Windows password,

[lozz]

there will be enough bit to build a full pc if your interested,

ive got in my spares box, a 350gig hard drive (ide tho
LG Dvd Rw super multi, choice of ide or the newer one forgot what its called
1 black tower case,

Got a black keyboard,
1 new mouse in box,
plenty of case fans

£50 ish the lot

[Gary406]

defo interested lozz inbox us price mate ..

highlander i think hes keeping his hard drive for his new machine and transfer everything that way once he gets is new pc. thats the best way cost free

[Gary406]

there will be enough bit to build a full pc if your interested,

ive got in my spares box, a 350gig hard drive (ide tho
LG Dvd Rw super multi, choice of ide or the newer one forgot what its called
1 black tower case,

Got a black keyboard,
1 new mouse in box,
plenty of case fans

£50 ish the lot

give you £35

[lozz]

Nah mate,
its gotta be worth £50 honest,
iwill even leave it built so its plug and play,

iwill just need some junk of the hard drive,
thecase is a gamers case and the front door part is fubard so will need swapping over to the new case (included)

£45 is as low as id take on it

[Gary406]

oh right. ye well i will have it for 45 mate. i thought u was keeping the hard drive thats why

[highlander]

I'm currently receiving my new PC parts, just ordered them off Amazon last week.

- Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 motherboard
- Intel Sandybridge i5-2500K Unlocked Core i5 Quad-Core Processor (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache, Socket 1155)
- Gigabyte nVIDIA GTX550Ti 1GB PCI-E Graphics Card
- Kingston HyperX Genesis DDR3 1600MHz CL9 8GB DIMM Memory Module (2x 4GB DIMMs)

And then I discovered (because I incorrectly assumed) that my DVD ReWriter drive won't work in the new system because it's an ATAPI/IDE drive, and the new motherboard doesn't have an IDE controller; it's all SATA now, so I ended up buying a SATA-based BluRay reader/DVD ReWriter combi drive too.

Typical - all the kit has arrived except for the sodding memory, which hasn't even shipped yet (according to the Amazon "Where's My Stuff" page) - the RAM is coming from a 3rd party though, so I'm taking that with a pinch of salt. If I get home and find it's all there, then that's what I'll be doing tonight.

EDIT: Woohoo, the RAM has finally been shipped - not bad considering I ordered it on the 3rd of January ... I mean the motherboard came from Germany and it arrived today via DHL, yet the RAM is from a vendor based in Oxfordshire who obviously can't be arsed shipping their items quickly. Also, guess what, no bloody tracking number, so it's probably second class Royal Mail. Be lucky if it gets here for the weekend, if at all...

This is replacing my existing setup which I built several years ago for playing "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" and "Microsoft Flight Simulator X":

- Gigabyte motherboard (can't remember which one at the moment)
- Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 processor
- Zotac nVidia GTX260 896 MB PCI-E graphics card (Bought in late 2008/early 2009)
- Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM

The old system is solid and works very well even under Vista 64-bit (I couldn't afford an upgrade to Windows 7 as well as all the hardware I've just bought so I'm sticking with Vista64 for now), so it's going to replace my step-son's crap old ZooStorm Core2 Duo system (that's the first and last time I'll ever buy a pre-built PC from a budget label).

Unfortunately for me, 3 days after buying my kit, the Wifely Person's HP Pavilion dv9500 laptop slid down the curtains and joined the choir invisible. Graphics card went "phut" so although it boots, it just displays shite on the screen. Boots fine if you boot it into Safe Mode, but even if you uninstall the nVidia drivers, it won't show anything other than garbled shite on the screen unless you boot it in Safe Mode. Apparently the nVidia GeForce 8600M chipset they put in those laptops were quite prone to cooking themselves and dying. This one lasted several years, so not too bad - but it means I'm going to have to replace her machine with something sh*t for the moment - probably the step-son's crap old Core2 Duo system that I was so keen to get shot of

[Gary406]

your new system is slightly similar to mine. only you got the next GPU up from mine. im yet to upgrade it (well that was the plan) but no need to really dont play big games .

my main next upgrade will be a 120GB OCZ Vertex 3.5" solid state drive to make the pc even quicker and smoother

and sell my 750gb western digital HDD ... i never use more than 50gb of space so pointless having 750 gigs

[lozz]

How do you sort out partitions on hard drives?
ive pulled a pc out of the cellar, flung it there afew months back as ihad problems with the o/s

its got windows vista preloaded,
but when iput windows 7 on it over 100gb is unusable and 10gb had a factory system recovery on it which formated
if ican get this sorted iwill use this instead of buying a new one,

its a Dell factory built thing all running on Sata drives not ide,

anyideas,?


