 flavors are. Yes, more than 100 different versions of Linux.

As for Linux not running on older machines, phooey. I'm running XUbuntu 7.10, which has lighter video demands on a system, on an old Compaq 700 Mhz P3 business machine. And have it running on an older Compaq AMD K6-2 400Mhz machine. The 400 will become a hardware firewall for the home net...

I'm still learning Linux though. And will next be playing with Virtual Machine stuff, just to see what thats about. If I could run XP in a VM under Linux, and share info between "systems", that will be awesome. Like Biscuits, with GRAVY!

 

[DeanMoriarty]

At the risk of beating this topic into the ground... 98se in it's day was fine... But I'm not sure why anyone present day would even consider running it or ME.

Roger, I think we have some of the same spare machines lying around. I set a 700mhz Compaq up for my son, maxed the ram out and did some father / son time modifications to the case to make it look "cool" for him. Right now, we're using a K6-2 400mhz as a model for his science project (instructional model of a PC). Does your Compaq have the ultra-useless flip down panel in the front that holds 1 or 2 cd's? What a great idea that was...
I need to find a good purpose for the other couple machines I have sitting around. If only they could be programmed to bring me beer and nachos...

LBF; You can still find it... if you know where to look.