From reh0303@hub.doh.wa.gov Fri Apr 24 11:56:48 1998 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id LAA49296 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:56:47 -0700 Received: from smtp.hub.doh.wa.gov ([192.230.1.5]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with SMTP id LAA27161 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:56:47 -0700 Received: from Connect2 Message Router by smtp.hub.doh.wa.gov via Connect2-SMTP 4.00; Fri, 24 Apr 98 11:57:46 -0700 Message-ID: <80444535014C3700@smtp.hub.doh.wa.gov> In-Reply-To: <04404535014C3700> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 98 11:56:21 -0700 From: "Hoskins, Richard E." Sender: "Hoskins, Richard E." To: ph-assess@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Upgrading hard drives X-mailer: Connect2-SMTP 4.00 MHS to SMTP Gateway Never heard of SparQ. But as far as hard drive upgrades go a Maxtor 6 to 8 gig goes for 250-$400. Plenty fast and easy to install. You must be running the latest service upgrade to Windows 95 to get the disk to partition correctly. There is some chance you might need to upgrade the disk controller or add one. $50 max. Its worth the upgrade to the new service level of WIN 95 because several bugs were fixed including the part where the operating system is supposed to recognize that you are adding a new disk. Many other brands will work fine, Quantum, Western Digital.. If you can get re-imbursed COSTCO and Sam's club often have great deals - cheaper than the local computer stores. Unless you really like looking at the guts of a computer, have a pro do it. Should cost $25 for installation. Sometimes if you buy the disk from them they will do it for nothing. But before you have a disk installed be sure to back up your data and computer code. It is possible to lose things off your current disk during the installation of a new disk and the WIN 95 upgrade. You might consider moving your virtual swap files to you new big disk or making some room on the C drive. The installation person will know how to do that. Or maybe better yet make your new big disk your C: drive or even toss your 1.5 gig. Or save it just for the virtual swap file. For whatever its worth, while you got the patient on the table, you might upgrade the memory as well. Memory is really cheap now and can put off a major upgrade for a long time. I still use a 489/66 with 64megs at home and it works just fine. By adding a $50 disk controller and a 6 gig disk I still have a lot of use left in it for another year or two. All my statistical and even my GIS programs work fine on it after the memory upgrade. I did notice that Office 97 is a bit pokey on my home machine. Office 95 runs fine. Seems some magic line of number of lines of code has been crossed. Richard E. Hoskins, PhD MPH WA State Public Health Geographer GIS and Spatial Epidemiology Office of Epidemiology WA State Department of Health 1102 Quince St, Olympia, WA 98504-7812 eMAIL: REH0303@hub.doh.wa.gov tel: 360-236-4270 fax:360-236-4245 .