Time for a new system

[PL1]

My old XP desktop system won't boot anymore despite numerous semi-heroic attempts to revive it.   

Time to upgrade to a newer system.

1. Are there any advantages to Win7 Pro (costs $45 more) as opposed to Win7 Home Premium?

2. Thinking about getting a 1TB WD Caviar Black.
Anyone know if there are problems with this series of drives like the Seagate -11 series?

3. Any thoughts/concerns about getting this kit or this one?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.   


Scott

[sharpfork]

I tend to pick an architecture and setup a deal alert on slickdeals.net .  My last build was based on a $28 (after rebate) haswell mobo.

If your XP rig is dead, can you reuse anything?  I'd think maybe the case, PSU, and potentially the GPU could be reused.

[Drnick]

Here is the biggest difference between home and pro.

Windows XP Mode

Home Premium: No
Professional: Yes

This feature allows users to install Microsoft’s Virtual PC application and then install and run a complete fully licensed version of Windows XP SP3 from within the virtual PC environment. This feature was originally developed for businesses to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7, and give them an environment from which to continue using any older non–Windows 7 compatible software. It is not suitable for applications which require 3D graphics or hardware accelerated sound, so gaming or even using your old TV tuner to watch TV are definite no-nos

As gaming in the VM is a no no and I very much doubt that you need to install more then 16gb ram then Home should be fine for your needs.

[PL1]

If your XP rig is dead, can you reuse anything?  I'd think maybe the case, PSU, and potentially the GPU could be reused.

Might recycle the GT430 video card, but the old ATX case/PSU/rest of the hardware will be added to a small collection of other system parts to (hopefully someday) end up in a build or two.

Home should be fine for your needs.

Thanks for the confirmation.   


Scott

[stripe4]

If you're more curious about the differences, here's a link to a comparison chart in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions#Comparison_chart

The only advantage I can see (related to this hobby) is hardware support. If your new system will have more than 16 GB RAM or two physical CPUs, you should pick Pro.

[PL1]

Has anyone had any experience with the WD Caviar Black drives?

Are there any advantages/disadvantages to the Asus Intel B85M-G motherboard compared to the MSI B85-G41 PC MATE motherboard or is the B85 chipset not a good choice?


Scott

[othar]

i use 2 * 1To WD black in desktop computer... you can use Green model for a home computer... the difference is warranty 5 years on black, and only 3 on Green...

[roknrol]

I have two WD Black 1TB drives. Very nice spindle drives and show a (slightly) noticeable difference in access speeds for the OS and programs. However, if you're really looking to make a significant difference in speed -- nothing beats an SSD.

WD Black Drives = Taking a 1989 Nissan Sentra and adding the Turbo package
SSD = Just buying the Corvette ZR1 in the first place

[PL1]

I'm looking at the WD Caviar Black for reliability and capacity not speed.

The old system had an EIDE drive so that would have been like a Geo Metro, right?   

The "Sentra" will be a nice step up without paying "Corvette" prices -- just wanted to be sure they aren't lemons like the -11 Seagates. 


Scott

[ark_ader]

If I was you I would look at buying a used mobo and cpu (Amd X2 something) and ram.  Keep XP going in your cabinet.  Windows 7 might have problems with older drivers.  Unless you are thinking of exploring the more intensive games that Mame supports.

In that case I should concentrate on getting an AMD A10 and an Asus MB with 16gb ram and one of those lovely Black WD drives.  I would get a ATI 7750 to complement the on board graphics.  Betcha it costs about $400 minus PSU (500W) and case.

[PL1]

Thanks for playing, ark, but it's not for a cab.   

Orders placed for the i3-4130 kit, Win7 Home, and WD caviar black drive.

Everything should be here around the 17th -- January 17th.  While I was checking out, the MB sold out, leaving the kit on backorder.   


Scott

[Generic Eric]

Too late for my sage advice.  I was going to suggest that you treat yourself.  Anyhow, how much RAM?

