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XP doesn't recognize partitions above 130GB (until you upgrade the Service Packs), which is why I only had the one 50GB partition to start off with (see below).The Windows install went smoothly, and I used a thumb drive to install SP1 followed by SP3 (you need 1 installed before you can install 3). First of all, you should know that because it's listed as "OEM," you're just getting the drive and nothing else. For some reason, XP only recognizes it as a 465GB hard drive, but it's not a big deal, as it's still more space than I'll need.I re-downloaded a lot of the programs that were on my old HD, and otherwise copied most of the files over without too much trouble. It's not the white plug with the round holes, it's a thin black plug that looks like a larger version of the data cable.
After making sure everything was copied, I cleared some of the partitions on the old HD and used that space to make one big partition. I'm not sure how people set up the partitions without a boot disc, but luckily I still had the WD Hard Drive Tools CD that came with the older drive, so I set my motherboard BIOS to have the PC boot from the DVD drive and created one 50GB partition without too much trouble. I decided to transfer my files to the new HD and use the old one for extra space, and do a clean install of Windows XP on the new drive. I originally bought this HD to serve as a second hard drive in my system, the first being a Western Digital 80GB with 2MB cache. Going from 2MB to 16MB cache makes a huge difference. I had the 50GB partition for Windows and programs, and created an 80GB partition for my pictures/docs/videos, a 100GB partition for my mp3s, and the rest was partitioned for copied DVDs.
If you have enough space on your HD, you should keep the original installation files instead of deleting them (the install package for my Zune, for instance, is 131MB, and too an hour to download again. I reformatted the Zune to start fresh with my updated and reorganized collection).
All in all, this hard drive is a great buy (I remember buying the 80gb for $60 just 3 years ago. You'll need to buy a SATA data cable (if you don't have one) and have an extra SATA power connection from your power supply unit (PSU).
I re-copied a few important files back to the old HD, just in case the new drive ever fails (unlikely).The HD performs really well. I also re-installed the motherboard drivers (from the WD CD).
Then I used the built-in partition manager (right-click My Computer, click Manage, click Disk Management and right-click on the unused space on the hard drive to create new partitions). It's nearly silent, and loads everything much faster than the old HD (I'm now able to start XP and immediately access my drives and programs, where before the desktop would show but nothing would respond for a few minutes).
How technology changes.).
I am very pleased with the Western Digit 500G drive. It installedquickly and easily. I had read other reviews before purchasing andit had been given high ratings and I concur.
It does what its supposed to but gets very HOT if you don't have a fan right on it. Don't touch it, or you WILL be burned.
Well, it came very well packaged and protected, i feel its faster than my previous Barracuda 320Gb, very silent and gets the job well done :), i still cant imagine what im going to fill 500Gb with, but the price was quite reasonable.
Inserted two of these into a Rosewill USB enclosure for backup purposes - not RAID, but JBOD.I still have 400+ gb on each drive to use up, so there is plenty of room to grow. Fast and quiet and so far so good. They don't run hot, but I have to credit the Rosewill enclosure for that.WD is the way to go for drives. Pretty sure every drive I have in every machine is a WD at this point.
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