@ gary iwill sell you that pc mate once ive got this other one sorted,
ive got a Sony Lcd monitor too if you need a monitor

[Gary406]

to run 7 good depends on your RAM. really 1GB isnt enough to run 7 ...

if you intert the o/s disc and boot from it you will come to partition section then.

then delete any other partitions . i just install on the hard drive fully formatted ... delete all partitions

[highlander]

its a Dell factory built thing

Hisssssssssssss


Erm, partitions, depends on what you want to do with 'em. I have 3 hard drives in my system - 1x 1 TB one split into 2 partitions (1x 250 GB partition for the OS, the other 750 GB is for games), and 2x 250 GB ones (1 is for applications, 1 is for virtual PCs and for backup purposes).

Decide how you want to set up your partitions (in terms of sizes) before you start installing your OS and applications. This is because unless you're using 3rd party software, it's generally not possible to resize a partition without losing the data in it.

- Windows has a disk management tool built into it - right-click on "My Computer" and select "Manage".
- The "Computer Management" window will appear, split into two panes. On the left pane, you should have "Computer Management (Local)", "Storage", and "Services and Applications".
- Under "Storage", you should have "Disk Management" - click on that.
- On the right pane, you should be given a list of your partitions and logical drive letters at the top, and a visual representation of each physical disk drive in your system together with which partitions each drive contains at the bottom.

If you've added a new hard drive to an existing system, you should see that drive in the list at the bottom, with 100% of it being "Unpartitioned space". You can create a new partition there by right-clicking on it and selecting "New partition", or you can delete or change an existing partition by right-clicking on that partition and selecting the appropriate options from the pop-up menu. When you create a new partition, you can tell it how many MB you want that partition to take up. Remember that when a drive is formatted, you will not get the full capacity of the drive (i.e. you won't get 500 GB from a 500 GB drive) - you lose some of it to partition tables and formatting data that the operating system puts there.

When you're installing Windows off a DVD on to a brand new unpartitioned hard drive, the installation wizard lets you partition your hard drives then and there. It's a good time to do it, but don't skimp on space for your Windows system partition - I've made that mistake before and it's a pain in the ass. I install all my applications to a separate partition from my OS, and my Vista install still takes up 150 GB out of my 250 GB Windows partition. I reckon 200 GB is about as small as you want to go with a Windows Vista or Windows 7 partition; just as long as you install applications elsewhere.

[sirwiggum]

I tend to use a Linux Live CD with gparted to reek havoc on my partition table.

Problem I've had recently though is that because Windows 7 wasn't the first partition, the Service Pack and updates wouldn't install, had to go in and change it to an active partition, then on the update Windows 7 wouldn't boot up again, had to go into startup recovery and rollback a system restore point.

Shambolic.

[highlander]

I tend to use a Linux Live CD with gparted to reek havoc on my partition table.

Problem I've had recently though is that because Windows 7 wasn't the first partition, the Service Pack and updates wouldn't install, had to go in and change it to an active partition, then on the update Windows 7 wouldn't boot up again, had to go into startup recovery and rollback a system restore point.

Shambolic.

I can attest to the fact that Windows does indeed know how to be a total cock, especially where these bloody stupid "System Partition" things come in. Once it's all set up and working though, it's quite happy.

I don't do Linux - I've tried, but I don't think it's ready for general day-to-day use for most people yet (definitely getting there though), and I don't feel the need to learn another operating system (still learning Cisco IOS and all its pro's and con's)

[lozz]

I've still had no luck with this hard/drive,
the partitions are not for moving,
been told ineed a partition magic disc to delete everything off, and just set up one partition,
im going to try setting it up as a slave on another pc and see if ican get into it that way,
not had much time to try it today,

[Gary406]

delete everything off ? thats easy. do you have a windows xp disc or a 7 disc ?

[lozz]

Got windows 7 mate,
ive tried 4 installs up to now and the partition still remains,
ithink its a Burnt in image of all factory stuff that came pre;installed on the machine,

if all else fails iwill just put in another hard drive but ive only got ide:drives so perhaps it will run slow
as its meant to be running sata