I am having problems with the same machine as of here: http://www.computing.net/answers/wi... Basically, I had a 13 GB Hard Drive and decided to put a Maxtor 52049U4 Drive in it for a replacement, hoping it would speed up the computer. Whenever I reinstalled Windows on this computer, Setup is extremely slow. It copies files from the CD-ROM to the Hard Drive, but then freezes for 2 minuites and then copies again and freezes. Then it told me it cannot copy the file. After that, I tried a different CD-ROM Drive and it does the same thing and this time, it managed to copy all the files, but when booting into Windows, it was EXTREMELY SLOW! I even put back the old 128 MB of memory in this computer and still I am having the same problem, so memory wasn't an issue. I read on a website that I should change from compatibility mode to normal mode, but my Pentium 3 System doesn't have that feature. I tried different Cables and found it didn't help. I have a PC 66 IDE Card in it as well, I tried to connect to that, the same issue persists. What should I do?

You may have to repair the MBR (master boot record) on that drive. Have seen this problem 2 month ago and made a fdisk /mbr. After that, the hard disk ran at normal speed.

paulsep, i went through the fixmbr and now its a bit better but copying files still is taking forever. does anyone know weather its the hard drive or the computers fault? i wish more people had this issue on the same computer and same hard drive. also paulsep, i tried to give you a +1 for good answer, but it gave me a -1 instead. I wish they would let me revote again.

The Maxtor 52049U4 is a 20 GByte hard drive. It's also old and supports only ATA/66. This drive isn't really fast and 128MB RAM in your PC isn't really much.

"put a Maxtor 52049U4 Drive in it for a replacement, hoping it would speed up the computer." The maxtor is a 20gb drive, although it may be a higher RPM, it is not going to speed up anything. Is the maxtor new?, if not it may be 8 or 9 years old. You problem could be the drive is on its last leg. If you put the old 13gb drive back in, does the problem go away? "I even put back the old 128 MB of memory in this computer and still I am having the same problem" if you want to speed things up, max out the ram. larry

You're only supplying bits & pieces of info about your system. You have a P3 450MHz & only 128MB RAM? If that's the case, you shouldn't even be wasting your time with XP. XP needs at the very least 256MB RAM, but even with that amount it will NOT perform well. 512MB should be considered the minimum for reasonably decent performance. Partitioning & formating should be done during the Windows installation. And with a drive that small, use FAT32 rather than NTFS....unless you plan on having single files larger than 4GB in size?

I never said I only have 128 MB of RAM, I said CLEARLY that I have 384 MB of RAM. I just put back the old 128 MB of RAM before upgrading to the 384 I bought recently. This is getting off subject. Sorry that I was rude, but I just got annoyed when you guys were complaining and claiming that I am using 128 MB of RAM when this is off subject and isn't helping what my real issue here is. Even if I had 128 MB of Memory, I'm sure it would copy the file faster than it is doing now. This isn't a memory issue. Especially when putting different memory in the system doesn't change how fast it copies the file. Anyways, lets get back on the subject without fussing about what I said above. When I insert back the 13 GB hard drive, there is no HD errors. I think that the 20 GB hard drive is too advanced for this machine. This is an old machine and the Expansion+Motherboard is a PC 66 IDE and the hard drive is a PC 100 motherboard. That or the Hard Drive is defective. Does anyone have any clues so far?