What do you think of this computer that I want to buy…

In My Humble Opinion
41

You know, as I prepare for this new thing to arrive, I’ve had a few questions pop up.

First, I’ll be taking the forty gig hard drive out of this computer and putting in into the new one. In a way, it’s a back up to the data that will be on the main systems drive.

*Don’t ask me why, but I like the two hard drive set-up.

Now the problem- Will the XP OS master HD recognize the Win 98 slave drive (Obviously I’ll switch the jumpers around and all that), or is there something I’d have to do to prepare it?

Right now, I assume I can start up XP on the master and have it find the data (music files and whatnot) on the Win 98 slave drive. Is that safe to assume?

Secondly, could someone refer me to either a good thread discussing dual boot OS’s and how to set them up and operate them, or a website out there explaining how it works?

I might just want to keep the original XP set-up and simply add the Win 98 as a secondary dual boot OS.

Is that a good idea? I’d like to know how that works.

Thanks.

42

best way to go, put your swap file on the second drive

It’ll see it, no prob

it’ll see the drive, but you will have to manually find any files you want through explorer etc.

Well, Monster can probly answer the dual boot thing better than me. I havent set up xp to do that. (yet)

43

Come on you guys!

I’m not hearing any feedback on what I bought. You guys talked me into this, tell me I did alright.

Just so you know, I wanted to be as up to date as possible, so I just ordered the GeForce Titanium 500 (It was the best rated in a review I read). The earlier GeForce 3 I think I’ll sell.

So, come on, did I do right?

I want this system to smoke.

44

I should add that if anyone wants the VisionTek Geforce 3 that I currently own, I’ll be putting it up on e-bay soon. E-mail me and I’ll give you the details… Straight Dopers will get the best deal… I’ll practically give it away.

45

Sorry about that, I screwed up.

I’m not implying that I want to sell my card through this board- not at all. My point was, and is, that I’ll be putting it up for bids on some online auction site in the near future… maybe e-bay, maybe somewhere else. Right now, I really don’t know for sure.

My serious apologies if I implied otherwise… anyone and everyone gets a chance at it. It wasn’t, and isn’t, my intention to try and sell something on this board.

My apologies for stating otherwise earlier.

46

Unless you connect some cables improperly, this thing won’t smoke. But it will be very, very fast! :slight_smile: Sorry. . .

Sounds like a great system at a good price. And I’d agree with the plan of installing your old hard drive and then setting up as a dual boot machine. It’s a very easy way to get your old data accessible to a new machine and I’ve done it many times myself. I don’t know anything about how Windows XP handles dual-boot setups, but I’ve had systems set up with all iterations of Win 9x, NT, and 2000 and had no problems. I see you’ve got another thread about partitioning and dual-boot, so I won’t get into it any farther here.

Now, you’ve bought the computer. Soon you will have it up and running, and you’ll be in geek heaven. So, the last piece of advice I can give you is: Stop looking at computer systems for sale. Maybe wait a few months before you even go back to a computer vendors site. Prices fall so quickly as new components become available that you will likely be shocked and saddened by how much less the same system goes for in a month. Just resst assured that you got the best system available at the time and don’t second-guess yourself.

47

Great advice. I used to work in a computer store many years ago, and would have people put computers on layaway for 6 months, come back and pay thier system off,and on the way out the door see the current prices and get really pissed.

48

Great advice from both of you.

Quite a bit happened since that last post.

Most important of all, I sobered up -smile-

And, luckily, the website where I ordered the video card from shot me an e-mail saying the card was on backorder.

Needless to say, once I gave it some serious thought, it didn’t, and doesn’t, make sense to upgrade that card this soon in the game.

For that, I’ll wait until next spring and see where things are. Furthermore, I’ll stop looking around for systems that are better or in the pipe. Hey, I got it, and there’s not much more I can do about it now.

I’m happy.

Finally, I had a friend come over who’s more knowledgeable on the whole dual-boot thing- and the partition thing- and we walked through a plan of attack that makes sense.

So, for now, I’m 'a done looking and ordering (Sometimes it’s hard to get out of that mode).

Thanks again, not much more I need to know that you haven’t already answered.