[barondla]

Graphicgr8s, you are talking about the internal hard drive? The two external HD are only about 2 months old and both work perfectly on the other computer.

If it is the internal HD, is there a problem buying a small replacement one since all the image storage is on the external drives? Or does Photoshop use the internal when doing all its editing and stuff?

thanks
barondla

Graphicgr8s, you are talking about the internal hard drive? The two external HD are only about 2 months old and both work perfectly on the other computer.

If it is the internal HD, is there a problem buying a small replacement one since all the image storage is on the external drives? Or does Photoshop use the internal when doing all its editing and stuff?

thanks
barondla

Internal HD. Just load your OS onto the new HD along with whatever programs you use (after you make sure the drive was the problem. Only way is to try a new one.) If it turns out that was the problem your task is to reload all the rest of your stuff onto it. If it isn't the problem well you're looking at taking it in for repair or replacing it. But that new HD isn't lost. You can use it as a slave inside the new system or you can buy an external enclosure ($35 +/- US) and use it as an external drive.

[p0opstlnksal0t]

you can put together a sweet amd phenom rig for pretty cheap! check out some ebay rigs offered.

[Edvinas]

Be aware that Windows 7 has some advantages over the Mac OS at the moment. I believe that you can get some apps like Photoshop and Lightroom to run much faster on a PC running Windows 7 than on a comparably spec'd Mac - something to do with 64-bit processing, I think.

I can't tell anything about Photoshop however I have tested Lightroom speed on Mac OS 10.6 and Windows 7 x64. Speed measurement was based on conversion speed. Lightroom, running in 64 bit mode on Mac OS 10.6 was faster than 64 bit lightroom on Windows 7. Switching between 32 and 64 bit mode in Mac OS 10.6 does make difference in speed. 64 bit is faster.

[wlachan]

Graphicgr8s, my computers problem started a few weeks ago. Always leave computer unhooked from wall ac. Last few times on bootup it would get stuck on opening screen and I would have to reboot again. Then it lost track of the usbs - could find external hard drives anymore. Unhooked them and rebooted to re find them. Worked fine again. Now it can't even save save files to external HDs. Says too long of a path. Acts like its saving files (spent 1 hour on 1g card). But they aren't there.

It could be dying hard drive or motherboard, or simply being swarmed by bugs. Unless you have decided to go for a new computer, you might scan the hard drive with Spybot first, then SeaTools for Windows, then memtest86+ for RAM. But depends on the spec of your old PC, it might or might not worth the effort. More RAM will also speed up the computer.

Also, the way the Windows registy being designed, it can get inflated or corrupted over time after repeated install/uninstall cycles. It is best to set it up properly then mirror the drive as the perfect copy. When the Windows crashed, just restored it. For XP, Norton Ghost 9 is good for this purpose. For Vista/7, use TrueImage Home 2010.

But if you have decided to go for a new PC, you might load it with W7 64bit, 4GB RAM, cheapest Asus/Gigabyte motherboard with nVidia IGP, a pair of WD Black 640GB hard drive (or just one if you aren't heavy on Photoshop), and the most powerful C2D CPU you can afford. All these should be just about $600.

BTW, nVidia chipset requires the following hotfix for W7 64bit for USB to work properly.
You encounter problems when you move data over USB from a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer that has an NVIDIA USB EHCI chipset and at least 4GB of RAM

[Fl_Gulfer]

What helped me alot with the large Raw files was running a WD 150g 10,000 RPM raptor as my OS drive and 2 WD 75g 10,000 RPM raptors as back-up,, And transfer old photo's to disk when I get to many.
I'm still running a Athlon XP 2800 system with AGP video card, and when I run a system test it still ranks in the top 35% of all systems tested at the site. But I have 2.5g of ram and a 512mg video card.

I also would like to build a new system since I won't be able to replace the XP parts anymore.

[Class A]

Will, I like all your posts, but I was underwhelmed by this pointer:

Neil Niekerk, the flash guru of planetneil.com, recently switched from PC to Mac and he writes about the experience here:

I was curious to read that and then disappointed to learn that this was a story about someone who has so much money that it is easier for him to buy a new (expensive) system rather than looking for and downloading a codec. This is also a story about someone who may never have heard of a docking station for a PC laptop.

I think the only bits of information in that story, were that some people really have a lot of cash available to spend and -- who would have thought -- that Apple offers neat looking packages. There was nothing about potential differences regarding the ease of work with a Mac vs PC. The hint to use a laptop as your main computer is a good one (I've done this for 10 years now) but has nothing to do with converting to a Mac.

[SpecialK]

A few months back I got a Gateway (actually Acer now?) SX-2800-01 that has a Quad Core, 4 GB DDR3 ram, 640GB harddrive, free Windows 7/64 upgrade (came with V64), 4 USBs, 1 HDMI and 1 ESATA port, and a DL DVD. It was $479 at BB. For another 20 bucks, I got the 20" Gateway monitor as a combo, but use my larger Samsung on it.

