How to Use Windows

I followed Maximum PC ’s “Clean Start” article (February 2009) and used Acronis True Image to set up a weekly full disk image. My XP Pro system is installed on C:, which is a 1.5 TB hard drive. I have another 1.5TB hard drive of the exact same make and model, to which I write the weekly image. I have 120GB of free space on the C: drive, but the backup drive is already full! The destination drive contains no files except the image; is it possible for an exact image of a C: drive to be bigger than the original (by more than 10 percent)

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One evening my house’s master breaker box was shut off while my computer was still on. I went into the BIOS and ensured that all my settings were set as before, but since then, every time I start up my computer cold it starts to spool up, then stops for about two seconds, and then boots. If I restart after my machine has been running for a while, it boots with no delay. I went into the BIOS to see if there was any problem in the APM settings, but I still got delays during cold boots

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I need to back up my files in anticipation of upgrading my rig from 32-bit Windows XP to 64-bit Windows 7. I don’t own an external hard drive and can’t afford to buy one (being a poor college student). I do, however, have a rig with two hard drives.

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My 5-year-old computer—Windows XP, 2.4GHz Pentium 4, Antec server case, 430-watt PSU, Seagate HD, and two 256MB Corsair DIMMs in an Asus P4P 800 Deluxe motherboard—no longer boots. It was fine until the day my son used it without opening the door to the cabinet that it’s stored in. Now when I try to start it, I get an error saying “CPU Test Failed” and the machine won’t boot. I’ve switched the CPU out with a known good 2.8GHz Pentium 4 (tested in a second PC), to no effect.

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I have an HP HDX18T laptop with an external drive that holds my old stock 250GB/5,400rpm 2.5-inch drive. The external case uses an internal SATA connection and has both a USB 2.0 and eSATA connection externally for my laptop. I’ve read that there is a theoretical transfer rate of 4GB/s with eSATA, but I’m lucky to get 40MB/s copying to or from. Can you tell me what I’m missing?

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I just bought a used PC running Windows XP. It had been really fast loading and running programs and accessing the web, but suddenly it slowed down to a complete stop. I had to unplug it just to shut it down. So, I unplugged the Ethernet cable and it worked fine.

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I’ve often heard the rumor that a full hard drive is significantly slower than a mostly empty one. Despite my black belt Google-fu I am unable to find any stories, articles, or write-ups to elaborate on this. How much slower? At which point is a hard drive too full—60 percent?

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I plan to install a second-generation Intel X-25 80GB SSD drive in my system. I have heard that SSDs suffer speed losses when they are written over compared to when they are new. How would a page file affect this? —Jon Coulter Yes, many SSDs suffer slowdowns when writing over memory blocks that have previously held data, which is why the TRIM command (see this month’s White Paper) was introduced. Windows 7 supports the TRIM command, which is basically a garbage-collection routine that prevents this type of slowdown during writes, and many drive manufacturers have released similar garbage-collecting programs—usually named wiper.exe or something similar—for you to run on your SSD periodically.

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I recently moved my Windows XP partition to a new hard drive using Partition Magic 8. After this, the computer hangs at the Boot from CD prompt. I then installed Windows 7 RC on another partition. It still hangs at the Boot from CD prompt unless I put a bootable disk in the drive and let the timer expire.

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I’ve got two monitors: a slightly older 24-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2443 BWX and a brand-new 22-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2233 RZ. I am attempting a dual-monitor setup for Illustrator/Photoshop purposes (as well as animation and other forms of graphic design) on a Radeon HD 4850 X2 with Catalyst 9.8 drivers. Out of the box the color representation couldn’t be worse. The new monitor is extremely blue and the old one looks better, but is still a tad red

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