Beginners guide
We show how you
can improve the performance of your PC by making the most of your hard drive.
Significant improvements to the
performance of your PC can be achieved by making changes to your hard drive.
Although your CPU and memory have a part to play you won’t experience the best
from your system if your hard drive isn’t optimised.
There are a number of settings
you can change and we’ll begin by looking at the file system that’s being
used by your hard drive. This will determine the way in which your files are
named, stored and organised. If your PC came with Windows XP from new then
it’s likely that you’ll be using NTFS already. However, if you’ve
installed the upgrade version of Windows XP then there’s a chance you’re
still using FAT or FAT32. A simple way of checking this is to highlight your C:
drive in My Computer and look at the details listed under file system.
NTFS differs from other file
systems in that it supports features such as file and folder permissions,
encryption and privacy options. Furthermore, the way that data is organised on
your disk means that you’ll be able to retrieve information much faster than
you’d be able to under normal circumstances. Converting to NTFS can be done
within Windows XP without the loss of any of your data. To do this click Start
> Run, type cmd and press [Return]. At the command prompt type convert c: /fs:ntfs
and press [Return] (where ‘c’ is the letter of the drive you’re
converting). The process begins when your PC restarts, at which point the Check
Disk utility will run and your PC will have to reboot a further two times.
Hard drive technology
Windows XP assumes that you have more than one device attached to both your IDE
channels. This can cause delays during the startup process while the Operating
System attempts to locate these items. If you only have one hard disk or one CD/DVD
drive then you can reconfigure your settings so that autodetection doesn’t
take place. To do this go into Control Panel, open System, select the Hardware
tab and click Device Manager. Scroll down to IDE/ATAPI controllers, right-click
Primary IDE Channel first then select the Advanced Settings tab. Under Device 0,
Device Type will be greyed out because this is where your hard disk is attached.
Now, in Device 1, Device Type is set to Auto Detection and with no other devices
attached to this channel, time will be wasted during start up. Therefore, click
the drop-down box and set this to None. Repeat this process for the Secondary
IDE Channel if you only have one device attached.
Paging file
You can speed up your main hard drive, improve seek times and reduce how long it
takes to retrieve information by fitting an additional drive. As well as the
extra storage capability this will bring, you can move your paging file to this
new drive and decrease the activity on your Windows drive. The paging file is an
area of your hard disk that acts as a buffer when your regular memory is busy.
Making the change is straightforward: open System properties and select the
Advanced tab. Click Settings under Performance, select the Advanced tab and then
click Change. Alter the location of the paging file by selecting the drive
letter of your additional hard disk. Set the size of the paging file by
selecting ‘System managed size’.
Tips for a faster hard disk
If your hard drive is nearly
full it’ll have slow response times. First use the Disk Cleanup tool to remove
old files and compress those you want to keep. Having done this safely remove
unwanted applications using Add or Remove Programs.
Defrag your drive regularly,
particularly if you’ve just performed a major cleanup. Furthermore, you’ll
notice an improvement when it’s done. It re-sorts the data on your hard drive,
places the blocks of data contiguously and improves seek times.
Move the print spool folder to
another drive to speed up printing. Create a new folder on the other drive. Go
into Printers and Faxes in Control Panel, click File > Server Properties,
select the Advanced tab and then in Spool folder enter the new location.
Write caching enabled data is
written to the cache and saved to the hard disk during idle time. In Device
Manager right-click your hard disk and choose Properties. Select the Properties
tab and click ‘Enable write caching on the disk’.
The indexing of your hard drive
improves search times, but if few searches are performed its activity will slow
the drive and affect other tasks. In My Computer, right-click your C: drive,
choose Properties. Uncheck the indexing option.
Speed up startup times by
reducing the stress placed on your hard disk. Use the System Configuration
Utility (msconfig) to remove unnecessary items from startup, but leave vital
programs such as anti-virus software untouched.