It takes about 2 seconds, maybe, to do what takes 8 seconds on my older XP machine, namely open RAW files and save converted RAW files in Elements 6.

It's also very small and you'll need a low profile graphics card if you want to add one (I don't) and it looks like you have to remove the DVD to add more memory.

I was pleasantly surprised with this minimally-researched purchase. The next step up for a box with the same Quad Core processor (at least at BB) was a $750 Dell, though it may have had 6GB of RAM.

Downloaded some freebie W7/64 software - Free Commander file manager (yay!) which replaced my 15 year old Servant Salamander, Flexible Renamer file renamer (yay, again!), MP3Tagv2.45a MP3 tag editor (yay, especially compared to the crippled editor on WMP12 of Windows7) and MyDefragv4.12 defragger (not particularly exciting, but very customizable).

[barondla]

Keep the responses flowing - studying them all.

Does having 2 internal + 2 external HDs cause the computer any problems in speed or other wise? Does photo Shop really need 2 640g HDs? Wow.

It is depressing the Nvidia doesn't work right out of the box with usb. Do other brands? Can the Nvidia fix be down loaded on different computer then transferred to "Nvidia" computer. Never want to hook "darkroom" computer to the internet.

Undecided about new vs fixing old computer. Old computer is 5+ years old. HD may fix it, may not. Even if it works again, it is painfully slow doing raw conversions etc. Reasons to fix would be less money, like XP, have some programs and equipment that may not work with W7. Just got a Konica-Minolta film scanner this week. Sure there aren't drivers for W7! Could still use it on internet XP computer.

The computer I bought for "darkroom" got turned into a music server for the stereo. After almost a year, the AMD quad core HP has been optimized to sound really sweet. It finally gives the cd rig a run for its money in sound quality. Not even sure I could change it back. There were pages of optimizations pertaining to power, Windows kernel mixing, etc. It became the music computer because I hated using Vista for pictures. Hear W7 is much better.

Its snowing here. That means more photos. Have to do something quick before the memory cards fill up.


thanks
barondla

Keep the responses flowing - studying them all.

Does having 2 internal + 2 external HDs cause the computer any problems in speed or other wise? Does photo Shop really need 2 640g HDs? Wow.

It is depressing the Nvidia doesn't work right out of the box with usb. Do other brands? Can the Nvidia fix be down loaded on different computer then transferred to "Nvidia" computer. Never want to hook "darkroom" computer to the internet.

Undecided about new vs fixing old computer. Old computer is 5+ years old. HD may fix it, may not. Even if it works again, it is painfully slow doing raw conversions etc. Reasons to fix would be less money, like XP, have some programs and equipment that may not work with W7. Just got a Konica-Minolta film scanner this week. Sure there aren't drivers for W7! Could still use it on internet XP computer.

The computer I bought for "darkroom" got turned into a music server for the stereo. After almost a year, the AMD quad core HP has been optimized to sound really sweet. It finally gives the cd rig a run for its money in sound quality. Not even sure I could change it back. There were pages of optimizations pertaining to power, Windows kernel mixing, etc. It became the music computer because I hated using Vista for pictures. Hear W7 is much better.

Its snowing here. That means more photos. Have to do something quick before the memory cards fill up.


thanks
barondla

No it doesn't need all that hard drive. And 4 drives aren't a problem at all. I've run 12 yes 12 on one sytem just screwing around. Of course that was using 5 power supplies and 3 controller cards. Plus it needed a boot manager since I had many OS's available.

So long as you have the disks for the programs it shouldn't be a problem. What's a HD cost these days? $100? Even if it doesn't work you can add it to your new system. The new system will more than likely have sata drives. But usually you can add it to the second controller a as master to the dvd drive. Then you can save your stuff to that drive. It'll be faster than the USB drives. If you use Bridge you can have Bridge download from the card onto the internal 2nd drive AND copy to an external. At least then your original files are in 2 places.

[wlachan]

Does having 2 internal + 2 external HDs cause the computer any problems in speed or other wise?

Not at all.

Does photo Shop really need 2 640g HDs? Wow.

Not really. You can install W7 with Photoshop and a bunch of other softwares in less than 40GB, but you will have a hard time finding anything small and cheap these days.

It is depressing the Nvidia doesn't work right out of the box with usb. Do other brands? Can the Nvidia fix be down loaded on different computer then transferred to "Nvidia" computer. Never want to hook "darkroom" computer to the internet.

nVidia chipsets are the only ones with this issue. MS issued 32bit and 64bit files to address this issue. You just download the right one and can be run from any PC later.

