syschk is really wrong on its diagnosis. Unless what I thought was a celeron processer is a pentium pro.

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I can't get pcpitstop to finish the testing tonight, for some reason. The only thing device manager and system information tells about the hard disk is generic hard disk. I may try the belarc later, unless someone else has any suggestions. Thanks!

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Try Belarc, its a very good program. I made a copy of what it said about my system. I just found it and it does give info on the hard drive.

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also if you get pc pitstop to work when you click on disc in the results scroll up, thats where the info on manufacturer and other things are. Have you ever used pc pitstop before?

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Yes, I've used pcpitstop before, but it's been several months. I went to belarc and it told me I had a quantum fireball harddrive. Has anyone heard of that kind? Do they have a lot of problems? I have heard western digital and maxtor are both very good, but don't know anything about the quantum fireball. I still can't get pcpitstop to work right tonight. I'll try it again later.

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Can anyone shed some light as to how these system audit programs actually work? Do they just look toward the driver or do they attempt to detect the information directly from the hardware? With belarc my processor shows up as 733 megahertz Intel Pentium III. With system works it shows up as Genuineintel Family 6 Model 8 731. With directX diag it shows up as Intel Pentium III, ~731MHz. Granted these are all similar. But as someone suggested above his celeron was mistaken for a pentium using yet another utility. Ive seen claims of mistaking amd chips for pentium etc. Also while composing this i gave pcpitstop a shot.Intel Pentium III, 733MHz is what it showed me for processor. It also showed my HD as GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE47. The same info thats shown in the device manager. This brings me back to my point. Do these audit apps pull the info from windows/drivers or do they poke around in the hardware looking for an imbedded neuron id of some kind? Thanks

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Dianna, i must have missed you while playing at pcpitstop :). Quantum is definately a Hardrive company. Ive never owned one so cant comment on the performance. The only real difference i can see with maxtor and western digital is that maxtor drives are very quiet. Its hard to tell they are running. Seagate is the loudest ive ever experienced. It shipped with a compaq so maybe it was a bottom line drive who knows. Generic IDE hard disk drive (25.98 GB) -- drive 0 is what belarc shows me. My HD is a 45GB maxtor broken up into partitions. One of which i havent formatted yet so im guessing this is why its reported as a 25gigga. Why exactly are you looking for this information? Are you experiencing any problems? Performance isnt limited to manufacturer.

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I have a 30 Gig Quantum in one of my computers. Been running it for years with no problems. I prefer Maxtor. I have had great experience with them. I have never had to replace one. I have had to replace several Western Digitals.

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No, I am trying to decide if I want to spend the money for an extended warranty on this computer, and trying to see if the components are very costly to replace in case of a failure. Also, if the components are very good ones, as well. I saw in the paper today that a Western Digital costs around $90 for a 20 GB drive, on sale. I have a 40 GB, so am assuming it would cost more to replace than that. Thanks for any and all help.

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dianna, ive been following your posts for a while now. These service plans arent usually neccesary especially the in home. These plans are specifically targeted toward people who dont want to get there hands dirty and would rather have a tech take care of any problems because they have more important things to deal with. 5 years for a PC is a good run. Hardware and software will be fine. After the five year period its usually time to just upgrade and get a new machine. Not going for the extended service plan gives you a few hundred bucks head start on the new system. My advice is to hold on to the money and take your chances. I have 2 HPs i got in 1995. The only thing ive upgraded is the 28k modem to a 56k. Ive never had a service issue and they both still run just as they did when i got em. As far as replacing hardware parts. If the HD goes bad or the modem gets zapped you can find super deals at ebay or pricewatch. Keeping your hardware safe: 1.From the wall outlet to a Surge protector(panamax is a good one)From the surge protector to an APC Back UPS. From the UPS to your computer. Plug everthing else into the surge protector. 2.Shutdown windows properly. Keeping windows healthy: 1.Scandisk-defrag often 2.Clear out junk files 3.Keep your anitvirus software up to date and run regular scans. 4.uninstall software in ad and remove programs when possible 5.Clean out junk from the registry. Keeping your data safe: 1.Create backups of all data to removable disk (cd-r, zipdisk etc) often. Data to backup. text documents images audio files favorites folder setup.exe's for software youve downloaded Outlook address book and emails. Any other data created by software your running.

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Thanks a lot, SMUOD! That's helped me a lot in my decision. Appreciate it! I already do all of the above, so hopefully that will ensure many years of service from this computer.

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SMUOD, Is the motherboard the only part of the computer that I would replace that would cause the recovery disks to not operate anymore? Or would replacing the harddrive cause this as well? I know HP has to have those MB tattooed and if you don't know how to tattoo them, which I'm sure they won't tell you, then your software will be lost. I am sure I could get another copy of Windows ME relatively cheap, but what about my CD burning software, or drivers for that matter? What drivers would I need besides for the modem? Are there a lot of them? Thanks a lot for all your and everybody's help.

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Burn software Adaptec.. I was able to retrieve this from the recovery disk along with any drivers windows me did not contain. Modem and soundcard and Network card are the only ones that windows didnt load automatically. I was able to find all of these drivers on the recovery disk. Im not sure what the deal is with the recovery disks as far as what hardware can be replaced. I got rid of the recovery disks and loaded a full version of windows me and ive never looked back. My system runs twice as fast and i rarely receive an error. The difference is night and day. After getting ME loaded on a clean drive it felt like i had purchased a new computer. When if you get your hands on a full copy of windows me..... Fdisk the drive and create 2 partitions. Primary and extended C and D. Load windows me on C and use D: for your data. This way you can format reinstall your operating system without ever losing any data. It will save you lots of time because you wont be dealing with burning 10GB of mp3's so you can reinstall them after format. Dont forget to make removable backups of data also (CD-R) incase of a hardrive failure, the extended partition thing just makes it easy to reinstall windows. Good Luck and careful when using fdisk. You may not be able to go back to the recovery cds after you do this. Then again who would ever want to:).

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Thanks so much, SMUOD!!!!!

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barring all the other discussion, you can usually tell what kind of hard drive you have when the computer is booting up. it is usually the primary master. it would also be in the device manager.

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One more tip to a quick format/reinstall... Create a folder on the extended partition and name it drivers. Place all the drivers for all you hardware in this folder. This way you wont have to go thru the 15 floppy disks to get it all reinstalled. Just continue to point to the driver folder and windows will do the rest.

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