How to improve XP hard disk performance

[Tylerrr]

Hi, i am using Windows XP SP2 with 80GB Hard drive. Since last couple of weeks, my pc is getting slower at Startup. I even disabled all startup process but no good result. It also takes much time to transfer files and all. Could you guys please give me some tips to improve hard disk performance on Windows Xp ? Help will be appreciated. Thanks!!

[T.J.]

The hard drive is where your files are stored, but also where Windows and all your software. It is therefore necessary to optimize the operations above in order to improve the overall performance of your computer file transfers, load software, Windows startup, etc..

In addition of regular cleaning of your computer and defragmenting your hard disk, you can refine many settings in Windows to increase the speed of transactions made on your hard drive like disable Indexing, enabling Direct Memory Access, etc..

[Maq.H]

You can increase the speed of each transaction made on your hard disk by preventing the system to automatically update the date of last access to your files. Indeed, in addition to retaining the date of last opened files, Windows XP saves the time of last access. In order to disable updating of the date of last access, click the Start button and then click Run. Enter regedit in the Open field and click the OK button. The registry editor opens. Locate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SYSTEM, CurrentControlSet, Control, FileSystem.

Click the Edit menu, click New then DWORD Value. Name the new value NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate. Then double click on it and then enter 1 in the Data text box value. Click OK. Finally close the registry editor and reboot the system.

[deoWo]

Indexing files is a common cause of performance degradation of its hard drives. Windows XP keeps a record because of all the files on the hard disk so that when you search your hard drive, it runs faster. The consideration is that all file operations are then slowed, Windows to index all files. If this is interesting for a server, it no longer is a workstation. So disable this feature to increase performance of your hard drives.

Here is how to do the same:

• Open My Computer by double clicking on its icon on the desktop.
• Click the right button mouse on your hard drive and then select the Properties command.
• Then uncheck the box Allow indexing this disk for fast file and then click OK.
• A dialog box for confirmation appears. Select Apply changes to C: \ and all subfolders and files and click OK.
• The change then takes several minutes to be made. Then repeat this operation for all your hard drives.

[Hardwareman]

To speed up your hard drives and CD / DVD, you can enable the transfer method DMA (Direct Memory Access), which avoids solicit your CPU during data exchange. To enable DMA:

1. Open Control Panel and double click the System icon.
2. Open the Hardware tab.
3. Then click the Device Manager button.
4. Expand the section IDE ATA / ATAPI IDE by double clicking or clicking the little cross.
5. Double click then on the primary IDE channel device and then select the Advanced tab in the window that appears.
6. Pull down the list then transfer mode of Device 0 and select DMA if available.
7. Do the same for the Device 1.
8. Confirm with OK and then repeat the operation for the secondary IDE channel.
9. After you restart your computer, go to the Advanced Settings IDE channels. The text box active transfer mode then tells you if DMA is enabled (Ultra DMA mode x) or not (PIO mode). The probable causes for this case are that your hard drive is not compatible DMA or is misconfigured in your BIOS.

[Orlando]

Another trick to reduce disk access and thus improve its performance:

• In the Start menu, click Settings and click Control Panel.
  
• In the Windows Control Panel, double-click the System icon.
  
• In the window that appears, click the tab Performance.
  
• Click the Virtual Memory button.
  
• Check the box Let me specify my own virtual memory settings.
  
• From the dropdown Minimum, specify a value equal to 1.5 or 2 times the memory (RAM) on your PC.
  
• In the Max menu, enter the same value as in Least.
  
• Click the OK button.