[PL1]

Too late for my sage advice.  I was going to suggest that you treat yourself.  Anyhow, how much RAM?

This is treating myself -- just a bit earlier (and less smoothly on the transition) than planned.   

The kit comes with 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 MHz Patriot Viper Xtreme.

The barebones kit is here and HDD here for anyone who cares.   


Scott

[Haze]

both will make for excellent MAME machines, high clock i3 is by far the best balance you can get right now, will absolutely fly where single core performance and memory bandwidth are the bottlenecks which is still 95% of MAME, and will excel in cases where dual core performance is important too which is another 3%, there are only a couple of cases that really benefit from more and typically you have to sacrifice clock speed then too.

plus the majority of stuff won't tax it, which means it will run cool and have a good long life, as opposed to a weaker cpu that will be maxed out and driving the fans at full throttle all the time (== more heat, more stress on the system, earlier death)

should see you good for everything that is realistically in the realm of playable for several years.

[404]

Thanks for playing, ark, but it's not for a cab.   

Orders placed for the i3-4130 kit, Win7 Home, and WD caviar black drive.

Everything should be here around the 17th -- January 17th.  While I was checking out, the MB sold out, leaving the kit on backorder.   


Scott

In the meantime, you can fiddle around with your current system to see what's wrong? Any blown caps or something noticeable on that rig?

both will make for excellent MAME machines, high clock i3 is by far the best balance you can get right now, will absolutely fly where single core performance and memory bandwidth are the bottlenecks which is still 95% of MAME, and will excel in cases where dual core performance is important too which is another 3%, there are only a couple of cases that really benefit from more and typically you have to sacrifice clock speed then too.

plus the majority of stuff won't tax it, which means it will run cool and have a good long life, as opposed to a weaker cpu that will be maxed out and driving the fans at full throttle all the time (== more heat, more stress on the system, earlier death)

should see you good for everything that is realistically in the realm of playable for several years.

Very good, sound advice here. May have to pick up an economy i3 rig.

[PL1]

Everything but the new motherboard should be here in the next 3-6 days.   

In the meantime, you can fiddle around with your current system to see what's wrong? Any blown caps or something noticeable on that rig?

i'll be looking at that soon, but the odd thing about this is that the first crash happened on reboot after applying a windows update.

IIRC, I copied over NTLDR and boot.ini to fix that crash for about 4 hours.

Then I updated windows again and the system went into an endless loop: BIOS - Boot in safe/normal/last good mode? - starts to load system - *BEEP* - back to BIOS . . .   

The EIDE HDD works great in an external USB adapter -- backed up 490 GB data from it with no problems.

Old system BIOS seems to recognize the HDD, but when I try to install XP from the SATA DVD drive, it gets as far as asking which drive to install XP on and says that it can't recognize the HDD.

Sounds like either a bad boot sector on the drive, a problem with the EIDE controller circuit, or something else along these lines.   

Guess it's time to dig out an old HDD to see if that works.


Scott

[ark_ader]

Have you checked BIOS to see if SATA is in compatible mode with the OS? 

I got the same grief when I wiped 8 off the drive stuck 7 on and 8 following up with 8.1 again on the new laptop.  Endless boot cycle.   

I don't boot XP anymore on new kit, I just image the XP installation to VHD then either run it from VM or you could try Plop.

It is so much easier than trying to migrate, and you can have multiple copies. 

[404]

Everything but the new motherboard should be here in the next 3-6 days.   

In the meantime, you can fiddle around with your current system to see what's wrong? Any blown caps or something noticeable on that rig?

i'll be looking at that soon, but the odd thing about this is that the first crash happened on reboot after applying a windows update.

IIRC, I copied over NTLDR and boot.ini to fix that crash for about 4 hours.

Then I updated windows again and the system went into an endless loop: BIOS - Boot in safe/normal/last good mode? - starts to load system - *BEEP* - back to BIOS . . .   

The EIDE HDD works great in an external USB adapter -- backed up 490 GB data from it with no problems.

