Your PC Specifications [Layem out on the table and Measure]

[[DRuG]NikT]

Yeh having a large external drive and a ghost boot disk like Bart/WinPE is great - once you have a fresh build all updated, you can boot off the PE disk, run ghost, make an image of the disk & keep it on the external... making sure that all data is stored also on the external from then onward... that way, any time your image comes under suspicion of hax or instability, you can rebuild in 10 minutes instead of 10 hours.

[[DRuG]KillFrenzy]

I had a more compact solution because I don't like to drain my laptops battery with another hard drive. I don't need to keep an external hard drive, and it well survives through formatting just as well, in case you want to start from scratch . I repartitioned my hard drive before downgrading to Windows XP (Man! It took me a whole day to find the drivers for my laptop):
The C partition is 30 GB, and holds the operating system and programs.
The D partition 82 GB, which holds all my stuff and games.

You will only need to format the C drive and not lose all your stuff . Although without as much storage, I can just move some files I don't use over to the PC. Not needed right now, I've still got 30 GB free in my D partition. I should also make a DVD-9 recovery disk, just in case. I've also got a recovery disk in case I want to switch to Vista.

[[DRuG]NikT]

My solution with the separate drive is mainly aimed at making the physical drive redundant... meaning, as we all know, hard drives in laptops have a high physical failure rate when compared to their (less moved about) desktop equivalents.

As a result, should the system get a dead drive, the last thing I want to be doing is rebuilding windows, especially XP with all it's crap updates.

I, too, have a vista recovery disc, but feel it very important not to store anything of value/not backed up on the internal drive. Having done 2 years of hardware support of HP laptops in the Asia Pacific support centre, I've learnt the hard way that these things fail a lot.

[[DRuG]KillFrenzy]

Hmm, you've got a good point. I'll be backing up my files onto my PC more often then, although the laptop is fairly new. I'll back up especially the recovery disks. I've also got my work on a USB Disk too.

[[DRuG]NikT]

also flash disks are a bad storage medium - the memory in them was only ever intended for use in EPROMS, where the updates/writes to the medium were relatively low.

As a random access storage medium, flash memory has a finite life, and tends to lose the plot after a while. In my current role at work, I regularly have to recover damaged flash disks once a stick fugs out once, I ask them if I can keep it, to prevent them being tempted to use the stick again, when it's demonstrated it may be approaching it's maximum writes.

[[DRuG]Widgit]

I had a more compact solution because I don't like to drain my laptops battery with another hard drive. I don't need to keep an external hard drive, and it well survives through formatting just as well, in case you want to start from scratch . I repartitioned my hard drive before downgrading to Windows XP (Man! It took me a whole day to find the drivers for my laptop):
The C partition is 30 GB, and holds the operating system and programs.
The D partition 82 GB, which holds all my stuff and games.

You will only need to format the C drive and not lose all your stuff . Although without as much storage, I can just move some files I don't use over to the PC. Not needed right now, I've still got 30 GB free in my D partition. I should also make a DVD-9 recovery disk, just in case. I've also got a recovery disk in case I want to switch to Vista.

Matt partioned it all up for me, but I filled it up too quick with books and 4chan, I had to delete all my porn to fit new stuff!
I'm a packrat.

[[DRuG]Shane0]

Ok my pc's:

Main Rig:
=======
CPU: Intel E6600 cooled by a ThermalTake BigTyphoon
Motherboard: ASUS P5N-E Sli
RAM: 4 x 1GB DDR2-800
Videocard: Palit 256MB 8600GT PCI-e
Hard Drive:250GB Seagate 7200.10 SATAII
DVD BURNER: Black LG DVD Burner IDE
Floppy: Standard 3.5inch 1.44MB
Power Supply: FlexiGlow 500W PSU
Case: CoolerMaster RC-532
Monitor: Samsung 19inch 940N
Keyboard: Microsoft Internet thing.
Mouse: Gigabyte USB optical mouse
Misc: USB Card Reader and Crappy 2.1 speakers.
OS: Windows XP with SP2

Partners Rig (you might see her on the MTA server as [LTP]H3rA:
================================================
CPU: Intel E4300 cooled by stock cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte 945PL-S3
RAM: 2 x 512MB DDR2-667 Corsair Value Select and 2 x 512MB DDR2-533 Generic
Video Card: Gigabyte 128MB 6600GT PCI-e
Hard Drive: 80GB Seagate 7200.7 SATAII
DVD BURNER: Silver LG DVD Burner IDE
Floppy: Standard 3.5inch 1.44MB
Power Supply: Antec SmartPower 380W 2.0
Case: Generic ATX Miditower
Monitor: 15inch Sony CRT (soon she will get my samsung and ill get a 22inch )
Keyboard: Generic PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse: Optical PS/2 mouse
Misc: Creative Speakers
OS: Windows XP with SP2

Son's PC (for my 10month old to watch hi-5 on as ive made all of his dvds into divx avi's):
================
CPU: Athlon XP 2200+ cooled by stock cooler.
Motherboard: Soltek Micro-Atx motherboard with KM400 chipset (unsure of model of top of my head).
RAM: 2 x 256MB DDR333 Kingmax with red PCB (red goes fast)
Video Card: ASUS 64MB Geforce 2MX-400
Hard Drives: 10GB IDE Western Digital boot drive and 40GB IDE Seagate Storage Drive
DVD Burner: White Lite-on DVD BURNER IDE
Floppy: Standard 3.5inch 1.44MB
Power Supply: 230watts Generic
Case: Micro-Atx Desktop case
Monitor: 48CM Sharp CRT TV
Keyboard: Multimedia PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse: Microsoft Serial Mouse
OS: Windows XP with SP2

SPARE PC:
========
CPU: Pentium 4 Socket 478 3.0GHZ Prescott cooled by stock cooler.
Motherboard: Gigabyte thing with a sis chipset full size atx (cant remember model either lol)
RAM: 2 x 256MB PC3200 Generic
Video Card: Asus 128MB 9600XT AGP
Hard Drive: 20GB Seagate IDE
DVD Burner: Black Samsung IDE DVD BURNER
Floppy: Standard 3.5inch 1.44MB
Power Supply: CoolerMaster 380W ATX PSU
Case: Generic Midi ATX Tower
OS: Windows XP with SP2

MISC STUFF:
==========
Internet: 256/64 ADSL with MySOUL
Modem/Router: Netgear DG834
Switch: 5port Generic
Printer: Samsung CLP-500 Colour Laser printer capable of duplexing

[[DRuG]NikT]

Yeh that netgear router is nice..

Have TDS got a web site? PM me it if you can, or just add it to your profile.

[[DRuG]KillFrenzy]

Wow, you rigs are better than mine xD. (And I prefer XviD over DivX ). Anyways..

RAM: 2 x 512MB DDR2-667 Corsair Value Select and 2 x 512MB DDR2-533 Generic

I'm not sure about this, but have you tested if GTA:SA would run faster without the Generic DDR2-533 RAM?

[[DRuG]Shane0]

Wow, you rigs are better than mine xD. (And I prefer XviD over DivX ). Anyways..
[quote="[TDS]Shane0"]RAM: 2 x 512MB DDR2-667 Corsair Value Select and 2 x 512MB DDR2-533 Generic

I'm not sure about this, but have you tested if GTA:SA would run faster without the Generic DDR2-533 RAM?[/quote]
no not really, i use generic ram in my system and it runs fine. Also the corsair ram in the 2nd system runs at DDR2-533, remember the rules of politics in computers, things will generally run at the speed of the slowest thing on the cable or area.
And i dont consider my rigs that great, they are standard too me.