Windows Vista SP1 Now Available ... Is It Worth It?

GerryF19...that is interesting.

I assume that when you moved the Vista formatted drive over to the XP PC....that you used the Vista version of CHKDSK or the XP version of CHKDSK ???....in otherwords did you reformat the drive before running the CHKDSK ???

 

Well there's always the gallows humor to compensate.

Got my first SP1 BSOD already! (First on my block?) It was a "Bad Pool Caller". It helpfully suggest that I uninstall stuff I recently installed.

Obviously, the thing I most recently installed was SP1. And, as far as I am aware, SP1 sort of undoes some of the things I had previously done by resetting various things.

So does the BSOD want me to uninstall SP1? Or redo some fixes I already did?

Hi ho silver, AWAY!

I also have to remember what it is that makes the hard drive spin up and stall the machine for a few seconds every now and then. That happened early on and I did something which made that better. Now after SP1 that effect is back. I think I want to turn off some service; but other than it's not indexing I can't remember which thing does this.

The really sad thing is that if this machine would just stay up and be stable (which is sort of almost does these days) it would be a fine, fine, user experience. I have a desktop with the same configuration (Vista Ultimate 64, 4GB ram) and it works just fine so far.

 

no, I ran the xp version of chkdsk on the vista drive without ever reformatting...on reinserting the vista drive in the vista machine, it booted up fine and exhibited no more issues

I don't even know if there is a new vista chkdsk (mine is dated 11-2-06). Since the file system remained the same (ntfs) from xp to vista, I didn't see any harm in trying.

My thinking at the time was that the volume's file system was corrupt and that corruption was preventing chkdsk from running because chkdsk was on the volume. Dropping it in a second computer enabled chkdsk to run with out vista running at all.

Or so I thought at the time...either way, it worked

 

Vista SP1 is quite a bit faster than base Vista on my machine, at least as fast as XP, if not faster.

 

There are some reports stating that Windows XP Service Pack 3 dramatically increases its performance. Only thing is Microsoft is keeping it in beta form for the moment.

 

I may have to try that. I got another BSOD today - "driver_irql_not_less_than_or_equal" which I know to be related to the Hava player application. I had that before but it got cured, and the installation of SP1 appears to have exposed it again.

And of course this BSOD left a bloody mess all over the file system, and CHKDSK had to run (about 90 minutes this time). I've got the spare laptop warming up. So far, the file system could be OK, but who knows this soon after recovery.

Now I just have to figure out how to get these SATA drives into an XP machine.

 

If you have a USB thumb-drive, you can use that to load the SATA drivers at XP's installation time. Remember to press F6 (I think) when the installation begins to let the installer know you want to install additional drivers. Hope that helps.

 

that is not correct...windows XP only accepts drivers from a floppy.

as for working around the floppy limitation, you can use nlite to integrate sata drivers into a windows xp installation

 

I am now back online with my Thinkpad T61.

I have installed the new 250GB drive, Vista boot-time CHKDSK works, BIOS level test works and overall performance appears to be good. IBM has provided good support...fortunately IBM is still involved with this Thinkpad line. Not sure I would want to rely on Lenovo alone. Having owned six or seven Thinkpads since the week of the first Thinkpad introduction... around 1992.... this product line has been an icon of American creativity.

I hope I do not have to eat these words over the next few weeks.

 

I need an XP machine that has the hardware for a SATA drive though, not just the software. I am not going to put XP on any of the Vista machines because I'm under the impression that XP64 is even more of an adventure than Vista 64, and I need 64 bit OS.

Can't I just get some sort of external USB adapter for SATA drives?

 

Yeah I love Thinkpads too. I've had seven myself. But the Vista instability is really making me wonder about how much I love them.

 

You can

a) get an i/o card with a sata controler that can be inserted into an XP machine....

b) get an external harddrive enclosure that plugs into a usb port (the sata drive goes into enclosure.

Not entirerly certain where you are going with this....is this just to access the drive, or did you want to install xp/vista onto a machine without sata hardware?

Even if your hardware allows booting to an external device through the usb port (many do not), I would advise against going that route as it will be deadly slow booting from an external drive.

If that is the case, go the i/o sata card route. It plugs into an open PCI slot (or get one for a pci express slot if you have one) and then on bootup, your pc will recognize the card and allow you to boot from any attached drives

 

The idea is that if you guys think XP CHKDSK is better, then I would try mounting the Vista drives with all the CHKDSK fun on XP machines so I could run the XP CHKDSK. Then put the drive back in the laptop.