Old system BIOS seems to recognize the HDD, but when I try to install XP from the SATA DVD drive, it gets as far as asking which drive to install XP on and says that it can't recognize the HDD.

Sounds like either a bad boot sector on the drive, a problem with the EIDE controller circuit, or something else along these lines.   

Guess it's time to dig out an old HDD to see if that works.


Scott

I'm a sucker for old hardware. I always try to rejuvenate old hardware to use in various projects. I'm not the kind of person that just chucks pc parts into E-waste bins.

You do have an interesting situation with this rig though. Chances are if a fresh XP install cannot recognize the drive, even to reformat it then the drive is probably toast. If you have a working windows rig that has an ide port you can test out the drive and read it's internal SMART info by using tools such as CrystalDiskInfo.

[roknrol]

Sorry, Scott, should have replied sooner ... you should be very happy with the WD Black 1TB drives. Both of mine have been purring along in separate builds for 2+ years with nary an issue. Just keep 'em cool and you shouldn't have any problems.

Seagate .14 and .15 drives are good options, too. Not at all like the Sea-bakes of old.

[PL1]

Motherboard shipped.

It might even get here in time for Christmas.   

With any luck I'll have all the software installed and configured by Easter.   


Scott

[PL1]

First the good news:
Reformatted the old XP system HDD and restored an old backup that seems to work -- should be good for a future build.
The not-so-good news:
Everything for the new system arrived and worked perfectly for the initial install of Win7 -- until the first reboot where it asked for the password.

Password not accepted??!!?? 

Didn't know at the time, but apparently my wireless keyboard comes up with Num Lock engaged on this system and there's no way to tell this when typing in a password.    [/ 20/20 hindsight]

No problem, just reformat the drive and reinstall windows.   

Why are there three partitions after reformatting the drive??!!?? (GPT)

Delete the partitions and try to reformat - no luck.

Format HDD in NTFS on 32 bit XP system.

Now Win7 says it can't install on the drive.

Tried using diskpart and changing UEFI BIOS settings but nothing I've tried over the last two days seems to work.   

No other 64 bit OS systems available here to format the HDD and Win7 install DVD is unable/unwilling to format the HDD in GPT format or install on an MBR (NTFS) formatted disk.

OS: Win7 SP1 (OEM) GFC-02050
MB: MSI B85-G41 PC MATE
HDD: Western Digital 1 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive, Black, WD1003FZEX

Other than buying another HDD , any specific advice for formatting the HDD so Win7 will install?


Scott

[Louis Tully]

.

[PL1]

Thanks, LT, but the new system HDD has already been reformatted so there's no password to bypass.

Looking closer at the error message, it says that Win7 will only install on a GPT drive because the MB is an EFI system.

Unless someone has a diskpart trick that I missed or a way to use 32 bit XP to format using GPT (not supported), I'll probably have to pay the idiot tax and get another HDD which can double as an offline backup/clone drive for just such an emergency.


Scott

[Louis Tully]

.

[PL1]

Could be interesting.

Found a LiveCD version here.

The Features page says "Create partition tables, (e.g., msdos or gpt)" but I'm not sure which of the file systems are related to GPT.   


Scott

[Malenko]

way late to the party.

WB Blacks are the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---. Seagate drives ARE ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

As for password, use a Hirens boot disc, and blank the password. Free and easy to find.

[PL1]

It worked!!!1!   All hail Louis Tully!!        

If anyone else needs to do this, the process is simple:

1. Download the correct version of GParted LiveCD from here and burn the .ISO to a CD-R.

2. Connect the drive you need to configure for GPT.

3. Boot up using the GParted LiveCD -- default settings should be fine.


4. Select the disk to configure for GPT. (Don't accidently nuke the drive with your OS/files )

5. Device -- Create Partition Table -- Advanced -- gpt (Pic shows msdos instead of gpt) -- Apply.
Warning: This will erase all data on the entire disk.


6. HDD is now ready for Win7 install.


Scott