Undecided about new vs fixing old computer. Old computer is 5+ years old. HD may fix it, may not. Even if it works again, it is painfully slow doing raw conversions etc. Reasons to fix would be less money, like XP, have some programs and equipment that may not work with W7. Just got a Konica-Minolta film scanner this week. Sure there aren't drivers for W7! Could still use it on internet XP computer.

The computer I bought for "darkroom" got turned into a music server for the stereo. After almost a year, the AMD quad core HP has been optimized to sound really sweet. It finally gives the cd rig a run for its money in sound quality. Not even sure I could change it back. There were pages of optimizations pertaining to power, Windows kernel mixing, etc. It became the music computer because I hated using Vista for pictures. Hear W7 is much better.

Its snowing here. That means more photos. Have to do something quick before the memory cards fill up.

You can always run XP on the new PC, though it is reaching the end of its life till 2014/4. Having run all 3 OS, I feel W7 is not all that better than Vista SP2 in terms of stability. In fact, I have found Vista SP2 to be more stable. For instance, WiFi connection on startup can delay a few minutes for no reason, Windows Explorer might crash randomly, Live Messenger crashed randomly on startup. All 3 of my W7 PCs have behave the same, but Vista SP2 has none of this issue. Side bars on both OS will not loaded properly on startup randomly. The only pro to me with W7 however, is that the Wacom pen cursor does not lag in Lightroom 2.6. W7 can also run with 1GB RAM while Vista is best to run with 3GB. One thing both Vista & W7 excel is that if there was any hardware failure, there won't be BSoD.

[lithos]

Are the external hard drives USB, Firewire or eSATA? USB does use a bit of processing speed, plus it is the slowest solution.

While there's a lot of "meh" about going 64-bit, remember that 4gig of ram has been the norm for about a year, and the high-end solution for the last three (if only because there was no other option.)

In a couple of years, I think we'll probably start hurting for more than 4gig.

Remember, when building a PC, unless you're some sort of oil baron, you have build for tomorrow, as well as today.

[flockofbirds]

The way to get the most value, is to your machine yourself. It can sound scary but really isn't. It is quite easy. The most important, in my opinion, is you should have at least 4 GB of RAM (DDR3 if possible, and this means you will be running a 64bit OS as said). 4 Seems to be on the average/good side of RAM amounts. I would say a Dual Core is acceptable, but a Quad Core is preferable... Right now you can get an AMD Phenom X4 for a really good price. And as for internal hard drives, i would recommend making sure they have a disk speed of at least 7200rpm. This improves reading/writing speed considerably. Most motherboards now don't have terrible integrated graphics. So you can look at a decent video card if you want.

The more you spend now, the longer it will be up to date. Building yourself means you won't have a manufacturers warranty, but you can save a lot of money over buying from HP, or Dell ,or Gateway, etc.

There are package deals and barebones that make the process a lot easier too, to where all you have to do is pick out your hard drives and more ram if you want it, they send you the parts, and you put it together. Removes a lot of the chance for choosing incompatible parts.

The way to get the most value, is to your machine yourself. It can sound scary but really isn't. It is quite easy. The most important, in my opinion, is you should have at least 4 GB of RAM (DDR3 if possible, and this means you will be running a 64bit OS as said). 4 Seems to be on the average/good side of RAM amounts. I would say a Dual Core is acceptable, but a Quad Core is preferable... Right now you can get an AMD Phenom X4 for a really good price. And as for internal hard drives, i would recommend making sure they have a disk speed of at least 7200rpm. This improves reading/writing speed considerably. Most motherboards now don't have terrible integrated graphics. So you can look at a decent video card if you want.

The more you spend now, the longer it will be up to date. Building yourself means you won't have a manufacturers warranty, but you can save a lot of money over buying from HP, or Dell ,or Gateway, etc.

There are package deals and barebones that make the process a lot easier too, to where all you have to do is pick out your hard drives and more ram if you want it, they send you the parts, and you put it together. Removes a lot of the chance for choosing incompatible parts.

Building it yourself is fine if you know what you're doing. I've built plenty. I stopped building because I got tired of researching the compatibilities of the various components. It was tough keeping up with all of it. Plus after building it I would need to spend major bucks on software that was included with a Dell.

If you're going the barebones with upgrade route you might as well have them put it together. They've done it many times and know where the pitfalls are. I stand by my recommendation to just order one from Dell. And strangely I am one that use to bad mouth Dell. After we got a custom deal from them that's where I got my home system from. And when I plugged it in, it worked. No looking for drivers or issues.

[Cloggie_UK]

Building yourself means you won't have a manufacturers warranty, but you can save a lot of money over buying from HP, or Dell ,or Gateway, etc.

Not quite true. That depends on how you look at it. You'd still have manufacturers warranty on the individual parts so if something does go wrong with f.i. the motherboard, there should be no problem getting it exchanged within the warranty period.